"Broadband users frustrated by poor customer service". Today's lead story in Computing tells of the UK market and customer disappointment in support
http://www.computing.co.uk/vnunet/n...frustrated-poor
My letter, sent today to Demon webhosting (The Fawlty Towers of webhosts and Broadband) comes after 10 years of loyal custom. It;s a sorry tale. Maybe a US ISP could come over a rescue us?
My letter to Demon: Dear Demon Customer Services and Complaints
After over a decade as a Demon customer I am writing to voice my frustration and anger over an increasingly poor service over the last 6 months.
The frustrating experience of reporting any technical problem is exacerbated by Demon’s ‘phone-tree’ system and I have frequently been passed from one dept to another, each time having to redial and always wait in a queue. It would seem there simply are not enough staff employed at the call centers to deal with customer calls and a wait is always necessary.
Earlier this month, the night before a major Press Launch, with all my Press documents downloadable for international journalists from my website, my site became unavailable. Later Demon sent me an email telling me their server had crashed. My site was unrecoverable. My Press launch date passed with no alternative service offered to me by Demon (such as the option to host my site on another server while the problem at Demon persisted).
Once Demon ‘allowed’ me to upload my destroyed site, I had to do so from a poor line in a Brazilian hotel and it took me over 24 hours to reload my site. Why was my site not backed up by Demon and automatically re-instated? I use auto back up as part of my business and see no reason why Demon does not do the same. So, this was a major let down in service. The very low level of responsibility and customer care displayed by Demon regarding this matter left me with the feeling that Thus does not really give a damn about my custom. If only the disappointment and terrible customer service ended there.
I returned home after the 3 week Brazil trip to find I had no Broadband access. On October 16th I finally got though to the right human at Demon, after the usual waiting, (and after 3 phonecalls to different departments) to be told that there is a fault on my BT line – a loss of synchronization. But Demon assured me that they (YOU) will report the fault and that a ‘Fault Team’ will call me back within 24 hours to tell me what is to be done.
The ‘Faulty’ Team (which from this experience is a term that should be applied to the whole of Demon Technical Support) never calls back. On October 18th (after 3 departments claim it’s nothing to do with them) I get angry and it is ONLY at this point the Call centre person agrees to contact the Home Office Fault Team. I wait on hold. I am then told, “The fault has NOT been reported to BT because the team needs to know whether the fault is intermittent or not”. SO, WHY DIDN’T THEY CALL ME, AS AGREED, TO ASK ME THIS? Why did they wait nearly 2 days for me to call them? I have now lost more Broadband access time for my business due to this utter incompetence. And the fault persists. I have no Broadband access.
I am now waiting for the same Faulty Team to call me back. Again. Or should that be ‘Fawlty’ as in Basil Fawlty? Because this is so pathetic it is laughable. But at least Basil Fawlty got to beat his car with a tree branch when it failed to perform. All I have is the opion of sending this letter to you and a few blog sites and taking my business elsewhere. Give me a branch and a Demon server to beat anyday.
While I wait, I have a nostalgic yearning for how leading edge Demon used to be in the 1990s, how they prided themselves in good customer support, how I used to feel that Demon really did give a damn about its customers.
Today I surf via a weak wireless signal off a neighbour’s Broadband network. But I can’t send important documents from my Demon email because DEMON WEBMAIL DOES NOT ALLOW ATTACHMENTS. Oh how the mighty leading edge Demon has fallen. Even those cheapskates, Onetel, provide attachment facilities to their users via web mail. Seems like we’re in a time warp in terms of Demon webmail, this is the kind of nostalgia I DON’T need from Demon.
I feel let down and ripped off. At £50 a month I expect more than this. A Cable broadband service suddenly seems appealing…. And, hey, it’ll be God knows how long until the Fawlty Towers Demon road show bothers to call me back, and while I wait I might as well price up an alternative web hosting and Broadband provider.
It looks like my love affair with Demon is over. You are losing one of your oldest and, until recently, your most loyal, customers.
Yours in total disappointment,
Jane