Researching customer service experiences

Re mobile phone insurance - they cover themselves off in their T&Cs as I found when I tried to claim on my first phone (years ago and I don't remember all the details). I suppose they're right when they advise its up to owners to read before they sign up for it :rolleyes:

The solution simply cancel the insurance.

i wonder if many people even take it now these days as (standard) phones are a lot cheaper? If its bill pay and in the event of a stolen phone being used to call internationally, I guess once its reported stolen, the owner isn't liable?
 
Re: Insurance Companies
We booked an expensive honeymoon (Approx €4000) to Barbados through a travel agent. We took out the standard travel insurance as offered by the travel agent.
Two weeks before the wedding our then 7year old son got very ill with a kidney problem that landed him in hospital until the day before the wedding. We had to bring him to Crumlin the Monday after the wedding so we had to cancel our honeymoon. Did'nt really think about it too much at the time - Son was sick and we were more concerned that he would receive the treatment he needed.
Son recovered and we went about contacting the insurance company to get a refund on our cancelled honeymoon.

Obviously we did'nt get paid - insurance in this country been the joke it is! Son had suffered from several kidney infections aged approx 3-9mths therefore it was a pre-existing condition and they would not pay out.
My GP at the time wrote to the insurance company, we also sent a solicitors letter and no joy.

I argued that if I was to list every childhood complaint my son had in the first year of his life it would take forever. I mean he had a chest infection, ear infections etc etc - normal childhood illnesses. GP said that the doctors would have had no way of knowing that this issue would return again in the future - It is highly unlikely. My GP argued that if you have cancer and are five years free of it you are considered cured by the medical profession.

But like all insurance companies - they employ the experts to work out how to get out of paying out on an insurance claim and leave ordinary Joe soaps like ourselves devastated.
 
The worst company I have ever had to deal with is undoubtedly NTL. As far as I'm concerned they treat the customer as the enemy! Getting through to them is almost impossible, one one occasion last June it took 4 days and 140 minutes of holding on to get a human on the end of the line and that human sounded like he'd been taking lessons from the machine. They sent a total of 5 technicians (3 outdoor and 2 indoor) over a period of 3 months, all of the outdoor technicians agreed on the source of my problem i.e. that the cabling on the outside of my house was over 20 years old, not of a type they use now and needed to be replaced urgently, despite that they replaced the indoor cable on two separate occasions to two separate rooms. Eventually they replaced about 1 metre of cable and that solved the problem temporarily. Never once in that period did they take on board what I told them, each time I rang I was treated like I was making a new complaint, never once did they make an appointment even though I told them it was essential because I work. Never once did they call my mobile number which I gave them on every occasion, the frustration of coming home to yet another message on the answering machine on my home phone nearly drove me to distraction. I finally got some satisfaction (after 5 months) when I got the name and direct number of the one person in the organisation who seemed to give a damn. The problem has just come back and I rang the general 1908 number this morning to be told that my problem was 'because I was on the same line as' and then he named an area at list 20 minutes by car away from where I live but which is in the same post code. I told him again that my problem was the cableing on the row of houses I live in and was told that they wouldn't do anything about it because 'there was a general problem in the area'. In other words, he totally ignored yet again everything I had to say. I rang my contact number who confirmed that the general fault was not on my line and has no connection with my problem! I'm awaiting developments but am so angry at this stage that I feel like taking out the ladder and an axe and simply removing the offending cables 'cos they won't! I'm paying 700 euro for a service that I haven't had properly for the past 6 months.
 
aircobra19 said:
I found most Govt depts ok. Depends who you get tbh as I'e had good experience and bad in the same office. Some people are great others, the grumpiest people I've ever met.
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In my personal & professional life I've been dealing with govt. depts almost every working day for the last 9 years and my experience has been that most are very poor with regard to customer service. Some are just OK and a small handful I would regard as good.

General apathy, lack of basic manners and "confusion" as to where responsibility lies are the main problems as far as I can see.
 
NOT aircobra19 said:
I found most Govt depts ok. Depends who you get tbh as I'e had good experience and bad in the same office. Some people are great others, the grumpiest people I've ever met.
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They'd probably be alright to deal with if you didn't call them on their tea break(s), their lunch break, their cigarette break(s), before 10:30 or after 15:30...that's all assuming the person who should be answering the phone isn't on career break, flexi-time or a stress management course.
 
Caveat said:
In my personal & professional life I've been dealing with govt. depts almost every working day for the last 9 years and my experience has been that most are very poor with regard to customer service. Some are just OK and a small handful I would regard as good.

General apathy, lack of basic manners and "confusion" as to where responsibility lies are the main problems as far as I can see.
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Which is why it would be interesting to do a comparison with the private sector. Is the private sector much better? My experience with most companies suggests no.
 
As with most things in life it often depends on the specific people themselves. Not the sector they work in. I'm surprised after dealing with the same people for years that some sort of rapport hasn't developed.
 
aircobra19 said:
As with most things in life it often depends on the specific people themselves. Not the sector they work in. I'm surprised after dealing with the same people for years that some sort of rapport hasn't developed.
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Maybe it's you :D
 
j26 said:
Which is why it would be interesting to do a comparison with the private sector. Is the private sector much better? My experience with most companies suggests no.
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Maybe not, but I personally see 2 main differences:

1. Choice - generally I can choose my broadband supplier, who I fly with, my mobile supplier, my bank etc. I can switch when I am on the receiving end of private sector poor service. Yes there are exceptions for monopolies e.g. Eircom, UPC (in certain areas, in apartment blocks etc), but in most cases there is choice.

2. My tax is directly paying for the public sector, including the benefits such as pension, job security etc. As such I feel I have a right to expect a higher level of service than private sector equivalent. As of the last round of benchmarking we know they have better overall packages than their private sector equivalent (even more so now given drop in DC pension values, job security etc). Given this lets have them earn the money.
 
j26 said:
Which is why it would be interesting to do a comparison with the private sector. Is the private sector much better? My experience with most companies suggests no.
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I deal with the private sector every day too and of course, sometimes experience poor service but in general, nowhere near as poor as Govt depts/Co Councils/HSE etc.

Mostly, I'm sure, because of rmelly's first point - broadly speaking, the private sector are hungry for business and it is in their interests to provide good or at least acceptable service. Broadly speaking, the public sector are not actively 'looking for business' and there is no incentive for good customer service - no carrot, and often it seems, no stick either.
 
Interesting discussion ... mind you, most of the stories pouring in are about private sector companies. It would be good to hear if anyone has had any personal experience (good/bad) with the customer service side of the public sector.
 
One other private sector complaint - O2 have just changed their upgrade policy meaning people previously eligible for upgrades are no longer eligible etc - try reading the thread linked below - the posts from 'O2 Guru' and 'O2 Agent' users are (official?) O2 responses - some of them are laughable, like:

Obviously, we wouldn't like to see you leave the network. As I said in my previous post, all was ask is that you stick with us for a while and not throw away the loyalty you've shown.
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[broken link removed]
 
Researching customer service experiences: Digiweb

I have had and am having a very poor interaction with Digiweb which I have taken the time to document, log and kept call recordings of. It is without a doubt the worst customer service (neglect), experience of my life.
 
Worst customer service I ever encountered was with a hospital.
I had what my doctor, (consultant and all the many staff I encountered through the diagnostic process) referred to as a 'mass'.
A date was set up for this 'mass' to be removed, and i was advised I would be 6-8 weeks off work to recover. So at this point all well and good...
I was told to call the hospital the day before just to confirm what time to book in, and was put in contact with the most 'jobs worth' difficult person i've ever come across. Firstly she wouldn't confirm that there would be a bed available the next day, that i'd just have to turn up and see! I'm like 'eh, i'm going in for surgery, what do you mean there might not be a bed?', she was like, if we have an emergency you are not a priority, serious injuries are more important!
I was a bit miffed, i'd had to book time off work, I'd spent a lot of money going through various tests, none of which VHI were paying for, and they weren't able to confirm a room! I challenged her as to what the situation was like bed wise that day, so was it likely to be available!!!
At this point she got really stroppy, and finally pulled out my file (i'm assuming ESP was being used in the call up to this point). The she goes 'Ohhh, you're the cancer one! They'll probably consider you a priority, so you might just get a bed'.
At no point was that big C mentioned throughout my consulations, but some ignorant cow with no medical training decides to tell me then I had it! I knew it was a possibility, but if my doc was waiting for the 'mass' to be checked by the lab, so could I.
I got a bed, and the next day surgery....
Coming around after the surgery, in waltzes this middle aged woman, who goes 'see I got you a bed, because of your cancer'. I'm really not sure what she wanted, did she think I'd go down on bended knee and thank her for doing her BLOODY JOB!
Thankfully the 'mass' was benign, but that cow most definitively wasnt!
That was about 5-6 years ago so not really current, but still makes my blood boil.
 
mell61 said:
Worst customer service I ever encountered was with a hospital.
I had what my doctor, (consultant and all the many staff I encountered through the diagnostic process) referred to as a 'mass'.
A date was set up for this 'mass' to be removed, and i was advised I would be 6-8 weeks off work to recover. So at this point all well and good...
I was told to call the hospital the day before just to confirm what time to book in, and was put in contact with the most 'jobs worth' difficult person i've ever come across. Firstly she wouldn't confirm that there would be a bed available the next day, that i'd just have to turn up and see! I'm like 'eh, i'm going in for surgery, what do you mean there might not be a bed?', she was like, if we have an emergency you are not a priority, serious injuries are more important!
I was a bit miffed, i'd had to book time off work, I'd spent a lot of money going through various tests, none of which VHI were paying for, and they weren't able to confirm a room! I challenged her as to what the situation was like bed wise that day, so was it likely to be available!!!
At this point she got really stroppy, and finally pulled out my file (i'm assuming ESP was being used in the call up to this point). The she goes 'Ohhh, you're the cancer one! They'll probably consider you a priority, so you might just get a bed'.
At no point was that big C mentioned throughout my consulations, but some ignorant cow with no medical training decides to tell me then I had it! I knew it was a possibility, but if my doc was waiting for the 'mass' to be checked by the lab, so could I.
I got a bed, and the next day surgery....
Coming around after the surgery, in waltzes this middle aged woman, who goes 'see I got you a bed, because of your cancer'. I'm really not sure what she wanted, did she think I'd go down on bended knee and thank her for doing her BLOODY JOB!
Thankfully the 'mass' was benign, but that cow most definitively wasnt!
That was about 5-6 years ago so not really current, but still makes my blood boil.
Click to expand...
What a nightmare! This kind of 'customer service' is what we want to highlight in the programme along with other type of experiences. As you say, your story was a while back so no doubt the powers that be would say that all has changed now in the health service and that could never happen again .... is this true? Let me know! And Mell61, really glad that there was nothing seriously wrong.
 
mell61 said:
Thankfully the 'mass' was benign, but that cow most definitively wasnt!
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No wonder the hospitals are in such a state with MRSA etc, if they let farm yard animals parade around. Ridiculous.
 
I'd like information on exactly how RTE spends the licence fee. I'd like a breakdown on how much is spent on Pat Kenny.
 
Worst customer service has got to be directory enquiries - both 11850 and 11811 ... I have often been given the wrong number - connected to fax lines - etc.
No recourse - you have already paid for the call ...
 
Hi Hilanne,
If you looking for health related comments, you might want to check out the comments on [broken link removed]. All the comments are dated.

I knew of a 90 year old man who had fallen, broke his arm and was released from James hospital on a Friday evening. No-one bothered to check if he had any help when he went home. No social workers available after hours. He managed to make his way to our local day care centre on the following Monday. He had not eaten a proper meal in two days and was distressed about his personal care.

James hospital has had some community meetings where situations like this have been pointed out. I think they are trying to improve but don't know what exactly they are doing.

Try calling the HSE, Drugs payment scheme. No-one in before 10am, after that its a bit hit and miss.

And I agree that NTL are a disaster. Had a friend who stop payments and waited until the collections team phoned him.

And never, ever, try to phone Revenue-PAYE Dublin before 11am any morning.
 
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