Public service efficiency

joer said:

That is not good enough for a hospital.

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And they complain when people don’t turn up for appointments!

Covid has made the situation a lot worse with staff working from home. Rang Currys for an elderly friend who finds it very hard to deal with Call Centres. Average wait time was 1 hour!

It seems to be like that with most companies nowadays though . Some companies say "we are here 24 hours a day if you have a problem". That,s alright until you try to contact them with a problem..

mtk said:

rang st vincent's outpatients appointmenst today after 10
once i was told to ring back later ..what a message to have!
the 2nd and 3rd time i was just left holding!

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How dare you criticise front line staff! Heroes, that what they are, heroes!!!
What they need is a pay rise. That's why they aren't answering their phone; they aren't getting paid enough.

Sue Ellen said:

Covid has made the situation a lot worse with staff working from home. Rang Currys for an elderly friend who finds it very hard to deal with Call Centres. Average wait time was 1 hour!

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And yet companies continue to charge customers full whack so customers are entitled to expect reasonable/normal service.

My pet hate right now is Virgin Media as a result of which I am doing everything that I can to ditch them and use a different broadband service provider.

You call 1908 and can be on hold for ages. The repeating message tells you all the great stuff that you can do online and via their WhatsApp support channel. So you put the phone down after 30+ minutes and try WhatsApp. "Oh, you want to change your package? You can only do that by calling 1908 and speaking to our Loyalty Department! Sorry! Bye bye!". Of course there's no option on 1908 for Loyalty Department...

I eventually got through to somebody today after only 30 mins on hold only for them to tell me that the 30 day broadband package was dropped today and they only have 12 month contract packages now. I could not get onto them at any point earlier in the week to switch to that so their disastrous customer support has cost me. I asked her to transfer me to the complaints department. She put me on hold and I went back into the regular queue. After another 20 mins holding I gave up.

Instead I used their online complaint form. It promises to text you a case number after you submit your complaint but it doesn't so you have no record of the complaint reference.

The only option left seems to be to write a letter to them.

Absolute joke of a customer service operation...

ClubMan said:

My pet hate right now is Virgin Media as a result of which I am doing everything that I can to ditch them and use a different broadband service provider.

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Be careful, be very very careful.


I cant understand how that question has nearly 100 posts, because there is a simple one word answer.

Sky have the best customer service. Unfortunately they use the Eir network so if you have a technical problem it is passed from Sky to BT, from whom Sky bought the Broadband contract, to Eir and then on to KN Services who actually fix the problem. It is a disaster if anything goes wrong as Sky have the same problem communicating with Eir as everyone else.

On virgin, ask to be escalated and passed to their customer loyalty team. I've always got a deal done once I've spoken to their Irish contact centre. Their people in India have no discretion and to be brutal about it, are not paid to think but just spout what is on their call sheets

cremeegg said:

Be careful, be very very careful.

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That's exactly what I'm being by attempting to get onto an open ended VM contract while I look at evaluating other non contract broadband options (not that many available admittedly though).

Peanuts20 said:

On virgin, ask to be escalated and passed to their customer loyalty team. I've always got a deal done once I've spoken to their Irish contact centre. Their people in India have no discretion and to be brutal about it, are not paid to think but just spout what is on their call sheets

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Doesn't work in my experience. You just spend inordinate amounts of time on hold. And changes to packages cannot be done online or via WhatsApp (I have no idea where the WhatsApp people - or bots? - are located).

Anyway - just to redress the balance or my earlier grumpy post and give some credit to VM, I made a complaint via the website complaint form (although it never sent me any confirmation/case number by text) and they got back to me today and offered to put me on the "old" (no longer available) €59 p.m. for 30 day contract 250Mbps broadband + home phone package from the end of this month so that's all that I wanted in the first place and is now sorted.

I also clarified that you need to be away from VM for at least 90 days/3 months to be classed as a new customer. I presume that you can alternatively get another adult at the same address to act as a new occupier and a new customer to get the preferential new customer packages/deals? But that's not an option for me.

If eir customer support are worse than VM's then they must be really bad!

ClubMan said:

If eir customer support are worse than VM's then they must be really bad!

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VM are like Gods in comparison, Gods.

It takes quite a while to get through to Sky too though.

Seagull said:

Even worse are the ones where you know exactly which selections you need to make, but there's no way of bypassing the whole spiel that you really don't care about.

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and you have to listen to English and Irish message before you select

Just spent half an hour on hold on 1908 to VM as now out of contract . v frustrating . any suggestions on how to get through as I'll take any reasonable deal ??

I dont know anything about VM but they might have a chat service and if they are like many others.....good luck

mtk said:

Just spent half an hour on hold on 1908 to VM as now out of contract . v frustrating . any suggestions on how to get through as I'll take any reasonable deal ??

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joer said:

I dont know anything about VM but they might have a chat service and if they are like many others.....good luck

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I have found the VM chat service to be totally useless when it comes to trying to get through to the Loyalty Team who appear to be working from home and making the service much slower.

Early in the morning is probably a better option but if it were me I would use Clubman's option above and make a complaint via the website complaint form Hopefully they will get back to you through this method.

When I ring Eir, my provider, I find early in the morning or late in the evening are bad times. Mid morning or mid afternoon is slightly better but pot luck. I dont have to ring until Jan 21 so I have time to compose and brace myself for the usual wait. I am usually able to get a good enough deal so it suits me to stay with them.

Maybe the companies should publish real time call wait times, and historical summaries, so us impatient folks know when best to ring.

We all have our ideas of how these companies do not work efficiently regarding customer service. To me it's obvious that Call Centres sorry Modern Customer Contact Centres of Excellence do not work.

Is there anybody out there who work or worked in these Customer Contact Centres of Excellence can supply any light from inside these places?

mtk said:

Just spent half an hour on hold on 1908 to VM as now out of contract . v frustrating . any suggestions on how to get through as I'll take any reasonable deal ??

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took cancellation option this time and was answered only 5 minutes after their estimated waiting time of 20! was able to get small discount so its done for another year( -15 for 6 months)

10 friends , including myself , in a WhatsApp group who went to school together in Waterford and were born within months of each other and all coming up to age 66 and lucky enough to benefit from the contributory OAP and free travel in addition to occupational pensions and of course being spared the increase in pension age to 67 have been hugely impressed by the efficiency of the Department of Social Protection in Sligo and the respective Intreo offices we dealt with.
The Department in Sligo proactively wrote to me advising that they noted that I was approaching 66 enclosing a form to be completed in order to claim the OAP , the following day I received a letter from my Intreo office confirming free travel in the Republic and on request forwarded the necessary form to request free travel in Northern Ireland.
All my friends have confirmed that they met with the same levels of service and efficiency and thankfully we have all received confirmation that , if spared , we will receive the contributory OAP.