If anyone knows how to get through to one of these tech-savvy CSRs who care and "own" your problem please let me know. I've spoken to dozens of CRSs in the last week, and none of them fulfill both of these criteria.
It's a simple problem. The phone light has never come on on the livebox. We've been through all the scripts, done the factory reset and everything. There's an interrupted tone (a little like a network busy signal - loud beep / quieter beep) against a buzzing sound. Won't make a call. Won't take a call. And did I mention that the phone light has never come on?
I won't bore you all with the litany of stupidity I've been through. Have now resorted to hustling my way through the 01132229100 number to someone who, despite initially trying to fob me off as "not fully trained", eventually appeared to pass my details on to the "investigations team". We shall see.
So no doubt some of you do care. I've just yet to speak to one of you.
Talk has not been trained out too well in my opinion and many CSR's are limited in the help they can give. However, to try and help you IF THE SERVICE IS ACTIVATED try the following:
Try forcing a new IP address as follows:
goto: 192.168.1.1 (type into web address bar)
- click on link, 'access to configuration pages'
- enter un & pw 'admin' & 'admin'
- select internet connection 'change'
- look about half way down the page. You will see following info:
Status: Connected
IP Address: 63.142.65.21 (number will be different
etc.......
- below this info there is a disconnect button. Click this.
- eventually it will revet back to this page and status will be 'synchronised'. When this happens the button will now say 'connect'. Click this.
- eventually it will revert back again and show connected again. The IP address will have changed.
There are a few rogue IP addresses in the normal Orange dynamic range that just don't work properly with the Talk service. Those starting 63 are the worst, 84 are the best. This should give you a fix. If not already done so call Orange tech and insist that this issue is escalated manually.
First of all I have read most of the replies from other Orange Reps in the outsourced call centres and do agree on some of the points they make.
The Convergence team was created last June to deal with customers with a phone and free broadband. Thee customers were in my view treated more favourably as they could call 550 from their mobile phone free!
All well in good but when we do evenings and see 200+ calls waiting to come through and only 30 to 40 of us taking calls at any one time not a satisfactory amount of people signed in to take calls!
Whilst over the last ten months. Convergence have been fighting for the systems that the other call centres have. Two systems Eco and LLuco we have neve had. We have also had no Escalations team to speak to and pass calls to when customers get abusive.
Convergence is going on te 12th April!! We will then all disband all 300 or so of us and just deal with mobile related queries. Which u may ask are we happy about? Too right we are. We had a Convergence Wake night out in Newcastle which a lot of people went to. We will be sad to see customers being deal with the way they have been however Orange Exec never gave us the support in the first place.
We constantly see errors like PPP server down. Its not uncommon. In fact I see less Ford cars on the way to work than I see these problems per day.
We initially would call customers back constantly to inform them on NO progress on trying to change them to free broadband and also faults. Line tests are supposedly being fixed within 5 days. I would love to meet a customer who has had it fixed in 5 days as I just wouldnt believe them. The problem we had was that we spent all day calling customers back and refunding money than actually taking calls. Thats why we asked customers to call back.
some of us do call back to customers i.e( they call to say unable to connec wirelessly and spent 3 hours trying to get through and got cut off at 10pm when Orange closes.We would call u then.)
Just to let you know that the guys and gals at North Tyneside are majorly happy to not be dealing with broadband again.
Orange is also introducing call charges very soon to all mobile customers who call. This is in the view of France Telecom Orange Execs who believe that if we charge for customer service calls it will stop the weasels phonig just to ask something which they could quite easiy read in their user manual.
Before you ask yes ive had Orange broadband before and immediately cancelled when I couldnt connect after 6 months someone telling me to reinstall my Windows. Im now with BT (paying a lot more) tech support is still crap and they are all based in India and on 3rd Homehub. However my connection is stable on 4mb download as per only 2mb with Orange and the talk service is superb.
Goodbye and Goodluck!! BT or Zen Internet is the way things should be.
_________________ WE WANT TO HELP! BUT THE SYSTEMS PREVENT US
First of all I have read most of the replies from other Orange Reps in the outsourced call centres and do agree on some of the points they make.
The Convergence team was created last June to deal with customers with a phone and free broadband. Thee customers were in my view treated more favourably as they could call 550 from their mobile phone free!
All well in good but when we do evenings and see 200+ calls waiting to come through and only 30 to 40 of us taking calls at any one time not a satisfactory amount of people signed in to take calls!
Whilst over the last ten months. Convergence have been fighting for the systems that the other call centres have. Two systems Eco and LLuco we have neve had. We have also had no Escalations team to speak to and pass calls to when customers get abusive.
Convergence is going on te 12th April!! We will then all disband all 300 or so of us and just deal with mobile related queries. Which u may ask are we happy about? Too right we are. We had a Convergence Wake night out in Newcastle which a lot of people went to. We will be sad to see customers being deal with the way they have been however Orange Exec never gave us the support in the first place.
We constantly see errors like PPP server down. Its not uncommon. In fact I see less Ford cars on the way to work than I see these problems per day.
We initially would call customers back constantly to inform them on NO progress on trying to change them to free broadband and also faults. Line tests are supposedly being fixed within 5 days. I would love to meet a customer who has had it fixed in 5 days as I just wouldnt believe them. The problem we had was that we spent all day calling customers back and refunding money than actually taking calls. Thats why we asked customers to call back.
some of us do call back to customers i.e( they call to say unable to connec wirelessly and spent 3 hours trying to get through and got cut off at 10pm when Orange closes.We would call u then.)
Just to let you know that the guys and gals at North Tyneside are majorly happy to not be dealing with broadband again.
Orange is also introducing call charges very soon to all mobile customers who call. This is in the view of France Telecom Orange Execs who believe that if we charge for customer service calls it will stop the weasels phonig just to ask something which they could quite easiy read in their user manual.
Before you ask yes ive had Orange broadband before and immediately cancelled when I couldnt connect after 6 months someone telling me to reinstall my Windows. Im now with BT (paying a lot more) tech support is still crap and they are all based in India and on 3rd Homehub. However my connection is stable on 4mb download as per only 2mb with Orange and the talk service is superb.
Goodbye and Goodluck!! BT or Zen Internet is the way things should be.
It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that Convergence employees are happy not to be dealing with broadband again. I think that the essence of Orange's problems are caused by a combination of reasons; inadequate training, poor pay and too many unsuitable staff being recruited. I would say in my experience that there is an overall general lack of professionalism and a sense of apathy felt by staff towards their employment. This means too many people don’t take their job seriously when it does have serious implications for the company's customers who are experiencing problems. The effect of this apathy is also felt in the workplace, because it results in the better staff leaving to seek alternative employment.
Orange broadband has a high staff attrition in its call centres. This leads to a cycle of constant recruitment which compounds the problems I've mentioned above. If a smaller amount of much more capable, better trained, better paid and more clued up staff were employed, then less would leave. Lots of the repeat calls to call centres wouldn't happen if the calls were dealt with effectively in the first place. This would reduce the pressure on Human Resources staff to recruit unsuitable staff to deal with high call volumes. I believe that the vast majority of customers who cancel their accounts because of technical problems, from working in cancellations / retentions, aren't doing so because of the specific technical problem. They are cancelling because it either hasn't been resolved in a reasonable or effective way, or they have been dealt with in an unsatisfactory / unprofessional manner.
So they become alientated with the company. It's poor customer service. And a deficient structure of internal departments which don't all have an ability to communicate with each other effectively enough when dealing with escalated or ongoing problems, makes matters worse. This is why a minority of customers with more difficult problems can end up waiting months for issues to be resolved. And poor systems / significant systemic problems compound this, both for staff dealing with problems, and for customers who have problems.
By redressing these endemic problems, recruiting better staff, training staff more and paying staff more, the long term consequences for Orange could result in more content customers, and perhaps an increased profit for the company. Obviously it's easy for me to sit here and write this based on my own experience working there, but there are other companies which manage to have good customer service, well worked systems whilst expanding their customer base.
Orange has a large customer base but the company does not provide a level of customer service to reflect this. As don't lots of other large companies i.e. Microsoft etc. I’m sure this is something that could be changed with a complete overhaul. Starting with staff recruitment selection, and staff training. Then maybe staff would know what was expected of them from the start.
I mean in all honesty call centre work is a dead end job for the vast majority of people who work in them. This is how I see my job at the moment. But it doesn't mean that for the time you do spend in one before you get a better job, you can't do a good job of it.
Last edited by Xpander on Sat Apr 14, 2007 1:25 am; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 13 Aug 2006Posts: 1689Location: Marylebone Central London
Good post Xpander
I think Orange have realised that FREE broadband just doesn't work just look at the Carphone Warehouse fiasco.
It's just a shame these big company's just think of themselves offer it free get them in and locked in a 12 month contract and to hell with the support, at last people are realising you get what you pay for.
Regards
_________________ ex Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange Blog
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