Virgin Media Support Staff Very Poorly Trained

[playfair57]

I've come to understand that Virgin Media support staff are very poorly trained. So much so that it is mnow my policy to phone 150 several times, and one those occasionas when I'm fortunately enough to get someone at the other end who is lucid enough to communicate, and with a clear enough phone line, I will then take a sample of several of thee because they are all likely to give me different responses.

For example (this happened last year) I grew really fed up with the parental control password that I had to enter for nearly everything that I did. So I phone up 150 and spoke to someone who told me that this could not be turned off.

It was only several weeks later when I discovered for myself that it COULD be turned off, and I did this, without any fuss, by myself.

There arew numerous other examples. The people who Virgin Media get are very poorly and inadequatly trained, so they could try to palm you off with anything.

Last night I was experiencing an issue with subtitles. I phoned up 150 (my heart drops whenever I do this now, or whenever I even think about it) and I ended up speaking to 5 people. The first 4 did not speak English as their native language and a couple of these were rude as well. (One of these asked me my name, I told him, then he asked me my name again, and I told him, and then he asked for my name a third time - who is in charge of recruiting these morons?) It was person 5 who was able to look this problem up and give me a cogent answer.

I pay £80 a month for this service! And Virgin Media gets me to jump through hoops if I ever want any average-quality support. But at least I now know that statistically I need to speak to about 5 "support" people before I get a sensible response.

I wish it didn't have to be this way. But it is. Other customers take note!

[zambo]

I had a really bad experience with a staff member on 150 a few weeks back. I received a letter stating that work would be going on in my area, and that I would probably lose my connection on the day for periods. OK, that is expected from time to time and it happened as warned, but I didn't get the network back. Although the hub seemed OK, I lost connections to all my devices, desktop, tv, mobiles, printer, Alexa etc.

I phoned and was on the the line for ages trying to sort it all out. The person I spoke to spent most of the time trying to get me to upgrade by services and when I said I didn't want to, that they cut me off. In the end it tool me several days to get everything back up. Surely when the broadband goes down, it should auto reconnect everything when it comes back, it always did that before.

[asim18]

Yes your description of VM support staff is very accurate, Virgin Media's telephone support staff seem to have no clue what's going on. Any intention of providing a "customer service" is almost non-existent.

Weirdest experience I've had is when I signed a new contract several months ago....

Basically contract was for £27, but VM was charging me £80 per month. You'd think this would be a quick resolve, should take about 45 seconds tops to fully resolve. For Virgin Media it took almost 3 months and over a dozen phone calls to resolve. Everybody I spoke to agreed that I was being overcharged, they could see the same contract I was seeing, yet they simply refused to put in the correct amount on the bills.

One of the first people I spoke to wasn't even authorised to deal with anything, and when I asked to speak to someone authorised to alter bills he simply hung up the phone. I'm not sure who this guy was or why he even bothered to pick up the phone in the first place? Maybe he was a cleaner hoovering the office and decided to be polite and pick up a ringing telephone? Who knows, I cant explain it.

Then I re-tried, got juggled around a bit and finally got through to a guy who went through my account and said "yeah sure I can fix this billing issue no problem just hold on two minutes"... 30 seconds later he comes back and tells me he cant fix my bill today and he will call me back tomorrow because.... wait for it........   his computer broke. Yep, he spent 15 minutes checking my contract and bills on his computer and when it's time to make the adjustment his computer suddenly broke. His claim of a broken computer remains unsubstantiated. Maybe his computer was operating perfectly? Who knows, I cant explain it.

Then I re-tried and finally got someone who sounded like he wanted to help! He went and pushed some buttons on his computer and then promised me my next bill would be £27, great I thought. Unfortunately my next bill was around £48. Maybe he was sleep deprived? Who knows, I cant explain it.

After some more juggling around various clueless people I finally got through to someone who wanted to help. I explained to them that if I recieve three consecutive incorrect bills, I would be sending the three bills as well as my contract to the financial ombudsman the very next day via Special Delivery..... He immediately corrected my bill, yes immediately, (turns out it really was a 45 second job) and he also gave me an extra monthly discount of £10! A truly bizarre customer service saga but I am happy because at least they gave me an extra goodwill discount for wasting my time.

TLDR... A 45 second job, juggled between a dozen useless people who turned it into a 2 month job.