XGS-PON - lack of training is very frustrating.

[JTC652]

I have had a rather frustrating morning!

Yesterday evening, I decided that I would upgrade from M350 with ‘upload speed add-on’ so getting matching upload and download speeds. 

It’s not possible to do this online for some reason, so entered into a chat. I specifically requested that the upgrade was to continue with ‘upload speed add-on’.

The upgrade took place, but the add on did not. This is where the issues started, tried using the utterly useless chat, got past ‘Terri Bot’ by entering random characters and started chatting with an agent, who told me that the add on didn’t exist. Despite me posting the details from VMs own website, they said ‘no such service exists’ I ended the chat.

Eventually got through and spoke to someone in one of the offshore centres, who again said there is no such add on, following up with ‘no company offers this service’ utter rubbish.

Requested to speak to a more knowledgable person, eventually spoke to the retentions team in Sheffield, who was very helpful, basically the upgrade had been incorrectly processed and as a result the option to add the add on, basically it had been processed as a standard connection and not an XGS-PON upgrade. 

This shows how poor VM’s training in their support departments is and how poor their support systems are in allowing incompatible service be provisioned on there delivery computer systems. 

The chat system is terrible, you can’t get past the stupid bot, it just send you to the web site, which can’t deal with XGS-PON installations so sends you back to the useless chat bot. The offshore support don’t know the products being offered, the support systems they use don’t help them.

Dogged determination and persistence got it sorted, but what should have been a tick box on my account page, turned into an hour on the phone and two failed chats. Ultimately it was resolved by the retention guy who sorted it, he was located in Sheffield and knew the products being offered.

No point in starting a complaint, as the online form stops working when you get to putting your name in, instead of paying licensing for piped music, I would suggest that this money could be used to improve customer facing systems. 

[Cardiffman282]

Hell will freeze over first. 

[Jonny-M]

Sounds about right, VM do not care. If they were bothered about the low quality of their offshore teams they would have done something about it years ago. 

[jpeg1]

VM don't have offshore teams. They pay for use of call centres operated by a French company. The staff there are trained only to follow prompts on a screen. 

[JTC652]

They are not UK based call centres, therefore they are offshore. Only when I complained that I needed to consider cancelling due to breach of contract did I get transferred to someone from retentions in Sheffield. The contract breach was basically the transcript of the chat showed that a condition of the upgrade to Gig1 had to include Upload Speed Add-on , which they failed to provide against a new contract, therefore they had breach the conditions of the pre-contract. 

I have no issue with offshore contact centres but they do need to have good training and better support systems to assist them. 

[jpeg1]

My point was that they are not VM's call centres. These call centers work for a multitude of different companies so they are limited in their support.  VM use them to avoid the cost of the training that you rightly say is needed. 

[unisoft]

It doesn't matter. The customers contract is with VM. The fact they outsource to other providers is neither here or there, the customer should not need to know or worry. It's down to the nominated support process to support the customer.

[jpeg1]

Yes. You just have to persuade VM of that. 

[Tom_W1]

Hi @JTC652 thanks for your post here although we're sorry to hear of the concerns you've raised here.

It seems since you've raised your concerns here that you've been able to get this resolved which is great news.

We do appreciate your frustrations and we're sorry for this, but if you do need any further help then please let us know.

Many thanks

[Jimney]

I feel your pain having experienced exactly the same issue as a new customer trying to add the symmetrical upload a few days after joining in early December which coincided with their Black Friday deals period.

I'm not 100% that I've got it sorted now after a conversation with UK retentions. I do now have the working symmetrical upload speed, but unsure if I'm still getting the original Black Friday deal I signed up for even though I received a revised 4th contract on Christmas Eve.