Non Existent Customer Care.

[rf1653]

I have never in my lifetime ever come across such a non existent, disfunction, awful customer service team such as the type Virgin Media have. 

It would seem its deliberately set up to stagnant customer dialogue and engagement through frustration of not actually being able to do anything. 

Its the equivalent of maze where each selected option just leads you on a path to a dead-end. 

Log a complaint.. and within in a few hours its closed down without investigation with a resolution note of internal feedback given, without even addressing the issue at hand. 

To cut a long story short.. on a previous issue a few months I was lucky to get through to some sort of exclusive executive customer services team in Manchester who resolved my issue which had been dragging for months within seconds.

This team at the time even informed me to take a note of there number for future reference as they are more likely to be able to resolve issues more effectively. 

Has anyone got this number? I'm losing the will to live with the standard customer service team with the policy of pass the buck and let's ignore him for hours, days and months and hope he goes away mentality. 

[japitts]

What's the issue you have?

If you could summarise the problems, then we can likely advise on here.

[rf1653]

Quite a long winded issue, which hasn't been made anymore streamlined due to incompetence or lack of any ownership from Virgin Media customer care teams.

All I want is either a resolution or a deadlock letter to be issued, its that simple.

What I'm getting is being ignored majority of the time via email or with vague resolutions which don't solve the initial issue. On on-line chat being transferred from department to department and then ignored or cut off when no staff are available. Telephone is just a series of being asked to press buttons before reaching a dead-end.

The whole customer care program at Virgin Media is deliberately geared up to frustrate customers in the process of requesting help, so we end up dropping the issue. I cannot believe this is anything other that a deliberately ploy by Virgin Media, as customer care isn't exactly a difficult concept to grasp. A company with the resources and expertise at there disposal such as Virgin Media should be able to grasp customer care and have a strong process in place.

Not sure how the director of customer care at Virgin Media sleeps at night, knowing full well he/ she is earning a huge wage for basically nothing.

It not just me, the Web is littered with customers raging about the poor and not fit for purpose customer care at Virgin Media, how do these people stay in there jobs, yet offer so little.

I would embarrassed to be a employee of Virgin Media. 

[japitts]

There's a couple of alternative approaches here.

Firstly, follow the complaints process which - if you have an unresolved issue after 8 weeks - allows you to get a deadlock letter & escalate your case to CISAS external arbitration. Amongst other places, there's details here 

Alternatively, the VM Forum staff are usually quite good at resolving complex issues without needing CISAS, which is likely to be a quicker outcome all-round. They may be able to identify your account from your forum credentials and find some details, but anything you can explain on here, will doubtless be a help.

[John_GS]

Hi rf1653

Thanks for posting. 

I am sorry you feel this way. If you can advise us what the complaint is about we'll be more than happy to assist further.

Best,

[Hawkeye99]

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@japitts wrote:

There's a couple of alternative approaches here. 

Firstly, follow the complaints process which - if you have an unresolved issue after 8 weeks - allows you to get a deadlock letter & escalate your case to CISAS external arbitration. Amongst other places, there's details here 

Alternatively, the VM Forum staff are usually quite good at resolving complex issues without needing CISAS, which is likely to be a quicker outcome all-round. They may be able to identify your account from your forum credentials and find some details, but anything you can explain on here, will doubtless be a help.

---

WOW! That’s a really cool list! 🙂 — Thanks for putting this together. Very helpful 🙂

[rf1653]

Spoiler

Issue finally resolved.

Whilst this was pleasing it still doesn't cover up the fact, that there is a massive issue in terms of the customer care department at Virgin Media.

It shouldn't take endless emails, double figure phonecalls, and hours lost on chat. It does feel like a lottery system, whereby you have to go through multiple agents until you find one who's proactive. Maybe there is a training issue?

The standard is awful, one of worst I have come across. I get most customer care teams are now out sourced, and or based overseas as a cost cutting exercise. This should not impact on the level of services being received by customers.

Customers to any business are (well should be) the lifeblood to the organisation.

Something is not working at Virgin Media in terms of customer services. Online reviews, forums, social media comments all consistently paint a grim reality of customer care at Virgin Media.

If I was somebody in customer care in a senior leadership position, I would be alarmed at the negativity reviews my company was attracting, and make changes, but sadly there seems little concern or urgency to correct it.

Virgin Media have a UK subscription level of around 3.4M. If they selected just 1% from that group, invite them to a monthly virtual customer engagement workshop, that would show engagement, that should brainstorm enough views and ideas to make positive long term change.

The benefit of this would be twofold, happy customers, which in turn would translate in a stronger more profitable, loyal customer base for Virgin Media.

[Robert_P]

Thanks for getting back to us rf1653 to let us know the issue has now been resolved. We understand your frustration at the experience and are always looking for ways to improve these.

We know it can seem like everyone is unhappy when all you see is complaints on pages such as this. It's worth baring in mind that it's human nature to share your poor experiences with more people than you may share a positive experience and in actual fact the amount of complaints we receive are from a small fraction of our overall customer base.

We're an open and honest company. We understand sometimes things go wrong. Which is why we choose to have an open wall on our Facebook page.  Customers can tell us about a positive or negative experience.

If you have any issues in the future, please let us know here, explain the issue and we'll do all we can to get it resolved.

Rob