Four Hours Trying To Contact BT Ireland

laois | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis Saturday October 21, 2006 12:53 by Mark C

Last Friday week I spent four hours trying to contact BT Ireland with a very simple query (can they reset my wireless connection so that I don't need a password to connect to the internet?). I spent four hours on the phone to no avail.

After 45 mins. holding for someone in Technical Support, I eventually got to speak to someone in Customer Care who said I need to talk to Technical Support. I explained that I had rang Technical Support and was somwhow re-directed to him. He said he'll put me through to Tech. Supp. and I'd be top of the queue. This sounded reasonable, but when he put me through I got a voice telling me: "We are very busy, if you'd like to leave your name and number we'll call you back or else hang up" and then the line went dead!

I was told by a voice many times while holding that I could email customer.care@btireland.ie with my query and they would get back to me asap, and when I did this I got an autoreply saying that they would be in contact in the next FOUR DAYS. (I later learned from representative that Customer Care were told not to reply to emails and not to call people back, which I presume to be true because now, 8 days later, I still have had no reply from Customer Care, but did from Residential Support).

I spent the next two hours calling Tech. Supp., determined that I was going to get to speak to someone and was re-directed more than once to a voice asking me to Press 1 for Global Internet Sales, Press 2 to Take Over the World or something, and if I would like to talk to Tech. Supp. I could call 1890 923 111 (the number I had called to be told this!).

Eventually I got to speak to someone, told him how appalled I was at their service, and he tried to convince me that four days' wait, just to be contacted, not necessarily have the problem fixed, was not a long time. I asked him would he be happy if he had called, for example, Sky Digital with a simple query and was told that sometime in the next four days they'd contact him to ask what his issue was, and the most I got was that perhaps it was "not a short amount of time". This was also the person who told me that he had received an email from his boss telling him (and the rest of his "team") not to reply to emails or people leaving their contact details on their message machine because they were too busy.

Me: Why not take on more staff?
Him: The problem with taking on more staff is that the lines will eventually get blocked up again.
Me: Why not take on less customers so?
Him: Ha Ha Ha
Me: I'm not joking.

I also knew that this was not the person that I needed to talk to, as he informed me, I needed to talk to someone in Tech. Supp. He did put me through to Tech. Supp. but after holding for another 45 mins I got cut off, the time was about 7:30 (four hours after I had begun trying to contact them) and I admitted defeat. I did manage to get an email address, from an automatic voice, telling me that I could email residentialsupport@btireland.ie, which I did, and they replied to me Monday afternoon and their reply almost fixed up my problem, except I now needed a "Router Configuration Password" so I replied to ask what this might be and got what I consider to a very "snotty" reply asking me if I had "bothered" to read the instruction manual (no consideration given to the notion that I live in Portumna and was trying to fix up the problem for my mother and younger brother in Portlaoise, and no matter how good my eyesight was I could not read a text from a hundred miles away).