And here we go again...

[karvala]

I am really getting fed up with IDNet; I don't know what's happened to the customer service recently.  It feels like I'm with TalkTalk or Sky or even BT.

Internet went down at 1.10am last night.  After it didn't return, I phoned up at 8.30am this morning, the lack of connection was confirmed by IDNet, they ran some tests and spoke to the wholesale provider who said they'd had a few other people reporting this and suspected a local outage and an engineer had been called and I would be given an update this afternoon.  So far so good; not thrilled about being down for so long, but it happens.

Come the afternoon, no update.  Failure no.1

I phone up at 4.50pm, and get not the first line support, but second line support.  We get cut off anyway for some reason, and when I phone back a now get first line support again.  Strange and should really be more consistent, but okay.

But neither support line had any evidence of this morning's call and struggled even to find me on their system (had to search by phone number).  Failure no.2.

Furthermore, neither of them had any updates, or any apparent knowledge that I even had a problem, there had been no engineer visit to anyone's knowledge; basically I was no further forward than at 8.30am this morning, and it's just like that call had never taken place.  Failure no.3.

The best part is that first line support apparently have no way of getting in touch with second line support without it looping back to them, such that they could not promise me that I'd even get a call back with some information on the situation (so I have no idea now if they can even see the fault still, or what is being done to fix it).  Failure no.4.

So now I am the best part of a day with no internet connection, and so far I'm just met with a wall of indifference and incompetence to the extent that even support calls aren't being logged, tickets that I'm told are raised are in fact not raised, engineer visits that I'm told will take place do not take place.

I'm one ill-judged support comment away from a MAC code at this point, along with about half a dozen of my equally unimpressed friends who I brought over with me and as much negative publicity as I can manage.  After the fiasco last month of trying to tell me I must have a faulty router but only during hours of peak traffic(!), and was only resolved after I dug in my heels, supplied a mountain of evidence and refused to take no for an answer, I'm now confronted with this.

Whatever happened to that company who actually gave a damn about their customers and was able to manage customer issues properly?  I.e. the company to whom it was worth paying more money than the competition.  Because this one certainly isn't.

[peasblossom]

I'm not in a position to comment on your particular problem but I will say this. Companies make mistakes. They all do, some more so than others but I do not believe IDNet deserve a pile of opprobrium. I value being able to talk to a real life human being and have always been called back.

I am also fairly sure this will not convince you they are, in fact, loads better than some of the bigger names but that's your choice.

[karvala]

I like to be fair, so now I'll give the other side of the story as well.  Had a phone call from Brian who was very apologetic for the failure to handle the ticket properly during the day, and was able to resolve the issue (corruption caused by an outage) within a few minutes.  That's the proper quality service that I remember; someone who knows how to treat customers and has the technical insight to find a solution if there's one to be had.

Well done Brian.  To IDNet: more people like that please, fewer of the first-line "Call? What call?" muppets who aren't contributing anything of value and are just annoying customers.#

[karvala]

I'm not in a position to comment on your particular problem but I will say this. Companies make mistakes. They all do, some more so than others but I do not believe IDNet deserve a pile of opprobrium. I value being able to talk to a real life human being and have always been called back.

I am also fairly sure this will not convince you they are, in fact, loads better than some of the bigger names but that's your choice.

Mistakes are fine, but it's an attitude difference and a systemic problem, and an attitude isn't a mistake, it's a state of being.  It's often said that you measure the quality of company not by how good they are when things are going okay, but how well they handle problems when they arise.

Do IDNet deserve a pile of opprobrium in this case?  Yes, they do, because they failed not just once but multiple times in ways which, unless they make changes, will happen again.  It may be less frequent than some of the nightmare large companies and their call centres, but they have plenty of people like you to stick up for them and say how great they are when things go well, so actually in the interests of balance and truth, I think when multiple failures happen, they should also be made public.  I'm not interested in joining a fan club, I tell how it is: when they do well, I say how well they do, when they make mistakes, I say fair enough it's a mistake, and when there's a bad attitude or a bad system, I call them out on it.

[miriam_idnet]

Hi Kavala,

First of all apologies for the inconvenience caused here and we are saddened to hear of your loss of faith in the Support Team.

When you raised your issue with the Team in the morning my colleague held on to your case to manage personally rather than log a ticket in our system. He then chased up with the supplier, raised a case with them and continued to monitor your case.  A call back was made to you at 1.17pm afternoon as scheduled but as there was no answer a 57 second voicemail was left with an update asking you to retest your connection. Unfortunately you did not see this voicemail and called in to the Team later in the afternoon who had no record of the ticket.

The first line team were unable to reach the second line team at that moment as all members of the second line team were engaged on other calls. Hence why the call was looping back to them.  The agent involved arranged for a second line member to get in touch with you as soon as they were available.

Unfortunately, the efforts and good intentions to be proactive by one member of the team caused the rest of the team to be ineffective in this instance.

We take on board your comments and have taken steps in-house to ensure tickets are raised no matter if the case is being managed by one individual. 

Sincerely,

Miriam
IDNet

[JB]

I'm no longer a customer of IDnet, but I do feel that a ticket should be raised for each and every issue. Without one there is no real audit trail.

From a personal point of view, if I don't write something down or maybe set an alarm, I'll sure as heck forget to or become distracted from whatever it was. At best I'll come back to it later when it is usually too late.

Just my personal opinion.

[mervl]

Surely it's going to be essential to raise tickets (not just good practice) when Ofcom introduce their mooted automatic compensation for total loss of service, or risk fines? IDNet need to keep on top of industry developments.

That being said the internet is a mess, when you think of the number of dynamic interconnects and infrastructure owners involved in getting data "here to there". The ISP is often just the middleman. And often Ofcom's well-intentioned (giving them the benefit of the doubt) meddling makes it even more complex. I actually think everyone is really doing their best, but it's such a muddle that I'm not surprised that the answers change depending on who and when we ask. That's often because it is a dynamic situation, and there is no God with an all-embracing oversight of it all. It's more like A tells B tells C tells . . . And for us customers a little learning can be a dangerous thing, as it always was. Patience often sorts it out, if only we could make the time.

[colirv]

Mistakes happen. What's important is how they're dealt with. Well in this case, IWHT.