Get rid of pointless Indian Call Centres

[Storm]

I've just come off the telephone to them and yet again all they do if provide BT with a first line of defence, lie and fob customers off. At no point do they even try to provide help, I'd put good money on the reason being that they can't as they are totally unqualified and are pointless from a customers perspective.

BT take heed, I refuse to spend one more minute of my time trying to hold a conversation with a call centre that obviously has a brief to ignore customers, lie and just read from a script.

All my own opinion and taken from experience.

[tirbach]

Been with BT over 40 years & had broadband with them for as long as they have done it. End of this contract I will be off to another supplier becaus eof BT's persistance in using Indian Call Centres who just lie & waste your time until you hang up in frustration. I have a recurring fault then means they want me to update my password every 4 weeks. Every 4 weeks I phone Chennai & get a different, illiterate, incomprehensible person who says they can see the problem & have sorted it out - 4 weeks later - same again! 

Wasted 11/2 hours with "Sarjit" & "Chennie" yesterday - they refused to pass me to a UK handler to resolve my problem.

Rang BT to close my account - surprise surprise not an Indian! Now they have promised to get it resolved but when contract ends in October I'm off - don't need Jake Humphreys & BT Sport & certainly don't need Indian call centres when I need help

[Teapot55]

We haven't needed to phone anyone at BT for technical help in the last year, but I will now be wary if I need to.

(Previously they were amazingly helpful and we didn't have trouble communicating with them, even if they were in Bangalore).

[Md0h]

As the majority have already said. I COMPLETELY AGREE.

I am now leaving BT because of nearly 11 months of issues.  I have been a customer for 10 years as I have had no other available option until now (virgin media has finally dug up my street hazar!).  The call centres are terrible, some of them don't even know what ADSL is! They have poor communication skills and a lack of even the most basic understanding of any telecoms product.  Billing is equally trying.  I was on the line for 85mins last time before they finally admitted that they owed me £45 as I was being charge for a service I don't have. I also appear on my bills as MRS when I am a MR, no matter how many call centre staff I talk to this has never been fixed. I have had my line cut off more than once for no other reason than "in error" and my number has even been swapped with a nice old lady two streets down in the past (if you called my number you got her house). Don't get me started on the out of date, expensive and unreliable broadband that has resulted in my being released from my contract.

The forum staffs are better but that means even the smallest issue takes a long time to be looked at and sorted and its not much good if you have no working phone line or broadband to lodge the problem.  Thank god for 21st century cellular data.  The engineer visits need to have extended hour visits now also as the majority of line and broadband issues happen at peak evening times when the over taxed, out of date BT infrastructure sees the most problems.

Rant over.

[AllanQuatermain]

As there are now very few BT shops as such, the helpdesk is the "shop window" for BT.

We know that there is a widespread feeling that this falls short, and it has been said so for many years.

Totally agree with all of the above.

Give priority to good customer service.

[C0ffeeCup]

I find the best way is to do everything on the web. I have got more help on the community forum and when i did have a phone fault used the online fault form to arrange everything.

It would be better to speak to someone but at present the other option is best.

[Len77]

genuinely the most frustrating experience ive ever had trying to explain a complex issue to someone who doesnt really have a full grasp of the language.

it'll be one of the major contributing factors to me leaving BT the minute my contract finishes.

[macey]

Apologies if my post is not where it should be as I have never felt compelled to do anything like this before. I am not sure if this is the correct place to voice my opinion but here goes. On 9th of Jan I dedicated my morning to improving my telephone/internet/television package which was a mixture of Sky and BT. That's when it all went wrong. An aspect of BT's sales pitch which was immediately pointed out by the Sky representative as being suspect led me to cancel my order with BT within 30 minutes of placement. I was assured this was an "open" order and would not be processed. I rang back a week later and again five days later to ensure this was so. Assurances were made that this was the case. To cut a long story short, five hours of telephone calls all of which have been slow to connect and filled with mis-information have been the single worst customer service experience of my life. I have been debited by £309.21 for services I have never had and BT seem incapable of answering ANY questions in relation to this. BT infinity has been an exceptional product and the UK based sales team are very efficient (especially when taking money). The complaints/issues department which seems to be entirely based outside the UK are, as individuals, quite polite, but operating a truly atrocious, evasive model. Aspects of the information given could lead to issues with credit reference agencies!  A product is only as good as the support. Think carefully before placing any order and ensure you are getting EXACTLY what you need. Email confirmation would normally be desirable but BT's email system will not accept responses so good luck with that! Take a look at how accessible BT are by email before placing any order. Email is a very answerable, honest system. BT seem not to offer email as their preferred method of contact. I wonder why?????

[Rocksuperstar]

I think the most frustrating thing for me is that when a lot of these problems are finally identified, they are so easy to fix and take literally minutes, but until you happen to luck out and get the one singular person who has even the most basic knowledge of the BT network & policies you are forced to endure endless calls with people who are only there to "stall for time".

It took more than a dozen calls to the call centre last time i had a problem with my broadband, each one assuring me they were "senior support" or whatever meaningless job title they had, and each one ending with me furiously hanging up to stop us going in circles.  Eventually, i spoke to some chap who said he didn't even work in the tech support section but his very first glance at my call history and he identified the problem as my router being woefully old and that BT haven't supported that model in more than a year.  2 days later, new hub arrived, connection sorted.  So a dozen call centre operatives missed my pre-historic home hub a dozen times.

This time, i suspect the problem lies with some elderly looking wiring that pokes out of the concrete in front of my house, where the faceplate of the junction box was not replaced and wires twisted together & left bare by the engineer who initially fitted it (complained about that, got nowhere).  My simple question is, as that cable comes out of the ground inside the boundaries/footprint of the building the flat i rent is located in, by about a foot, will it be a cost for me if an engineer comes and finds that faulty?  Is it denoted by which side of missing junction box it would've sat or it's physical location?

Appparently, four calls into this saga, to answer that question will require escalation to second line support, who will monitor my connection (wut? i want an answer to a policy question! the hell...?) and then pass it to the Outreach team who will send an engineer who will or will not (will then) charge me for the work.

No-one can apparently answer my very simple question, let alone give it any thought, until it's passed through the system.  If that doesn't demonstrate how little information regarding BT's every day operations these call centre staff have access to, and how they are genuinely only there to fob off customers and buy time.

I'd rather find Outreach's headquarters and head there with some polaroids of the cable, probably be less hassle (and likely answered by the receptionist, or some informed member of finance faster than any call centre employee).

[walkerx]

when are bt moving back to uk call centres, as when i renewed I was told that they were moving them back this year which is one of the reasons I decided to stay with bt as i don't think they should be outsourcing to a call centre in another country outside of the uk especially when there are plenty of people in the uk looking for jobs.

[MissVictoria]

In 2010, BT said it wanted to bring as many as 2,750 call centre jobs back to Britain. It never happened. Just more lies.

Vote with your feet people.