BroadBand technical support, does it even exist?

[Numb3r6]

The other day I was having issues connecting to a site, and there was some urgency involved. Trying to sort it myself I tried many things. Ensured clients were up to date, browser caches cleared, rebooted systems and hub - no go.

Used the thing to check services were ok in my area and my line was ok, nothing showing.
At this point all I wanted to know was if there was a genuine issue, and when it may be resolved, suspecting yet another BT DNS issue.

I tried 150, which seemed determined to push me to self help pages etc. Done all I can already so that would be a waste of time. Persevered and probably used another call handling option to be routed to "support" and cheerily advised wait times were at least an hour. Nope, not doing that, especially when force fed holding muzac.

I then took to the Help Chat via My BT, and was relieved to be advised I'd wait 10 minutes.
Over an hour later I gave up.

In desperation I DM'd BT via X (formerly Twitter, you gotta say that apparently!) and was relieved, again, to get a response advising someone would contact me "soon".  I got a response over 8 hours later to say they were sorry I was having problems.

At this point my focus had shifted from the actual problem to the complete absence of any real support, despite using all the channels I could consider, and frankly, being lied to about wait times. In conveying this to the person who replied to my DM, they decided to raise a complaint for me. Good.

Before 24hrs had even elapsed I got an email cheerily telling me the complaint was closed. No involvement from me whatsoever, no other advice as to root cause.

So, my question is - does BT actually offer technical support these days, or are we on our own?
I mean the channels seem to be there, but the level of response and attitude, stank. I asked about service levels, but did not even get a reply.

-Have I used the wrong route to try and get technical support, despite all my efforts?
-Has something changed? In the past I have managed to speak to tech folks in a timely manner, who have been helpful, not so this time.
-What's with their attitude of literally ignoring specific questions I've raised about the experience, and mockingly opening and closing a complaint I can't even see, nor participate in - potentially to help they way they deliver services?

Honestly it was like dealing with TalkTalk, not BT, it was that bad.

Thoughts/experiences welcomed as I'm thinking of dumping them, having been given no satisfactory answers, to anything really.

[Keith_Beddoe]

@Numb3r6 

Assuming you are a residential customer, you will not get any extra support. If your broadband connection is working, then that is it usually.

https://www.bt.com/help/broadband/fix-a-problem

[Numb3r6]

Thanks for the reply Keith.
So basically if there is a connection, that's it, no support, even if a customer cannot achieve what is needed?

I could deal with that to some extent if their service pages went into better detail about ongoing issues. That's all it would have taken to pacify me in all honesty, but being lied to about wait times was infuriating...and that combined with the somewhat echo chamber nature of the complaint process was an utter joke, but I wasn't laughing.

As it happens when I initially contacted the company that hosts the site I needed, they said a number of customers were experiencing issues like mine. As I gathered information and asked a friend to try the site, which they achieved, as a non BT customer, that's when I started to suspect it was BT DNS.

Thing being the site concerned relates to investments, and there's every possibility other customers were disadvantaged more than I due to inability to connect and carry out trading activity. Once again that consideration just did not register with them.

Does BT have no idea about the need to accept the existence of a problem, and merely set customer expectations?
I thought many companies were moving to a place where the aspiration was to ensure customer satisfaction via high service levels, and attract new business, not the complete opposite, and potentially driving existing customers away!

[jeannette9728miller]

Hi there MaximTimeClock@Numb3r6 ,

It seems like you've tried multiple channels to reach BT's technical support, including phone, online chat, and social media. In theory, these channels should provide access to technical support, but in practice, the quality of support may vary. It's unfortunate that you didn't receive the assistance you needed despite your efforts.
It's possible that there have been changes in BT's customer support processes or staffing levels that have affected the quality and timeliness of their technical support. Companies sometimes undergo organizational changes or experience fluctuations in service quality, which can impact customer experiences.

[PhilJW]

Did anyone ever get through to technical support? The call waiting is 45 minutes which is nonsense (unless they want to pay me for my time).

Completely unacceptable.

[naylor2006]

This is mostly across the board, I wouldnt say BT were one of the worsts but these ISP's just arent setting up proper technical support teams these days. I used to work one at Eclipse Internet long time ago, we had proper separate teams, CS, TS and even a Dev Ops team to help with the more tricky/complicated issues.

Support on these forums is pretty decent, not for BT Mail it would seem 🙂 but mostly everything else, there is also a pretty good crowd here with some regulars, then there is also Reddit and other sites.

Although you havent gone into huge detail about the issue, when its DNS you can always rule this out by manually setting DNS servers on one device to test, 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1. When I suspect a DNS issue I just use a VPN app on my iPhone (NordVPN), switch this on and all my traffic is funneled elsewhere, I do not use BT DNS at all and have my own DNS server at home...but if I was to have an issue those would be my steps.