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Don't feel bad if your broadband provider is giving you the cold shoulder, you're not alone. According to Broadbandchoices, some 46 percent of complaints never get resolved, and that's actually better than last year's numbers.
"The number of respondents that told us that their complaint was not resolved successfully improved since our survey last year when over half (54 percent) of complaints were going unresolved, but broadband providers still have work to do if they are to win back customer confidence," said Michael Phillips, product director at Broadbandchoices.co.uk.
Confidence in their broadband provider isn't something consumers seem to have. Of those who chose not to complain about one issue or another, 39 percent said they felt it would be too much of a hassle, while more than a third -- 34 percent -- said they didn't think their broadband provider would do anything about it.
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linkmaster6
July 23, 2010 at 6:54am
This has alot to do with the revolving door effect at these call centers. For the most part there are just as many people leaving as there are coming in, thus people with experience are leaving and new people are left manning the phones. Call center work really does suck, high stress and you never deal with anyone that is in a good mood. The other thing I found too was that typically the people they have managing, didn't work their way up from the floor usually they have no support experience at all, all they really care about is talk time on each call.
And some times, lets face it, its from the end user expecting the most for the least.
tmnt.mikey
July 25, 2010 at 10:25pm
I can understand the view of the revolving door, but that does not paint the whole picture. Your experience is not always the case as I have worked inthis exact field for the past 4 years, All of our management have worked their way up the ladder, true some faster than others, but what we all have in common is a caring to resolve customer's issues.
Now while saying this, I also understand the concern of the consumer in stating that their issue is not resolved. What these kinds of surveys do not ask (and really, they have no time to ask) is what the nature of the customer's unresolved issue is. The gammut runs from 10 year old OSes, non-standard programs, outdated hardware, and the ever looming limit of IP addresses (for those with short IP lease times that cause them to constantly reboot their router).
ISPs, in order to leverage their investments to their fullest, have to limit the amount of 3rd party support that they offer. What this does though, is create a perception that the ISP does not care about their customers, but it begs the question: Whose responsibility is it to support a consumer's use of a service through "X" interface?
The knee-jerk answer is the ISPs, but should they provide support when the maunfacturer of said harware/software/PC/gaming console no longer provides support for their own product? How should an ISP respond when said hardware/software/PC/console respond with an Apple-esque response of "It's not our product, it's the network's fault."
Until more thourough surveys are created and consumers are properly educated, all ISPs will be evil.
