BT - Anybody got any senior customer services contacts?

BT - Anybody got any senior customer services contacts?

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RegMolehusband

Original Poster:

3,959 posts

256 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
The saga goes like this

We run two businesses from home.

We moved into our new house on 7th of December
BT engineer comes the day before to transfer our two numbers onto an existing line.
Tells the decorators here that he can't finish because it's too dark to go up the pole.
Says he'll come back on Monday - doesn't show.

No communication from BT, I chase them and get a new appointment.
Guy turns up a week later and says he can't finish the job as a new line is required from the cabin by the pole to the nearby exchange and being a sub-contractor he's not authorised to do it.

No communication back from BT "customer services", I chase them and get another appointment - turns out to be a no-show. I call them again.

Another appointment for this morning. Nice apologetic man totally befuddled. It seems our lines are live "somewhere" other than our house. Yet it seems there are apparently insufficient lines from the cabin to the exchange to service our requirement.

In the meantime we have paid for two line rentals up front, I am building up data costs by tethering the mobile to the PC, I can't talk to a customer and view the internet at the same time, and I have a mobile number on an e-commerce website that must be putting potential buyers off.

Now that I've written it down it seems even worse than I thought!!

Does anybody have a good contact who might be able to put a senior engineer on the case who knows what he's doing?

Cheers

"Reg"


Alpacaman

917 posts

240 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
You could try Micheal.rake@bt.com I went straight to the top when I had a problem, they put someone on it within half an hour. That's Sir Micheal Rake the head man.

djfaulkner

1,103 posts

217 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
Going to Gavin Patterson seems to get the best results.

Gavin.Patterson@bt.com

simoid

19,772 posts

157 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
Tweet 'em, if you can.

Something like "BT are useless s #uselesss" would probably get the swiftest response smile

insurance_jon

4,054 posts

245 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
ian.livingston@bt.com another board member and he replies from his iphone then shouts at someon. I had 4 engineers at the office within an hour

RegMolehusband

Original Poster:

3,959 posts

256 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
Thanks chaps - I'm in the middle of writing the email and will decide upon the best contact to use. Mr. Livingston has departed has he not?

NarrinRad

151 posts

174 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
He has and that is not Gavins e-mail address, there is a process rather than send a random e-mail to the top of BT.

If you PM me some detail of the individuals you have been talking to and the numbers concerned for your business I will help you.

Or you can escalate by asking to talk to the Supervisor or Manager of the team you call for updates.




RegMolehusband

Original Poster:

3,959 posts

256 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
NarrinRad said:
He has and that is not Gavins e-mail address, there is a process rather than send a random e-mail to the top of BT.

If you PM me some detail of the individuals you have been talking to and the numbers concerned for your business I will help you.

Or you can escalate by asking to talk to the Supervisor or Manager of the team you call for updates.
NR, the normal process isn't working. I have talked to several random individuals in customer services and last time I escalated it they sent in a sub-contractor in order to get an earlier appointment and he was limited in what he could do. So, still writing my email.

Please feel free to PM me to let me know how you might be able to help.

Regards
"Reg"

Vaud

50,289 posts

154 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
gavin.e.patterson@bt.com

Will get picked up by the "office of the CEO" - his PAs pick it up - and they will start a top-down process and monitor it, or at least, they did in the past.

Top down works better than bottom up in my experience.

Keep the email short. Bullet point facts and what you want to happen. Include account number and contact number.


surveyor

17,768 posts

183 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
insurance_jon said:
ian.livingston@bt.com another board member and he replies from his iphone then shouts at someon. I had 4 engineers at the office within an hour
He's gone. Gavin Patterson is new CEO.

750turbo

6,164 posts

223 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
ttter.

@btcare

They WILL respond, whether they can help is a different matter I suppose.

Alpacaman

917 posts

240 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
Sorry NarrinRad but BTs customer service is shocking. I spent days on the phone trying to get a simple problem sorted out, it was only when I contacted Micheal Race that anyone bothered to make any effort to deal with the problem, even then it wasn't sorted out properly. For a telephone company their phone system is rubbish if you want to speak to a human in the UK.

Deanno1dad

593 posts

223 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
The engineering openreach work force has been flooded with sub contractors who are paid per job and have limited skills and no heart to assist with a difficult job.

Any problem job hurts the contractor in the pocket..he is likely to biff your job and try and get another easier task..If you're lucky you may get a multi skilled old school BT engineer who will stick by a difficult job..

good luck

trickywoo

11,705 posts

229 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
I had a similar experience with BT. Paid for a new broadband line and a couple of phone lines. It was all supposed to be done one Friday. Engineer was late so still not finished at 1600. Engineer went home.

Eventually got the lines installed, or so I thought. For some reason the line in the broadband hub wasn't punched into the junction box. Nice shiny new box on the wall and a load of loose cables behind the cover which another engineer discovered when he finally came to investigate the fault.

To top it all somehow BT managed to take down a number of other phone lines in the shared office block I'd just moved into when they tried to install mine.

Hope your issue gets sorted.

surveyor

17,768 posts

183 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
Deanno1dad said:
The engineering openreach work force has been flooded with sub contractors who are paid per job and have limited skills and no heart to assist with a difficult job.

Any problem job hurts the contractor in the pocket..he is likely to biff your job and try and get another easier task..If you're lucky you may get a multi skilled old school BT engineer who will stick by a difficult job..

good luck
My record was 8 engineers finding a reason not to do the job. Our problem was this was a new office and there was no-one on site to take control, along with another operator being between my client and BT Openreach.

I eventually had an overnight stop, to be there at 8AM. Sub-contractor walks on-site to say it's a 2 man job so it will be rebooked. I point out the should have known this by now, it's not good enough and he is not to leave site until his manager has spoken to me.

Some idle threats later, his manager appears within 30 minutes. First of all they discover the bt DP they are looking for is in a different building, but two engineers appear on-site and it's installed by the end of the day.

BT are fine, until it starts to go wrong. At the point, top down works best.

NarrinRad

151 posts

174 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
I wouldnt say BT's Customer Service is shocking, but your experiance sounds like it could have been improved.

You can try Twitter, they also have a Facebook Page where you will also get a response, there is a team who can help you.

Demand and the weather is having a major impact on OpenReach hence contract workers are being employed to help.


eybic

9,212 posts

173 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
I too had an appalling response from "customer service" which was resolved very quickly with an email to the top man (this was a few years ago). it's a shame that this was the only way it could be sorted. I must have made 15 phone calls to the CS department with no resolution, one email and I was called within 30 minutes and the issue was sorted within a week.

anonymous-user

53 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
I would say their CS is shocking - driven by the joint yet separate Retail(now split in 2), Wholesale & Openreach businesses.

In every case where I've had a problem either with phone, broadband or both the ability of BT to communicate internally was terrible.

In order to get half decent resolution the only option was to escalate and then work top down.

Out of the 3 recent BT Group CEOs Ben Verwaayen responded personally, Ian Livingstone & Gavin Patterson passed it on to the team mentioned before.

For Wholesale, Sally Davis (left in '11) and for Openreach Liv Garfield (leaving in a few months) have both replied directly and been very helpful.

Interestingly most of the time I call in with a problem I go through to the UK team, not the standard Indian call centre.

eybic

9,212 posts

173 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
wsurfa said:
I would say their CS is shocking - driven by the joint yet separate Retail(now split in 2), Wholesale & Openreach businesses.

In every case where I've had a problem either with phone, broadband or both the ability of BT to communicate internally was terrible.

In order to get half decent resolution the only option was to escalate and then work top down.

Out of the 3 recent BT Group CEOs Ben Verwaayen responded personally, Ian Livingstone & Gavin Patterson passed it on to the team mentioned before.

For Wholesale, Sally Davis (left in '11) and for Openreach Liv Garfield (leaving in a few months) have both replied directly and been very helpful.

Interestingly most of the time I call in with a problem I go through to the UK team, not the standard Indian call centre.
Ben Vewwaayen was the guy I emailed, his P.A called me almost straight away.

mcgandalf

654 posts

154 months

Monday 6th January 2014
quotequote all
NarrinRad said:
I wouldnt say BT's Customer Service is shocking
Frankly, the hundreds of pounds in lost earnings and hours wasted on the line to India from my mobile (i.e. not freephone) which I have incurred over the past few years, thanks to numerous simple incidents with my BT accounts, would suggest otherwise.