summary: customer care can only go so far, when the customer’s relationship starts to fail with an operator, people will look for new solutions.
I’ve just moved flat and am stuck between two operators. The old place had BT and the existing place is still with Bulldog – with the old tenants vanished overseas, no one will disconnect the line. Thanks to local loop unbundling, I can’t even get a POTS lines connected.
Who seems to actually care about the customer here? Bulldog won’t talk to me and I couldn’t take my old number with me – without paying the £125 new install fee. Of course its not their fault but neither company wants to care for me. To actually make it worse the operator at Bulldog gave me the contact number for their customer, breaking all rules of privacy, but suggesting it would be the quickest way to get the line disconnected.
It’s little things like this that stop customers coming back or even considering an operator as their supplier for home, mobile, electricity or gas. When the service fails and the response from the front line customer care team is negative, isn’t it time to go elsewhere? Most people shop around for a better mobile for only a few days towards the end of their contract and never are actually free, if in this window they have a bad experience, they’ll take their talking elsewhere. It’s just a shame that even one of the best bundle offers in the UK from TalkTalk / Carphone Warehouse still needs me to get a line connected with BT first!
And so for now, It’s me, my laptop and a 3G datacard that gets me by.
