I would have to agree with you there. I usually call o2 on 202 to get all my issues sorted but yesterday was a complete nightmare, I called them, went through all the press X number etc etc, and then sat waiting in a queue, waited for about 5 minutes and then it appeared someone answered and hung up straight away, so I thought ok this happens from time to time and tried again, waited about 9 minutes this time and exactly the same thing happened and it seems to me that the staff are deliberatly doing this to avoid calls, getting slightly annoyed I thought okk try again. I waited around 5 minutes and low and behold it answered and before anyone spoke it hung up again, now I was starting to get really annoyed because I really needed to talk to someone and not do live online chat as I firstly needed to question why they billed me more than they should of which actually caused the direct debit to return unpaid as I had the correct amount in there for the bill (times are hard and I have to manage my money) but because they tried taking more, it got returned unpaid, so I was very keen to speak with them, get an explanation and then pay by debit card to make sure I was not cut off.
Secondly to ask why they tried taking the amounts in 5 seperate direct debits and not just one, so this has now cost me 5 charges with the bank and not just one 😞 which when I took the ipad on a new contract they told me it would all be on the same DD as my mobile phone which made sense to me as it would be much easier instead of trying to take £15 for the Ipad, £15.97 for the tariff which was meant to be £15 anyway and I only had it for 3 days so can't see how it was more but that was another issue I wanted to talk about as well which obviously is far to much to do all on live chat, and also ask if I can set up another DD for my mother to pay as they sent me two Ipads by mistake so I decided to keep both and let my mum have one, again they made the mistake but I decided to stick with it to avoid all the hassle of sending it back, plus my mum wanted one anyway and was willing to pay for it through her account monthly.
So as you can see here I had lots to talk about which really can't be dealt with by web chat, and because I was having so much trouble with getting through on 202 I decided to contact web chat and ask them if they could kindly request me a call back from o2 because I was fed up with waiting in queue's and then being cut off (who would of thought I was actually trying to pay them money LOL) So the first person I spoke to asked me what he could help with, so I took the time to explain that 202 had cut me off many times and I was now getting frustrated and annoyed and I would just like a call back from o2 which he then told me he could not do, apparently they are not allowed to ask for staff to call a customer, I proceeded to tell him that I had loads of questions which clearly can't be handled here, and I have already tried calling o2 myself and had no luck so this was the only option for my own sanity and he said he would speak to his supervisor.
Well a few minutes passes and he comes back and said he has spoken to her and will now pass me on to her to help with my inquiry, so waited another few minutes and finally get transferred to a very helpful lady who read through my previous transcript without me having to do it all again and agrees that I should get a call back and asks when I would like this, so I state ASAP as the bill really needs paying to avoid being cut off, but I want answers before I pay it, so she says ok no problem, I have passed your inquiry over and to expect a call back ASAP. Great so I leave the chat happy in the knowledge that it will all be sorted very soon and I havn't got to worry about trying 202 again and contemplating suicide LOL (JOKE BY THE WAY )
Time goes by and no call so i go to bed, wake up go to work, still no call, eventually 26 hours passes and I try 202 again and again I get cut off so I am now fuming and supprised I have not been cut of at this point as well (I need that phone for work, and I am trying to pay bear in mind) so I go back and log into web chat again, wait 5 minutes and get a friendly chap who agrees to read yesterdays chat instead of explaining, straight away he comes back and appologises no end and "knows exactly how I must be feeling", just like the rest did,they are all trained to do this and really feel sorry for you without actually helping. ANYWAY he offers to pass me on to his supervisor, so I thought here we go again, but this time I actually got a person who speaks honestly and doesn't tell you what you want to hear and basically lie out of there back side just to get rid of you and avoid doing the job they are paid for and tells me firstly that call backs take up to 48 hours, so much for my ASAP, and even if that were true, why the hell didn't she say to me that even ASAP can take up to 48 hours instead she led me to believe that it would be ASAP LOL.
Anyway cutting a long story short, this person I spoke to last had an Indian name (so possibly Indian call centre ?) and you could tell vy the way they wrote and spelt thinks, English was not there first language but by god they was the most helpful call centre person I have ever spoke to, and that is not just O2 but all call centres. You could tell they enjoyed there job, and managed to calm me down because I was getting rather angry at going around in circles and getting nothing sorted, and I then appologised to them as it was not there fault and they are just doing a job, so straight away they had me calm, getting answers and actually really enjoying my chat with them, so much so we actually went off track and started talking about other things and how good they was etc LOL (I am in love LMAO)
They also got everything sorted for me as promised with no messing about and I am now completely sorted and have all the answers which should of been very simple to get in the first place, but it took an honest and caring person who clearly takes there very dull and hard job at times to a new level (if only all staff could be trained like this) and you could tell they genuinly cared about the customer and not just about getting rid of the awkward ones and trying to answer simple questions.
So my whole point to this rather unintended essay is that call centre staff from outside the UK can and a lot of the time are a lot more passionate about the job they are doing than most UK based staff who just do this job as an in between on minimum wage reading off a script not giving a damn about anyone they speak to and doing there very best to just get rid of you if it means they actually have to do anything or god forbid use there brain, they would rather just hang up, pass you over to someone else pretending they higher up, or knows more and then moving on to the next customer to insult, fob off and the cycle continues until they clock out, go home or to the pub to moan about all the wan*ers they had to deal with today and how if it was in real life they would of smacked there heads in and so forth LOL. SOunds far fetched but true as well. So all in all the experiance I have had with o2 was a bad one until I got the Indian member of staff which made it very pleasant.
Sorry for the Essay it was truely unintended and for some reason I just kept on typing away HAHA.
