Horrible Customer Services!!!

[Anonymous]

I've been with O2 now for over 12 years (back when it was called BT Cellnet). I've never had a problem with any services until today, when I attempted to contact the Live 'Help' desk.

I only wanted an answer to two simple questions:

1. Are there any new phones that have both a QWERTY Keyboard, and full-size touch screen?
2. Why is the iPhone 5 cheaper than the iPhone 4 when looking to upgrade?

Now, I clicked the Live 'Help' button to try and start a chat. I had to wait 16 minutes before the chat agent connected. Upon connecting, I was still waiting a further 3 minutes after saying 'Hi' to at least initiate a conversation. After a fairly obviously scripted greeting from the agent, I proceeded to state I am aware of my Upgrade date being in a few months time, but I want to know the answer to question 1.

A few minutes pass with no response...

I question the agents presence to which the agent states "Please provide the 3rd and 4th characters of your security answer."

Considering nearly every site you register to these days requests you answer a numerous amount of security questions, the 3rd and 4th characters could quite simply be any character just about going... So I take a stab at assuming it's two digits, and proceed on stating I'm aware my Upgrade date is in May, and I'm just looking in to the phones now to see what may be on offer when I come to upgrade...
A long pause occurs again.
"Please provide the 3rd and 4th characters of your security answer."
Again, I'm now left puzzled as to what the question is, so ask "What is the security question?"
Another 3-4 minutes pass of no response...
"Hello?"
"Sorry for the delay..."
What exactly is the agent doing in this time frame? I've now been awaiting Live 'Help' for about 40 minutes and I've received absolutely no help what-so-ever.
I wait again for the security question but instead receive. "What is your full name and date of birth?"
I provide the answer promptly, but have to wait further...

Finally a response comes back saying "Perfect."... thanks for the confidence boost. I was really unsure on whether I could get my own name and date of birth correct. However, shortly after that, I did finally get the security question and again provided the answer promptly to which a reply was "Please wait while I access your account."

To make a point, I was extremely puzzled as to why my account even needed opening; had the agent read my opening question at the start, they'd have full-well known there wasn't a need to check my account for anything.

However, another 5 or so minutes pass and eventually I get the return statement:

"You're not due an upgrade until 22nd May 2013, please contact us again closer to the time of your upgrade."

I'm sorry, but after spending nearly 50 minutes waiting around for a response like that, it's absolutely appauling. I full well knew my own upgrade date, I'd stated it straight to the agent right at the beginning of the conversation. It was a simple question I asked to people around my office while at work and they didn't **bleep** about for 50 minutes before telling me absolutely nothing to do with my question, and they're not 'professionals' for a mobile phone network company.

Finally when the agent decides to actually read what I have to say (or so I thought), I asked the first question of whether there are any phones O2 provides for contract upgrade with a Touch Screen and QWERTY Keyboard, he simply has the audacity to say "What phone are you looking at in particular?" - If I had bloody known what phone I should be looking at, I wouldn't have spent the best part of an hour sat waiting for responses off possibly the worst customer services agent I've ever known!!!

I've worked on a helpdesk before for quite a while, and I've never once been that robotic to stick to scripted responses. If the customer asked me a question, I provided them with the best possible answer to their question, or if I didn't know, I'd find out. I find it absolutely mind-numbing that the agent couldn't just spend 10 seconds and read my question, provide me with any answer other than the automated responses he threw at me, and then he could have gone back to whatever the hell it was that was clearly keeping his attention more than his customer. It should have been a 3 minute conversation in total. I wouldn't have minded waiting 16 minutes to even get into the chat had I come away with the answer, but I actually got so ticked off I closed the chat nearly an hour into the entirely painful scenario.

If that's what you call Customer Services, I'll gladly be looking elsewhere for an upgrade if it can't be improved. I hope I never actually receive a problem with any network services because I'd have to probably take a day off work just to get a response from O2's CS department.

Absolutely disgusted.

[Anonymous]

The live helpdesk is not UK based, they are provided with a scipted response to most questions. 

To be fair the time it took you to complain on here you could have just asked the forum or alternatively looked through the phones on the website.

[Bambino]

There have been numerous threads here in the forum complaining about the web chat service. Had you come here first you may have seen them and not wasted your time. You might also have saved yourself some time by just calling Customer Services on 202. There can be a wait for that at times too, but at least you would have been able to actually speak to someone.

[Anonymous]

Livechat are useless and should be shut down and trained

[Anonymous]

On the contrary, I want the complaint at least known. I'm surprised O2 don't even have an email address to send any complaints to, but then, they clearly don't want to hear any complaints at all, considering this is the only relevant place that asks for feedback.

It also shouldn't matter at all where the Live Help is based. If they're providing a service to support UK Customers, they should be actually able to have a conversation with a UK customer.

I've actually done all my other research into the latest smart phones today. I did it all on Google as I was recommended by a colleague instead of using the Live Help. I figured talking to someone I'd have thought would at least have some credible knowledge on phones would be better than spending an afternoon looking at outdated articles on the internet... If I'd have known how wrong I would have been saying that, I'd have just done what he said initially.

[Bambino]

The only people you're complaining to here is other customers. There are a few contributors on the forum who work for O2. You can tell who they are in their signatures, but their opinions are their own, and not O2 policy. If you want to make a formal complaint, use this link:

http://service.o2.co.uk/IQ/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE?New,Kb=Companion,question=ref%28User%29:str%28Mob...

[MI5]

We've raised the issue of live chat many times on here and it does seem to be getting worse just lately.... certainly not any better that's for sure. Feedback is encouraged and this is one of the outlets for customers to vent... I just hope that it gets fedback to the appropriate departments....? However, in future, as said already, do come here first. O2's customers are much more knowledgeable than their chat operators, unfortunately 😞

[Anonymous]

I am still confused as to why you would spend an afternoon on Google or to that matter need to speak to anybody to answer your questions. 

All the answers you need are on the website. All you have to do is go into the shop section and look at the phones.

[Anonymous]

probably just looking to rant feels like its other peoples jobs to find him a handset

[Anonymous]

Steersy

I am still confused as to why you would spend an afternoon on Google or to that matter need to speak to anybody to answer your questions.

All the answers you need are on the website. All you have to do is go into the shop section and look at the phones.

 __________

I don't know anything about the new smart phones... considering there wasn't a single phone (I didn't look at Blackberrys, they're simple too small ergonomically to consider them as keyboard phones) that listed a feature having a full QWERTY Keyboard so I wanted to verify that there were indeed no phones that had both a full size touch screen, and a flip out QWERTY keyboard.

=================

Stuart1983

probably just looking to rant feels like its other peoples jobs to find him a handset

 ____________

Well to be fair actually, I work as a server support engineer for a government account. When the government phones me up with a server issue, they expect me to fix the issue, or provide a reasonable explanation as to why the fault has occurred.

I'm on a mobile network service owner's website, talking to their customer service sales department with a query about the phones they're selling...
Forgive me if I completely missed the point there, but shouldn't they know about their products they're selling?

And to be honest, that isn't even the point... I wouldn't have had a rant if they didn't know the answer. It's the fact it took like 45 minutes of my time up, to receive no answer at all other than scripted responses.