O2 Live Chat - The Worst

[BizBaz]

Apologies - this is mainly a rant .... but just how frustrating is it trying to get any customer service out of O2? It's the worst experience out of all the utility companies I use. Can it be that O2 do this on purpose to make it difficult for users to make any changes to their contract? that's all I can put it down to.

I'm currently on a SIM only deal and I just wanted to get a better deal - more data for a lower price - which I could see that O2 offer to new customers via USwitch.

Of course you can't email them (or I couldn't find an email address) but I thought that the Live Chat would be even better than that - surely it would only take 10 minutes or so to find out if the deal could be matched and, if so, get it all set up?

WRONG! I am now 1 hour and 3 minutes into a teeth-grindingly frustrating process. It's not that the person on the other end is slow to respond, they are actually very quick. It's the whole process. To start with they cannot just address the question "can you, or can you not, match this deal?" without first "discussing my needs" (simple, I need this better deal) and then "discussing my suitability" (what?) and then "discussing the contract termination process" (presumably to show how mind-bogglingly hard it is to leave). And on, and on, and on. Face to face I would expect this to take 20 minutes tops (maybe my original 10 minutes was optimistic).

So it turns out that they CAN match the deal. Great, just apply it to the account and we're done. But no, a whole raft of question after question about what extras I want (Disney+ etc).

Now we are at the point of asking me about marketing. So I said straight up "exclude me from all marketing, special offer updates and the like, from O2 and from 3rd parties". Was this enough? No, we have to go through a series of questions answering "No" to each one.

And this is not to mention the occasional "mandatory" questions about other products. Do I want a JBL Tune 130NC TWS Earbuds? (followed by 2 more messages with details about these things that I have not asked about. No I don't, I just want to get through this process.  So then I asked whether we can skip these sort of things and move on to finish up and he says "It's a mandate details and without sharing them I won't place the order". Great.

Rant over ..... but the Live Chat is not yet finished!

[Enlli]

For future reference you can simply get a deal from the likes of a comparison website and then (provide you are out of minimum contract) migrate your present number across

Guide: Migration & porting into O2  

[Rob17252783838]

I’ve literally just cancelled my contract for that reason. At least you actually got to talk to someone, I was never that lucky!

all I wanted was my number porting (form wasn’t working) and then I wanted to ask a couple of simple questions about the Apple Watch. 
nothing worked so I went back to giffgaff who are exemplary with there customer service. Luckily O2 still hadn’t ported my number over so there uselessness became actually quite useful!!

[AlexanderMTTH]

Some of these policies, do seem to take forever. At least you found the chat. Last year, it took me about 3-4 hours to have the LiveChat function available. And even finding a number to contact seemed like a pain, let alone actually speaking with someone. All in all, how did it go? Did you finish the questionnaires and the mandatory questions designed by someone that, I suspect, has not tried once the process they designed?  

[Pipstop78]

I've never had a problem with live chat think 02 are ruddy fantastic 

[AlexanderMTTH]

Neither did I once I managed to speak to someone. It's not about the people, it's about HOW you talk to someone. And if... 

[Patricia1066]

I have just joined o2 from Plusnet, and Virginmedia set me up with a cracking deal through retention. The agent went through the script just as you described. It's intended to notify you of your obligations and rights under the contract. 

Since then, I have ported my number successfully and found the service is as good as Plusnet just a better combined deal with VOLT.

Now Plusnet took 2 months to correctly close my account, and that's apparently normal for UK phone services.

Don't ask how difficult it is to change services in Italy, your brain will bleed!