The Official Live Chat Feedback thread

[Toby]

Hi guys,

Many of you have no doubt used the O2’s ‘chat’ service from time to time for all kinds of support queries. We also held a Virtual Interview recently with Richard Clarke, our Head of our Digital Service, where he answered some great questions from you.

Off the back of this session, we thought it was great opportunity to hear from you on how you think the chat service is doing and if there is anything we can do better in terms of resolution time, accuracy of info and the general experience. This has been done before on the community for TU Go and its incredibly useful for the team to hear about what’s going well with the service, what can be improved and if you have great ideas.

This is your chance to get have your voice heard and we’ll do our best to report back with changes and improvements that we make based on your suggestions.

While this is an open discussion there are some guidelines that you need to keep in mind when you make a comment:

- If you want to sort out a personal query, please create a thread in the community and you’ll get some great advice from other members. Any personal query posts will be moved and a thread will be created for them.

- Please do not mention any chat advisors by name. If they are posted, they will be edited.

- If you have a transcript of a chat session that helps with your point, please try to avoid using them and instead make a comment on the experience itself. If a transcript is absolutely essential, please only post what you need to (i.e. a few sentences).

I really look forward to hearing from you and what can be done off of the back of your suggestions.

Toby

[Anonymous]

Yesterday I had a really negative experience on the 'chat' facility which has quite honestly negated any positive experience I have had.  I have been a customer of O2 for over 10 years, I do not really contact customer service or sign into my online account as I pay by direct debit and I get a text as to how much my bill is.

Yesterday however I needed to contact customer services as I recently moved and I needed to changed my postal address.  5-10 Minutes after I had been on the 'chat' facility I received a text message to say my user name for my online account had been changed and to contact O2 if I had not authorised this, I went on 'chat' again as I had not authorised this and not requested it.  Whilst I was on the chat facility for the 2nd time I received another message to advise that my password had been changed.  At this point I did not trust the chat facility at all so called the customer services number where I spoke to someone in the South Africa call centre.  He wasn't able to tell me a great deal and advised that he would call be back today once he had 'looked into it'  Not suprisingly I got no call today so I contacted the customer services department again.  Having spent 30 minutes on the phone to a manager at the outsourced call centre and getting nowhere, I asked to speak to a local manager.  During this call it was established that the person that changed my address had managed to do so without leaving a 'footprint' in the account and they had left no notes so they had no idea who it was.  Not great data protection.  I believe it was this person that has changed my account details.  O2 do not seem to be taking this seriously, this is a serious breach of data protection.  For my data to be transferred outside of the EEA it needs to be shown that the data is protected with the same diligence as it is in the UK.  This is clearly not the case with O2 and I will be reporting this issue to the ICO.

Disgusting!

[Anonymous]

Hi Toby,

I was supposed to hear from O2 on June 9th. They needed 2 weeks to get all this sorted and said they would refund me for double charging me since January.

I have not heard from O2 and can not see that I have received any money back on my account.

I would post the entire chat here but as you don't want O2 staff's names posted on this community, I will not do that.
Before I start chatted with someone for 2-3hrs for the fifth time, please let me know if someone can contact me directly or how to proceed. I'm REALLY just looking to get this sorted.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Hi MI5,

as I'm new to the UK I told the sales guy that I wanted to keep the number I have but switch to a monthly contract.. 
I never requested a new sim card, but I didn't question ireceiving a new sim card, as I assumed that was a O2 procedure to get a new sim card with the same number.
It's only when I received the new sim card with a different number, that I realised there was a misunderstanding, which they weren't willing to fix cause they said I had ordered it and I had to explain that I explicitly stated I wanted to stop topping up, switch to amonthly and keep my number. I don't know how hard that is to understand even though I don't know the O2 procedures?

I have still not heard from O2, they said they would be in touch June 9th (two weeks processing since the last 2hr chat I had with them) and I have mailed the O2 complaints department as I've been double billed again. 
This is the 5th time I was told, they fixed my problem via Live chat support and yet nothing has happened (again).

[Anonymous]

It was OK at the o2 store.  The fellow who helped me learn about my smart phone was excellent and the tutorials are a great idea.  On the basis of that I signed a contract with o2.  I had problems with my phone yesterday and ended up having to make expenses 800 calls (unrelated matter) because the folk that had to call me couldn't get through and the internet had stopped working so I had no way of finding the non 0800 numbers.  Long story.  Anyway took the phone to the o2 store.  Young woman put a different sim card in and played around and got it working.  Today got a 'bill' via my phone for £22 -- included $12 for the 800 calls I'd been forced to make due to the device developing a fault.  I called the chat, asked them to explain the bill.  I couldn't get into the itemized bill that came via text on my device.  To access it I had to enter my phone number then look for a  'code',  then deal with a new message asking for my phone number and to look for a 'code', (10 times.) I got 10 different code numbers.    Decided to ask Chat to explain my bill to me.    Cut a long story short the chat line was useless, unsympathetic, I kept getting cut off and had to go in again.  Eventually they put me through to the 'manager of chat services'  who seemed intent on proving I was lying about my experience.  Thankfully still on cooling off period for my contract.  It will be cancelled.

 o2 -- is your highly paid CEO out there, somewhere,  listening?  Hey Mr Chief Executive Officer have you heard of something called 'customer service'?  Have you ever tried using your own 'service' system?  Does anyone know the easy way to contact the regulatory body?  As far as I am concerned o2's service is so bad it's selling services that are 'unfit for purpose'.  the regulators need to cut some teeth.  

[MI5]

Live chat are not the best - we've been saying that on here for years, but no one listens to us 😞 However, reading through your post I actually think that most of the issues are due to you misunderstanding how phones work (on top of your admittance at calling paid for 0800 numbers).
It will be best if you start a new thread per issue so we can work through them one by one with you

[Anonymous]

No the issue is not the 800 numbers.  That came up when I dialed them.  I knew it was going to cost.  And the issue is not even that the smart phone I bought from o2 3 weeks ago developed a fault after I went on to a contract (and got a new sim card) a fault that meant  that I saw calls coming in, but couldn't  reply to them, they'd 'drop' almost instantly, couldn't text, couldn't use the internet to find a number to call about the urgent situation at the premises where I had gone to look at the flat I'm moving into.  I found the Scottish Gas and Scottish power 800 numbers in a trash can on the premises and those were the only numbers I had .  The phone still worked for outgoing 800 calls.  I paid to listen to queue music for hours, and sent to wrong department etc.   But that is not really the issue, although it was all very upsetting.  

 I got a phone bill on my appliance this morning and couldn't get into it.  I got a £22 bill two days after beginning my £9 a month contract (I bought my phone outright).  And even that wasn't the issue, although it was annoying.  A major issue for me is that I couldn't read the phone bill.  There is some balmy system where the bill is sent to me but I can't open it without putting in my phone number (the phone they are sending the bill to, the phone the contract is for)  OK I pay direct debit for everything.  My laptop asks for a password.  But  I  had set up a password for my contract  at the o2 shop.. But that wasn't asked for.  I  dutifully I put in the phone number.  Then I'm sent a Code number which I have to enter somewhere.  I go back to enter it and find I have to enter my phone number again and, yes I get another code!  and write it down, and go back to the page and yes.  I have to enter my phone number again, and get another different code from the o2 robot.  Repeat and rinse x 20.

So I decide to  short cut to the friendly chat system and ask them to go over the bill.  I won't recount here the whole 2 hour story.  I talk to the manager in the end and tell him about the bill and suggest that this is a good tiime to waive, maybe £9 of next month as some compensation for my time, trouble and horrible technical problems yesterday.  (BTW I finally walked to the o2 store yesterday and they fixed my phone with another sim card.  It took a while and they thought it might have to go for repair.  But that's another story).  Back to Mr. Chat Manager.  He told me no compensation.  So sad.  Too bad.  I pay the whole shot.  o2 are not responsible for acts of God.  I explain that I am getting on in years and deserve a little slack.  He has a policy to follow.  I don't really matter.  I'm just a customer!

You know, companies which are customer service oriented do provide little compensation packets when a customer has a bad experience.  I've had it from talk talk from a department they call the loyalty programme .  They want to keep me as a customer.

 So here is the issue.  o2  is not interested in providing anymore than the bare minimum of service. That is very clear.  They want to make a profit.  And hey!  Nothing wrong with that.  We live in a market driven society adn benefit from it. .  One of the functions of a business is to make a profit.  But a good business also provides an excellent service, and compensates and trains its employees adequately so they are effective and motivated.  

I don't have a complaint against the seven or eight chat team people I talked to  tonight.  Even the manager, who was a bit of a dick, has my sympathy.  He had to talk to me and I was not in a good mood, and when I'm really annoyed I'm not much fun to talk to.  And he'd no fruit basket to offer me to amelierate my distress.  He said No and No again.  You will pay the whole bill.  No little sop to keep me sweet.  No waiving of my months £9.  

Since I wrote the  first note, I've had yet another two hours with the chat team uncovering now the complexities of contract termination and direct debit termination and how the final bill fits in.  I got a few different answers and couldn't let it go until I had one definite answer.  The contract is a legal instrument and o2 have my bank details.  They were actually quite lovely.  Tried to help me.  Poor sods.

So here is the issue.  o2 needs to hire senior executives who know what they are doing.  My case and the others I've read here are symptoms of a business that is in trouble.  Don't blame the call centre staff.  That's kicking the dog when you need to jail the owners.  You can guess how my issue with o2 is resolved.  

[Janiite]

I just finished using Live Chat, and overall my poblem was solved with a little bit of luck, but the one thing I got  little annoyed about was that the person chatting with me did not seem to be able to answer two questions in the same message? As in, I asked whether it is possible to top-up with a foreign card and whether I could top-up using a cash machine (I had a problem with topping up online and was recommended waiting 24 hours, but I needed to do it urgently). I got the reply for the foreign card thing, but no answer for topping up using the cash machine.

I asked again, but I guess my mistake was commenting before asking? As in, "oh, that must have been my mistake. So, can I top-up using the cash machine without waiting the 24 hours?" or something, and again - NO REPLY!!! Then, when my boyfriend had already done the top-up via the cash machine and everything was solved, I get a question about if I need more help. I say no, that I did ask about the cash machine thing but it got solved, and THIS is when I get a reply on HOW to do it, not IF I can?!?

That did annoy me to no end, but overall I did find the service very good, because i understood what the problem was before.

[Cleoriff]

@Anonymous 

What an absolutely dreadful experience. I just want to say congratulations on your post ...one of the most articulate I have read for a long time.

I hope you don't mind but there were parts of it that made me laugh out loud...thank god for your sense of humour. It was this paragraph that had me spitting me tea over the screen of my laptop

"I don't have a complaint against the seven or eight chat team people I talked to  tonight.  Even the manager, who was a bit of a dick, has my sympathy.  He had to talk to me and I was not in a good mood, and when I'm really annoyed I'm not much fun to talk to.  And he'd no fruit basket to offer me to amelierate my distress.  He said No and No again.  You will pay the whole bill.  No little sop to keep me sweet.  No waiving of my months £9. "

Even the manager who was a bit of a dick  Absolutely classic...

Although I really sympathise with your horror story, I thank you for giving me a damn good laugh

I do hope things get resolved for you.:smileyhappy:

[Anonymous]

To be honest @Anonymous I lost interest half way through. There was a lot of waffle in there and I still haven't really got to grips with what the issues are.

I agree with @Cleoriff there were some funny comments but perhaps you could bullet point what the issues are and what solutions you would like to see if we can help?

Sorry I don't intend to be dismissive or rude, we all want to help.

[Cleoriff]

Thing is @Anonymous  this is actually a Live Chat feedback thread and perhaps Anne was doing just that......giving us her feedback experience of Live Chat?

That is how I understood it......