Upgrade chaos and customer service failures

[Disgruntled_Vet]

I have been an O2 customer for about 15 years. Up until 13/6/24 I have been a big fan and loved the service and offerings.

No longer. At about 11am on 13/6 I wanted to upgrade my phone. I used the chat facility in the MyO2 app. I spent 4 painful hours to get to completion. The representative said I will send you an email with a link to sign your new contract etc. it might take an hour.

 I checked my email 90 minutes later, no email. I checked the app to track the order, guess what? It had been cancelled and no one told me.

 I called customer service and asked WTF? They said oops there’s no record of why the link wasn’t sent. I then went through the rigmarole of a new process, which included a second credit check and payment for the residue of my current phone agreement for it to fail again. 

I asked for a manager and did it all for a third time. Even agreeing compensation at a reasonable level after being offered a derisory £50 (I had been trying for about 8 hours by this time). They then told me that there was a problem with their system and they needed to call me back the next morning at 1130, it was 8pm at this point.

Overnight I got three emails saying they had cancelled my direct debit.

At 1206 on 14/6 I had not heard from them. So I called back.  Strangely enough there’s no record of the conversation with the manager. I asked the representative to transfer me to the UK retention office. They tell me that they can’t. So I ask for another manager, knowing that a representative cannot authorise the compensation previously agreed.

this manager puts me on hold to read my file and hangs up.  All of these phone calls have been with a call centre in the Philippines.

 I am absolutely furious by this point and call back. Getting a very good chap in the Indian call centre. He immediately puts me through to the UK when I ask.

I then get a nice chap called Dave, who goes through the process again as apparently it needs to be a new call . But when I mention the original compensation agreement he has to talk to his manager. Understandable. 

The manager refuses to uphold the original compensation agreement and won’t offer anything more than £50 on my account.

This for what is now about 9.5 hours of pain, stress, aggravation and three credit checks. I of course cancel my contract and ask for a PAC code.

 I then go to Vodafone and get exactly what I want in 30 minutes.

This is why O2 will never see another penny of my money. Since the merger with Virgin Media, the customer service has become nonexistent.

[Enlli]

Yep, they were on the way down before Virgin but it has escalated since.

[pgn]

Or perhaps descended further into the abyss, @Enlli 😉

[gmarkj]

Think there is quite a lot of feedback that needs to be taken on this @Dave-O2 ...

[Enlli]

@gmarkj Quite frankly we have had a few of these lately from long term customers.

Simple tasks made impossible 

One long term customer spent many frustrating hours with O2 only to go to EE and get sorted in 30 minutes.

Not much Dave can do, he can pass things on but will be ignored

[theorg]

I've just tried to renew my Business deal for another 2yrs. Nice/polite enough people on the other end (all in India far as could tell) but seems O2 really, really don't want my money.  

side note: every one of the three (overly) long calls I was forced to have dropped out around 20 mins in. Either O2 service my end (it does vary wildly from 1 to 4 bars at my desk just sitting in same position) or I think more likely the call centre as it sounded like one guy was on the local bus when we spoke. Each time the agent called back at some point but my phone didn't ring, just came up as missed call a few mins later (tho possibly my phone settings I guess)

I think I have a new deal?, I got a summary email & summary letter pdf "here's the deal summary you must call back and confirm within 4 days" (why not just send a link to accept the deal?). I called again. The agent had literally no idea what I was talking about re: confirming a deal. They said it looks like I have a new deal already running. (nothing shows in my online account for any of the above yet, just an old deal that ended 2022).

I also requested a 5G sim, told it was being ordered three times on calls, still unsure if it is, no emails confirmed and nothing showing in my online business account. Each agent couldn't see the last's order. Hopefully something turns up. (probably 3 sims)

tdlr: I'm assuming I have a new contract and maybe a 5g sim coming, who knows, lets wait and see what turns up/gets taken from my bank

O2 has always felt convoluted with their web system and I've mostly managed to avoid support but feels like anyone who knew internal process has left and temp workers are expected to be the sales team and figure it out themselves, all a bit nuts.

[madasaf1sh]

TBH @theorg that is part the problem, cheap outsourced call centres in South Africa, India and Philipinnes who are basically trained for 5 minutes and then let loose on VMo2's customers and always on trying to upsell.. 

I had one the other day when I asked when I could do something and they couldnt even work out 90 days and the answer was just June , and when I said when in June the answer was I dont deal with this, so dont know...  

CS has gone to the dogs, and even the Social Media team seem to be very hit and more miss.., leaving dm's and posts tagging them from over 24hrs and even then they dont reply, unless told to be more senior people in o2..