Ridiculous Customer Service

[Anonymous]

hi, so I decided to contact O2 on their live chat, just to discuss my bill & why it seems to constantly be high.

Now, i know i do buy a few things with my mobile, but adding charges to my account that I didn't agree is out of order.

anyway, i was talking to a customer advisor & he adviced me how I can look at my bill, after saying the charges don't add up he passed me onto a floor manager called Richard. 

Richard: Hi Josh

Richard: I'm Richard - the Floor manager 

Josh: Hi

(About 5 minutes pass I was expecting him to reply)

Richard:I haven't heard from you for a while. Are you still there?

Josh: I was waiting for you to talk to me

Josh: It's about my bill, it seems higher than what I've added it upto

Richard: Let me check the details. Please stay online.

(another 5 minutes passes or so)

Richard: Whats your full name?

Josh: Josh ------

Richard: Thanks.

Richard: Please can you tell me the 1st & 3rd character of you security answer?

Josh: I've already done this..

Josh: *Provides answer*

(another lovely 5 minute wait)

Josh: well?

O2 has ended this chat session.

I find this absoultly ridiculous. Ridiculous waits between each message then he randomnly ends the chat?

I'm actually really annoyed by this right now, contemplating canceling my direct debit as they can't seem to spare the time to talk to a customer..

[Bambino]

I agree with you that we don't see the Live Chat successes. They rarely come to the forum to post good experiences. I don't unfortunately, share your optimism about the service getting better. When people come here to complain we do not tell them to try to go back to chat and try again. We tell them to call customer services, because we know that chat can't deal with anything other than low level enquiries.

[Anonymous]

I just wanted to chime in to say that I've always had a proper resolution from Live Chat whenever I have used them, even to the point of having the discount that should have been applied to my account when I got my new phone in store actually applied to my account!

Live Chat is obviously a bit hit and miss depending on who you end up connecting to, but I think that because they are essentially working from a script alot of the time, it can be difficult to resolve more complicated queries. I think its obvious from some of the transcripts we have seen that alot of the advisors dont have English as their first language which will again cause problems with understanding customers jargon and dialect.

Its also not acceptable that we as a community are having to provide essentially a 2nd level support for alot of people who are having to no luck from the Live Chat advisors when trying to resolve a problem.

I know when I try and sort someone's problem on here, if I don't know the answer, the first thing I do is Google the problem! Is there a reason why the Live Chat advisors arent allowed to do that?

[Anonymous]

The only issue with google is that a lot of the information from it is also from forums and even though the information can be correct they have to IMO air on the side of caution.

[Anonymous]

All of this is true and an advser is only as good as the training they are given. I have had good and bad experience with online chat. However the point of your bill will need to be addressed by calling 202, get your online details so you can view any recent charges or future bills on your PC/Mac. O2, however, do not just randomly charge customers. These charges are usually attributed to calling any 08/09 numbers(the only free one is to O2, and some DSS numbers) or premium sms services. This is from experience. People forget they have rung the bank or insurance companies. 202 is a much better experience and if you are using web chat there is no reason why a person cannot look at their own bills. And yes, not paying you DD is not advisable as your credit rating is like the Holy Grail and takes 6 years to clear bad debts.

[Anonymous]

The live can't advisors shouldn't have to use google they should know what they are doing and they clearly don't why won't O2 see this and do something about it

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
The live can't advisors shouldn't have to use google they should know what they are doing and they clearly don't why won't O2 see this and do something about it

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Sorry, but I have to disagree! How is every advisor supposed to know about every operating system and every phone that O2 supply?  An idea might be to have specialist teams who can assist with Android, iOS, Windows and BlackBerry OS queries, and then others that handle the hardware for each manufacturer. Customers could then be connected to the correct team depending on their problem.

As for account queries, etc yes they should be simple enough, but as already mentioned I think language can be a huge barrier when trying to solve customer queries. The advisors can also only be as good as the scripts they are given.

[Bambino]

Apart from the language barrier from the people working in chat, there are a lot of customers whose first language isn't English (or if it is, you could fool me with the way some of them post questions). 

[Anonymous]

Guys,

I think we can find common ground here and agree that Live Chat has its uses and also some problems.

[Rycal]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
The live can't advisors shouldn't have to use google they should know what they are doing and they clearly don't why won't O2 see this and do something about it

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Sorry, but I have to disagree! How is every advisor supposed to know about every operating system and every phone that O2 supply?  An idea might be to have specialist teams who can assist with Android, iOS, Windows and BlackBerry OS queries, and then others that handle the hardware for each manufacturer. Customers could then be connected to the correct team depending on their problem.

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I couldnt agree more. Using Google isnt an ideal way for advisors to handle webchat, for one its time consuming and also youre never 100% sure if the information you are getting online is correct. The webchat team are well-trained, exactly how well im not sure but I have heard of highly regarded store Gurus who have been sent there to oversee their training. They should also at some point have access to the Guru database to help with enquiries, this database covers pretty much everything from which firmware is available for which phone to how to diagnose faults.

Livechat isnt perfect but lets not forget this is a free service which does actually help a lot of customers, its just not always suited to dealing with complaints and customers with very technical enquiries. At least not yet.