3Man
08-12-2003, 03:09 PM
Ex-staff blast 3 service
FORMER call centre staff at the Hutchison Telecommunications 3 network have lashed out at the company, slamming poor technical support and claiming customer complaints were regularly ignored.
Callers to 3's help number would complain of bad service and network problems, but there was little operators could do to help them, former staffers said.
The Australian IT last week reported customers complaining of regular dropouts and coverage problems on 3, which was launched in April in Sydney and Melbourne and in July in Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
A former Brisbane Hutchison customer service staffer who was laid off when the company moved most of its call centre work to India, said he was astounded that the Mumbai staff logged, but did not attempt to follow up, customer complaints.
The experienced call centre operator said customers were often ignored by the Indian staff.
"You could call up 10 times in one day and there would be notes saying 'customer says cannot make calls' but nothing would be done," he said.
The Brisbane call centre staff often met a similar response from 3's Sydney operation. The company's warehouse, for example, regularly ignored requests for replacement handsets.
Fault reports often languished in cyberspace.
"If we sent an email we would know nothing would happen," the former staffer said.
Hutchison has vigorously rejected the allegations, but would not comment on the substance of the claims, labelling the staff "short-term temporary contract workers".
"It is difficult for a company to comment on allegations in the media by former short-term temporary contract workers," said Hutchison stakeholder relations director Steve Wright. "I do not intend to try to respond.
"I do not intend to go through the same litany of complaints like we did last week, but what they said is not true."
Another former call centre operator labelled Hutchison's internal communication "pathetic", and said reports were often ignored.
"Generally, the technical support response was poor, and there were major delays in fixing faults," he said.
"We felt that lodging a fault report was a waste of time, because it would sit there for weeks."
Some calls were marked as resolved even when they were not, he said.
"They had a policy that they would ring the customers two or three times and then if they couldn't get in touch with them, they'd close the fault and mark it resolved," he said.
Operators were constantly fending off increasingly angry customers with scripts that demanded they "pacify" callers.
They had plenty of problems to handle. In October the Perth network was out for the entire weekend, one of the former staffers said, and at one stage Melbourne had one-way voice for a week, so customers could hear a caller, but could not speak to them.
A third former staffer, who worked at 3's Brisbane call centre for eight months, heard many tales of woe from clients.
"I remember speaking with customers with problems much worse than those described in last week's article in The Australian," he said.
"The most serious I had was a customer saying he had lost a $60,000 contract because of the poor service."
One former staffer said Hutchison gave call centre staff a script that implied each customer's problem was unique to them, and was unexpected.
"We had scripts to say to the customer that it was a new company, and it was equivalent to the problems of the GSM launch," he said.
"We would say the GSM network had the same problems, that they should bear with it, and we were trying to fix the problems, that the problems were unexpected and would be fixed soon."
One of the former staffers said Hutchison had sacrificed strong coverage for geographic reach, spreading its towers too thinly so it could claim broader coverage.
"They used lots of One.Tel towers and sacrificed strong coverage to spread it out," he said. "As a result, there were lots of dropouts if you were up high, because the signal was not strong up there.
"It's a weaker signal than GSM, and they need to have more towers to get the same signal strength."
One of the former staffers said handset problems — including one NEC handset — also led to complaints.
"We had people who were all excited, but then experienced huge problems," he said.
Former call centre staff also said salespeople glossed over coverage problems.
"We used to hate the store staff, because we knew they were giving out wrong information and brushing over coverage issues," one of the former employees said.
"Customers would say they had been shown a coverage map but, for example, they would be located next to a blackspot."
One of the staffers who spent time at Hutchison's Valued Customer Group — its last line of defence against angry customers — said the experience was an eye-opener.
"We got people who could have been helped in the first place," he said.
Customers were shown coverage maps, he said, but coverage areas changed regularly, and customers who had coverage one week would not be covered the next.
"The stores would sell a phone to a customer even if they were five metres from a blackspot," he said.
"The minute it starts raining, of course, the coverage decreases."
Hutchison's Mr Wright rejected the claims.
"I reject the claim the network inadequacies you have described are true," he said.
"The service we have delivered to customers has been strongly improving in recent times. Customer complaints are resolved, or we provide them with the opportunity to leave the service at no cost if they feel they have not been resolved."
The growing chorus of complaints is likely to put more pressure on Hutchison, which is majority-owned by the giant Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa.
Hutchison Telecommunications Australia's 2003 half-yearly report shows a net loss after tax of $129.4 million.
Hutchison puts the 3 results down to "start-up losses consistent with the business's early stage of development".
The parent company has invested billions in spectrum and hardware, and is now under pressure to show results.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you do everything in threes?
By the script: instructions to 3 call centre operators
Scenario 195: Coverage problems
Q: Your coverage is so lousy! I tell ya it's so patchy near where I live that you just can't actually use the phone on the move. They never said this would happen on the TV ads or in the shop.
A: Call centre agent will attempt to resolve complaint by reviewing history and troubleshooting complaint. CCA may log call fault report for network fault or direct to point of sale if handset is identified as faulty. If unable to pacify customer the CCA will escalate call to Team Leader.
Scenario 200: Number porting problems
Q:Look — I've bought the phone, I've registered, I've charged it up, I've swung from the flipping chandelier — when is it going to work?
A:CCA will open port instance locator and find customer mobile number portability details. If the port has exceeded four-hour service level agreement, CCA will create a CFR to escalate case.
Scenario 202: Service problems
Q:Do you do everything in 3's? Like leave me waiting in a queue for three minutes, make me speak to three people instead of one? Send me three phones when I order one? Are there three people who could help me now!
A:CCA will pacify customer and identify customer complaint. Troubleshoot with customer using Ask 3.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Give it a chance: Ericsson
THE vendor that built Hutchison Telecommunications's 3 network has defended its technology, saying customers cannot expect perfect coverage from day one.
Ericsson, which is one of three global suppliers to Hutchison and built the Australian network, says coverage will continue to improve.
"Coverage and capacity is a commercial and marketing positioning decision," Ericsson marketing and business development director Tony Malligeorgos said.
"You can't expect to have covered every area in an initial roll-out. It takes time to do that. You can't just expect it in six months."
Mr Malligeorgos said coverage inside building was particularly difficult when constructing a new network.
"Think about when GSM first rolled out," he said.
"Indoor coverage wasn't available everywhere."
More towers are required for a 3G network than for a 2G network, because it operates at 2.1GHz, compared with between 90 and 1800MHz.
"The converse of this is that you have increased capacity on the network," Mr Malligeorgos said.
Telecommunications analyst Paul Budde said carriers normally built up a network's reach as their customer base increased.
"You know you have a service that won't attract millions of customers immediately," he said.
"So you can't deploy a system with the capacity to service one million people immediately."
Source : Australian IT (http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,8105863%5E15320%5E%5Enbv%5E15306,00.html)
FORMER call centre staff at the Hutchison Telecommunications 3 network have lashed out at the company, slamming poor technical support and claiming customer complaints were regularly ignored.
Callers to 3's help number would complain of bad service and network problems, but there was little operators could do to help them, former staffers said.
The Australian IT last week reported customers complaining of regular dropouts and coverage problems on 3, which was launched in April in Sydney and Melbourne and in July in Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
A former Brisbane Hutchison customer service staffer who was laid off when the company moved most of its call centre work to India, said he was astounded that the Mumbai staff logged, but did not attempt to follow up, customer complaints.
The experienced call centre operator said customers were often ignored by the Indian staff.
"You could call up 10 times in one day and there would be notes saying 'customer says cannot make calls' but nothing would be done," he said.
The Brisbane call centre staff often met a similar response from 3's Sydney operation. The company's warehouse, for example, regularly ignored requests for replacement handsets.
Fault reports often languished in cyberspace.
"If we sent an email we would know nothing would happen," the former staffer said.
Hutchison has vigorously rejected the allegations, but would not comment on the substance of the claims, labelling the staff "short-term temporary contract workers".
"It is difficult for a company to comment on allegations in the media by former short-term temporary contract workers," said Hutchison stakeholder relations director Steve Wright. "I do not intend to try to respond.
"I do not intend to go through the same litany of complaints like we did last week, but what they said is not true."
Another former call centre operator labelled Hutchison's internal communication "pathetic", and said reports were often ignored.
"Generally, the technical support response was poor, and there were major delays in fixing faults," he said.
"We felt that lodging a fault report was a waste of time, because it would sit there for weeks."
Some calls were marked as resolved even when they were not, he said.
"They had a policy that they would ring the customers two or three times and then if they couldn't get in touch with them, they'd close the fault and mark it resolved," he said.
Operators were constantly fending off increasingly angry customers with scripts that demanded they "pacify" callers.
They had plenty of problems to handle. In October the Perth network was out for the entire weekend, one of the former staffers said, and at one stage Melbourne had one-way voice for a week, so customers could hear a caller, but could not speak to them.
A third former staffer, who worked at 3's Brisbane call centre for eight months, heard many tales of woe from clients.
"I remember speaking with customers with problems much worse than those described in last week's article in The Australian," he said.
"The most serious I had was a customer saying he had lost a $60,000 contract because of the poor service."
One former staffer said Hutchison gave call centre staff a script that implied each customer's problem was unique to them, and was unexpected.
"We had scripts to say to the customer that it was a new company, and it was equivalent to the problems of the GSM launch," he said.
"We would say the GSM network had the same problems, that they should bear with it, and we were trying to fix the problems, that the problems were unexpected and would be fixed soon."
One of the former staffers said Hutchison had sacrificed strong coverage for geographic reach, spreading its towers too thinly so it could claim broader coverage.
"They used lots of One.Tel towers and sacrificed strong coverage to spread it out," he said. "As a result, there were lots of dropouts if you were up high, because the signal was not strong up there.
"It's a weaker signal than GSM, and they need to have more towers to get the same signal strength."
One of the former staffers said handset problems — including one NEC handset — also led to complaints.
"We had people who were all excited, but then experienced huge problems," he said.
Former call centre staff also said salespeople glossed over coverage problems.
"We used to hate the store staff, because we knew they were giving out wrong information and brushing over coverage issues," one of the former employees said.
"Customers would say they had been shown a coverage map but, for example, they would be located next to a blackspot."
One of the staffers who spent time at Hutchison's Valued Customer Group — its last line of defence against angry customers — said the experience was an eye-opener.
"We got people who could have been helped in the first place," he said.
Customers were shown coverage maps, he said, but coverage areas changed regularly, and customers who had coverage one week would not be covered the next.
"The stores would sell a phone to a customer even if they were five metres from a blackspot," he said.
"The minute it starts raining, of course, the coverage decreases."
Hutchison's Mr Wright rejected the claims.
"I reject the claim the network inadequacies you have described are true," he said.
"The service we have delivered to customers has been strongly improving in recent times. Customer complaints are resolved, or we provide them with the opportunity to leave the service at no cost if they feel they have not been resolved."
The growing chorus of complaints is likely to put more pressure on Hutchison, which is majority-owned by the giant Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa.
Hutchison Telecommunications Australia's 2003 half-yearly report shows a net loss after tax of $129.4 million.
Hutchison puts the 3 results down to "start-up losses consistent with the business's early stage of development".
The parent company has invested billions in spectrum and hardware, and is now under pressure to show results.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you do everything in threes?
By the script: instructions to 3 call centre operators
Scenario 195: Coverage problems
Q: Your coverage is so lousy! I tell ya it's so patchy near where I live that you just can't actually use the phone on the move. They never said this would happen on the TV ads or in the shop.
A: Call centre agent will attempt to resolve complaint by reviewing history and troubleshooting complaint. CCA may log call fault report for network fault or direct to point of sale if handset is identified as faulty. If unable to pacify customer the CCA will escalate call to Team Leader.
Scenario 200: Number porting problems
Q:Look — I've bought the phone, I've registered, I've charged it up, I've swung from the flipping chandelier — when is it going to work?
A:CCA will open port instance locator and find customer mobile number portability details. If the port has exceeded four-hour service level agreement, CCA will create a CFR to escalate case.
Scenario 202: Service problems
Q:Do you do everything in 3's? Like leave me waiting in a queue for three minutes, make me speak to three people instead of one? Send me three phones when I order one? Are there three people who could help me now!
A:CCA will pacify customer and identify customer complaint. Troubleshoot with customer using Ask 3.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Give it a chance: Ericsson
THE vendor that built Hutchison Telecommunications's 3 network has defended its technology, saying customers cannot expect perfect coverage from day one.
Ericsson, which is one of three global suppliers to Hutchison and built the Australian network, says coverage will continue to improve.
"Coverage and capacity is a commercial and marketing positioning decision," Ericsson marketing and business development director Tony Malligeorgos said.
"You can't expect to have covered every area in an initial roll-out. It takes time to do that. You can't just expect it in six months."
Mr Malligeorgos said coverage inside building was particularly difficult when constructing a new network.
"Think about when GSM first rolled out," he said.
"Indoor coverage wasn't available everywhere."
More towers are required for a 3G network than for a 2G network, because it operates at 2.1GHz, compared with between 90 and 1800MHz.
"The converse of this is that you have increased capacity on the network," Mr Malligeorgos said.
Telecommunications analyst Paul Budde said carriers normally built up a network's reach as their customer base increased.
"You know you have a service that won't attract millions of customers immediately," he said.
"So you can't deploy a system with the capacity to service one million people immediately."
Source : Australian IT (http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,8105863%5E15320%5E%5Enbv%5E15306,00.html)