Friday, August 18, 2006

You Get What You Pay For

It's time for a bit of a rant today about companies who think they have got a winning proposition but haven't really thought it through and can't deliver on the promise. My favourite one from history has to be Hoover's free Flights offer which reportedly cost the business of $50m over several years of litigation.

But today my rant is about Talk Talk from Carphone Warehouse and the free broadband offer they launched earlier this year. I'm a heavy user of broadband at home and currently use BT as my provider partly because I was working at yahoo when they launched BT yahoo and we got a discount, partly through apathy about the hassle of changing, but mostly because I have never had a single bad day of service and working in the internet biz requiring a reliable connection, this has been invaluable.

My mother however is a light internet user with an old PC of mine, still using dial-up, but already a customer of the Talk Talk phone service. So when the free broadband offer was launched she snapped up the opportunity and signed up. That was 23 April 2006. Since then she has had only one (1) communication from Talk Talk, advising her that her expected go live date was end of July 2006. Ok so that was a bit of a shock, but on the face of it, it looked like TT was being cautious and not promising quick service due to the rapid take-up of the offer. The letter also said that the broadband modem etc would turn up about ten days prior to Go live.

So the months rolled past and my mum forgot about it until early July when she started to look expectantly for her broadband equipment to arrive (she also started to make sure that I was available to visit her and set it all up when it arrived). July moved ever on and no equipment, so she thought she would try to ring customer service and find out what has happened (note, Mum still has not fully embraced the internet so at this point had not tried to email or use the web to contact TT).

Just for interest, I looked up the definition of Customer Service in Wikipedia:

"Customer service is the provision of labour and other resources, for the purpose of increasing the value that buyers receive from their purchases and from the processes leading up to the purchase"

It goes on to say:

"Strategic advantage through customer service
A company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference that it can preserve. Customer service can be such a difference. It is very difficult to control, and therefore difficult to imitate. It is difficult to control because of its variability. The level of service may vary greatly between two providers in the same organization. It may also vary from one moment to another, even as delivered by the same provider. The difficulty is compounded in multi-unit operations: in addition to variability within units, there is also variability among units.

That is both the challenge and the opportunity. The consistent delivery of superior service requires the careful design and execution of a whole system of activities that includes people, capital, technology, and processes. The few companies that can manage this system do stand out, and are sought out. This is the foundation of their sustainable competitive advantage"

To me the definition would be a bit less complex - "Customer Service means you pick up the bloody phone, listen to your customers and resolve their issues in a polite, efficient manner."

This is what happens when you call Talk talk Customer Service:


  • Nice chatty welcome message
  • List of options, you need option 2
  • List of options, you need option 2
  • List of options, you need option 5
  • Friendly female voice says that all operators are busy so please call back later
  • The line is disconnected


That's right, that's all you get.

No offer to leave message
No information about the company website
No way of staying on hold
Basically we're too busy go away

The other thing to note is that Customer service number is an 0870 number, i.e. chargeable and rarely included in any "free minutes" call package. But don't worry about that, go to Say No to 0870 and you can find the 0800 phone number for Talk Talk customer service - 0800 0855900.

With no luck on the phone, Mum decides to pop into a CW store and enquire. The response was something like "Oh we have been inundated, we can't tell you when you will get it, we've got no idea"

So I decide to get involved and went to the Talk Talk website. It's easy to get order status and today, 18 August, 2006 it shows the Go Live date to be end of July - hmm no red flags here, you would expect somebody to be worrying about the service.

So I start hunting around the website for interesting snippets of poor customer service:


  • On this page all about tracking your order it says "We'll also update you regularly by email, and as we roll out free broadband 1 across the UK we'll publish updates here on our website."
  • It goes on to say: "Our online order checker gives you the very latest information about your order. Please don't call us unless there is another problem, as our advisors won't have any more information than you can see online."
  • My favourite bit is: "Although our engineers are working night and day, there'll be some customers we can't connect immediately, and for a few people it could be several weeks. Whatever happens, we promise to connect you as soon as possible."
  • And wait for it: "I don't want to wait any more. When you join we give you an estimated "go live" date for your broadband. If there's a serious delay and you're still not connected after this date, please contact Customer Services. If you decide to cancel before we've had a chance to connect you, there may be a cancellation charge."

So, in summary, "We will get you live as soon as possible, but it could be several weeks (16 weeks so far), we will keep you advised regularly by email (nothing) and if there is a delay, you can call us (but nobody will answer), but if you get fed up waiting we may charge you for the privilege of having wasted all those months.

And then do a quick search on the net about the actual quality of service when it (hopefully) eventually goes live - like these people on the Consumer Action Group website and you come to the conclusion that was my title - You get What You Pay For.

Personally I am glad I don't own any share in Carphone Warehouse, because I think they have yet to reap what they have sown, but it is coming, just wait and see.

p.s. Two other facts - there is no phone number for customer services on the TT website and Ofcom - the telecoms industry regulator - doesn't investigate individual complaints, but if enough people complain, they will investigate the company - you can do that here - I did :)

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