Ah, BT

Lightmancer

Legend
Location
Sunny Frimley
Name
Bill Palmer
This is a genuine transcript of a chat session I endured earlier today, with BT who provide me with my broadband connection. I have only changed the name of the agent - we shall call him "Fred".

All I wanted to do was to stop BT nagging me to set Parental Controls. Since the youngest in the house is 50 this year, this is not exactly a big requirement for us, and I am tired of getting nag screens half a dozen times a day at the moment, so...

Fred : Hello. I'm Fred . Thanks for that information, I'll check it and get back to you in a moment.
Bill Palmer: I haven't given you any information yet...
Fred : I understand, let me check
Bill Palmer: Check WHAT? I have yet to tell you what my problem is!
Fred : May I have your alternate contact number please
Bill Palmer: No.
Bill Palmer: That is irrelevant
Bill Palmer: Can we focus on my problem please
Fred : I apologize, please allow me few moments
Bill Palmer: Please stop reading your script, and focus on your customer...
Fred : I am running an application
Bill Palmer: That's nice for you. CAN WE FOCUS ON MY PROBLEM PLEASE?
Fred : I am working on it, please be patient
Bill Palmer: YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT MY PROBLEM IS!!!!
Bill Palmer: WILL YOU **LISTEN**!!
Fred : yes, please let me know
Bill Palmer: Right.
Bill Palmer: Stop "running applications" and stop "checking" and Please. Just. Listen.
...and so on...

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH... :dash2:
 
Well we have a tree over the road that cuts out our broadband BT (British Thieves) know about this tree, won't sort it out they say its the housing association who have to deal with it they say the Tennant who has lived there less time than the tree has to sort it out. Other than that some evenings my so called broadband is the same speed as dial up. I detest BT but have no choice to use their service via another party now as Virgin are not up our street.
 
If my experience is anything to go by "Fred" probably had English as a poor third language. If I'd had any inkling of how awful BT's customer "service" is I would have gone with Virgin
 
I am currently on a phone call to my phone company. All I want to do is sign up for automatic billing and they said the wait time is 27 minutes to speak to a representative. The music they are playing while I wait is enough to make me puke. And then every 30 seconds a prerecorded voice interrupts (and I think the wait is over) to tell me how important my call is.

That is beyond insulting. If you truly "valued my call", you wouldn't force me to wait for 27 minutes to speak to me.
 
Last night I had occasion to call First Direct (aUK online bank for those who aren't familiar). I got through to a real person straight away (in the UK) who was able to sort out everything I needed sorting out without passing me off to anyone else and who had time for a nice chat about the respective weather conditions in the UK and the Philippines.

First Direct guarantees that when you call you speak to a real person (and not a contract worker in India, or indeed the Philippines where call centres are big business). It's one of the reasons I've never been tempted to change, and if they can do it it's hard to understand why others can't.
 
I think speaking to an operator in a distant land is preferable to dealing with a computerised switchboard. I sometimes need to transfer money between my business and personal bank accounts, which means a telephone call to the bank and a frustrating struggle with their computerised call handling system.

The worst part is when I'm asked to speak certain letters from my password, the most troublesome of which is the letter R. The conversation generally goes something like this:

Bank: Our records show that you hold a password for that account, would you like to use it now?
Me: Yes
Bank: You can answer Yes or No
Me: YES!
Bank: Thank you. Please say the third letter of your password now
Me: R (as normally as I can manage, something like ah or ar)
Bank: Was that O ?
Me: No
Bank; You can answer Yes or No
Me: No
Bank. OK. Please say the third letter of your password now.
Me: Arrrgh (like a pirate)
Bank: Was that A ?
Me: No
Bank: OK. Please say the third letter of your password now
Me: Arrrrr (like a growling dog)
Bank: Was that R ?
Me: Yes !
Bank: You can answer Yes or No
Me: YES !
Bank: Thank you. Please say which service you require
Me Transfer Money
Bank: Do you want to transfer some money?
Me: Yes
Bank: You can answer Yes or No
Me: YES !
Bank: Sorry, that service is unavailable

I should probably switch to Internet banking, as they are constantly encouraging me to do. It can't be any worse than the current situation. It used to be so easy when the phone was answered by a human being.

-R
 
I once had to use an automated phone service when I was staying at a hotel somewhere in the States (North Carolina, Tennessee perhaps, can't remember which). I was asked to state a phone number or "operator". I tried "operator" (with, being a northern Englishman, short vowels and hard consonants) but it had no idea what I was saying. Finally I twigged and said "ahpurayduh" and it was quite happy.
I also recently had to call HMRC (or the Inland Revenue as was). It has introduced an automated response system which takes many times longer than waiting in the queue to speak to a person. One of the questions asked me to say "yes" or "no". I tried "yes" many times and it failed to understand. I said "oh for God's sake" and it took that as "yes"!
 
Last night I had occasion to call First Direct (aUK online bank for those who aren't familiar). I got through to a real person straight away (in the UK) who was able to sort out everything I needed sorting out without passing me off to anyone else and who had time for a nice chat about the respective weather conditions in the UK and the Philippines.

First Direct guarantees that when you call you speak to a real person (and not a contract worker in India, or indeed the Philippines where call centres are big business). It's one of the reasons I've never been tempted to change, and if they can do it it's hard to understand why others can't.
I've been with FD since they started (late 80s?) and have always found their service first rate, largely because of the excellence of their staff. BT on the other hand...I once had to report to their people in Bangalore that a large tree branch had fallen onto their telephone wires. The poor guy on the other end of the crackly phone line had no conception of the problem or what to do about it. It took several emails to resolve the situation.
 
Being from Belfast my pronunciation of 'eight' and 'two' seem to cause the greatest difficulties. My wife's technique with automated systems is to keep answering 'representative' to every question until the thing gives up and transfers her to a real person.
 
Being from Belfast my pronunciation of 'eight' and 'two' seem to cause the greatest difficulties. My wife's technique with automated systems is to keep answering 'representative' to every question until the thing gives up and transfers her to a real person.

I'm originally from Glasgow and I know exactly what you mean. These wretched things are set up on the basis of some hypothetical "British" manner of speech and can't cope with local accents and dialects. Even within Scotland there are huge variations in speech - I still remember having to interpret between my wife who comes from Greenock and my grandmother who spoke Aberdonian Doric. If human beings can't understand each other it's stupid and pointless to expect a machine to do so as my former employers discovered many years ago after a brief and disastrous experiment with voice-recognition typing software. Thanks to your wife for a very useful tip.
 
Unfortunately Channel 5 has blocked that video in the UK (why?) but I saw the original programme and thought the lift sketch (we don't have "elevators" in Scotland) was brilliant. Thanks for reminding me.
 
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