TalkTalk Business - Poor Customer Support
by matt @ 12:28 pm. Blogged under Thinking
I’ve inexplicably had no telephone connection since Wednesday morning, which also means my office has no broadband connection (since they’re linked). I called TalkTalk Business Customer Service yesterday but got held in a queue for ten minutes and eventually got asked to leave a message or send an email to custserv@talktalkbusiness.co.uk. I sent an email and have heard nothing in 24 hours. I phoned again this morning and left a voice message, still heard nothing. I suspect this means I will be without a telephone or Internet throughout the whole weekend. How TalkTalk can have a business service with such a poor level of customer support is a complete mystery to me. It’s all since Carphone Warehouse bought Onetel earlier in 2006… well done on ruining a perfectly good service. TalkTalk even doubled the price on taking over.
From the look of other complaints such as ‘No landline service for 36 hours, no satisfactory response from support. Up to 20 min wait to contact them.‘ I’m not alone and a bit screwed for getting my phoneline back on in a hurry. This will have a major impact on my clients, fingers crossed I can find the unsecured wireless signal in Dorking Park again should an urgent matter arise.
Technorati Tags: talk talk, carphone warehouse, talk talk business
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October 20th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
17:35 on a Friday night, no emails back yet or a reply ‘within four hours’ to my voice message. Finally managed to get through to ‘Frankie’ on 0800 083 3003, who said he’d check the line and if need be an engineer would call me to come and fix it. ‘Do you want my mobile number then?’ I asked… since clearly an engineer wouldn’t have otherwise been able to call me. ‘Oh yeah’ he said.
October 24th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
It’s Tuesday - day 7, no engineer has called me yet to fix the telephone line. I am to say the least, very annoyed. I called several times this morning, but after continually being put through to a TalkTalk voicemail system, left another message. Not that they answered the first message I left last week. I am not hopeful of ever getting the company phone and broadband back on before Christmas.
October 25th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
Wednesday, Day 8 - No phone or Internet connection expected until next week! I didn’t ever get a call from an engineer, instead I had to chase it up last night. Surprise surprise no record of my call on Friday to ‘Frankie’, Lee at TalkTalk Business finally clarified the situation after a few line tests; I transferred to a new supplier at the end of September and TalkTalk hadn’t updated their records. TalkTalk couldn’t explain why my line had been permanently stopped last week but couldn’t help me now either, now my new supplier (Toucan) needs to take it up with BT - so far that is scheduled to take another 3 days! Thanks TalkTalk for taking 8 days to figure this out. Found a BT engineer in the street this afternoon, he said if it had anything to do with Carphonewarehouse (they own TalkTalk) he wasn’t surprised “don’t even start me” he said. Toucan are investigating as they haven’t told anybody to disconnect the line.
October 30th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
On Sunday morning (Day 12) a BT engineer came round to fix the fault that my new supplier ‘Toucan’ reported to them. Toucan were so much more professional that TalkTalk, their call centre staff would call me back on my mobile to save me money, they recorded what we discussed, and would follow up at the end of each day. Turns out that the two major problems I experienced were:
a) TalkTalk Business not confirming the transfer to Toucan had gone through so continuing to bill me and make me think I was still with them. Additionally having the worst call center service in history - feeding me lies on the phone on the rare occasion that I could get through, not acting on any of my voicemails, emails or conversations until the 8th day - when I got lucky.
b) A BT engineer disconnected my line ‘by accident’ as explained by the engineer who fixed it yesterday “he’s got 35 years of experience so quite a mistake” said the engineer… “time for him to retire then” was my reply.
Finally, after almost two whole weeks, the phone is back on again. I’m confident that Toucan will be able to address any future problems… much like I was about OneTel before they were became TalkTalk Business. I dare say there’ll be no compensation from BT for the 12 days for disruption.
November 2nd, 2006 at 10:30 am
TalkTalk Business just called me, ‘am I the person who deals with the company telephones and am I interested in a TalkTalk Business package?’! A clear demonstration that TalkTalk put more effort into sales than support based on the fortnight I’ve had to deal with. I’m lost for words.
December 27th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Hi Matt
Just had to reply to you, having just spent another hour trying to get in touch with talktalk. Four messages left, 3 e-mails unanswered. Got through by calling ’sales’ and being transfered. All I wanted to do was pay a bill! Unbelievable.
January 16th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Mate, instead of blaming service providers, dont you think we should try and get rid of the shackles of BT. Seens most service providers are not able to give us the service we deserve b’coz of problems from BT.
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:43 am
How come OneTel’s e-mail server nosedives regularly over the weekend, so you lose service. No one updates their “Network Status” info or often tell the people in India they have a problem!
Does anyone know what is going to happen to OneTel, anyway?
March 6th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
I am surprised to hear Toucan are that responsible. they provided me with the worst service i have ever experienced. good luck to you - i hope you don’t get any real issues!
March 22nd, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Have tried to get in touch with talktalk business for two days — WITH OUT SUCCESS. Auto system, using 0800 083 3003 doesn’t actually cover what we need, but used button 2 “technical” as this was closeish. However in a queue —- VERY LONG LONG QUEUE holding on for 15 min + twice yesterday and once today — gave up but did leave a message ond their voice mail and their auto send an email. Both of which say they will get back to you with in 4 hours. JOKE ! But not funny, 24 hours later still waiting!
Have also sent emails via web site, but still no return contact made.
Also contacting them on a sale number ex web site 0800 049 7802 got through very quickly , but was told they couldn’t help as you are not our provider. Strange when we have 4 telephone number with you, we get bills from them and we have a customer ref. What a “Sales department” !!!
Basically your customer service on both counts is rubbish and doesn’t work.
Post script :~ Was contacted by a respesentative today 30 mins late, but at least in right direct. Explained to him we needed an extension line added, to which he replied I’ll give you a direct line to the installation department 0800 083 3006. Operator answered and transfered the call to the billing department, which I actually did not get through to. Very same problem as above, long long queue, voice mail etc.
Phoned 0800 083 3006 again and actually spoke to a representative, Mike, did get an ear full and was good at his job — BUT he informed me it was the wrong department, they deal with new installation not adding to existing installations. He has sent an email marked urgent to Business Management at the original department I tried to contact.
As a business user we could loose thousands if this extension line is not installed, perhaps a day in court will make them more aware of how bad their customer service and systems actually are.
TalkTalkBusiness Management wake up and remember you are in the business of communication, do it or run the risk of court action.
Bryan Bream
May 4th, 2007 at 10:36 am
rubbish company no one answer phone tryed4 hours wait in all after 10 phone calls
losing bubiness
= will take me another 21 days to go back to my orginal company xln
May 24th, 2007 at 12:08 am
My friend recommended me to join talk talk. I happily did so on March 20, 2007. Unbeknown to me, my nightmare started then. On the day, my voicemail disappeared, and i have to make numerous phone calls to request for one (which never came). I was due to start my assignment so i order for my broadband but alaah! Phone went dead on the 27th March, used my mobile to call them on several occassion. Lastly they diverted my calls to my mobile (receiving) only. I had to swap over to the lovely BT which again took 4 extra day because talktalk had not let go of my line. Better! They sent me a bill to pay, no explanation had already paid money in advance and here comes another one.
I hate it when the advert comes on telly i feel like switching it of. Had recommended 10 of my friends to join them but had to ring them to warn them.
Do something about your services or close down please.
July 20th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Phew! What a relief it is to find others in the same situation I’ve found myself in for the past 11 days. My wife is in hospital for major surgery and I need to keep in touch but my line was disconnected 11 days ago on the grounds that I hadn’t paid a bill! My current bill saying ‘TOTAL DUE’ (no mention of arrears - ‘cos there aren’t any!) isn’t even due for payment until tomorrow!!
I’ve sent 11 emails, recorded delivery letters and so many expensive phone calls from my mobile but still there’s the silence as from a tomb. Talktalk took over my previous supplier Pearl Telecom in February (I think)and since then it’s been downhill all the way. Time we all got together and told everyone we know that if it comes to a choice betwen TalkTalkBusiness and the bubonic plague, opt for the plague. It’ll be less stressful!
Incidentally when I first reported the disconnection and spoke of the disputed overdue sum I asked for a rundown of all their bills since they took over, and all payments received from me (I have details of clearance through my bank)but, of course, have had nothing from them. I was told that reconnection would be 48 HOURS. Two days later I rang to ask if there was any progress and was told it would be ANOTHER 48 HOURS. 2 days later my daughter was told it could be TEN DAYS!! I’ve spent most of my working life as a broadcaster and journalist ….gues what my next article’s going to be about.
July 21st, 2007 at 12:47 am
Since publishing my complain about the way handled my telephone line, i have continued receiving a bill that i am supposed to clear. I phone talktalk to enquire why i was receiving this bill taking into consideration when my landline was not working i was forced to use my mobile to ring their soo expensive line. Was given reasurrance that the money i had spent would be refunded. How can i possibly pay the bill whilst they owe me a massiv bill on my mobile. I truly hate it when walking in my local Shopping Mail, when their people stop you to sell their products. Disgusting. BT may be abit expensive but they offer value for money.
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Any problems with talk talk residential or talk talk business broadband email me at bbrepair@hotmail.co.uk.
I have had my own run ins with this inept company and after they had virtually brought my online business to a halt due to no service being provided i decided to contact ofcom who advised me of my option to leave.
Since then i have been helping people who “crazily” want to stay with the talktalk brand but can’t get any joy out of a non existent customer services.
Need help connecting to broadband
configuring your modem or router
configuring emails
or any other broadband queries please contact me on bbrepair@hotmail.co.uk and i would be happy to help.
October 15th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Having left this Company,not only do I sympathise with the
comments but the way they treat their staff is disgraceful also.
The whole call centre is a shambles as I worked at one for nearly 18 months.Nobody knows what they are doing.e-mails are never passed on.Faxes received are put in the Bin,and basically they got rid of their most experienced staff and recruited a load of youngsters straight out of school who had never had any work experience before.
they turn on their voicemail and delete when they listen to them the next day in order to cut down their work queue.
The supervisors are told a different proceedure each day with regards to updates,then those above them change it back.theydon’t know what they are meant to do from day to day.
If you need to resolve a problem
leave your e-mail address and I will tell you how to get things rectified quickly
October 21st, 2007 at 10:55 am
Please let me know as you say - how to get a problem resolved with
Talk talk. BTW I am with TalkTalk/Onetel. But I am experiencing all the same problems
If I send e-mail to Charles Dunstone, the useless,inept,e-mail reply
comes back from someone with an Asian name at TalkTalk.
For example, my problem is my phone has gone dead, thoough my broadband with AOL is undisturbed.
So I have no landline. Onetel say they can not not log tis with BT (who own the line) unless I agree to a possible minimum £100 call out fee if BT have to come out.
I have checked my line with three other phones so it is not the phone.
I have feeling from what I have been reading that BT engineers
could be possibly disconnecting lines where the customer has gone over to someone else to cause these aggravations so they will return
to BT (as I am now contemplating doing)
Anyway, back to TalkTalk. After sending an e-mail clearly markeing my problem that I had no phone line service. I got a reply saying they had been trying to phone me a number of times so would I send them further particulars which included my bank details.
So, how does one get some sensible response?
October 21st, 2007 at 11:09 am
As I have just noticed someone else saying that it appear BT may be responsible for causing many problems when you leave them for some other provider.
It is very easy for them to ‘accidentally’ disconnect you.
A new provider, it appears, can only check a line fault up to a certain level. As BT own the line, only they can check the fault properly thru to their service stations, and roadside boxes.
For the service provider, like Onetel to log the fault with BT, BT insist that, or so Onetel say, that you agree to a possible minimum call out charge
of £100 if the fault is found with your telephone.
I have tested three different phones on the line, and my master socket. It is not there.
However, BT are not going to be conciliatory to a customer who has left them, and they could easily say it is your (my) fault
in order to get a call out charge.
My broadband works fine and is with AOL.
Anyone else with a similar experience.
October 24th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
I’m with Talktalk but still used to pay BT Line rental, things were fine until TalkTalk sent me a letter a few weeks ago telling me I no longer have to pay the BT line rental as I suppose they have switched me to their own. Yesterday evening 23rd October my phone went dead though surprising to me today is that even though it is still dead my broadband still works. I like others here tried various different phones but none work.
As from experience I know they have such poor customer service I still haven’t contacted them.
I work from home as does my wife 2 days a week -no internet means no money!
Soon as I get the phone back I’m getting my Mac code and switching providers. (idf I can get one out of them)
November 3rd, 2007 at 6:28 pm
I have had TalkTalk broadband at our business for about 15 months, we switched over to Talktalk for our calls and everything was ok.
Talktalk offered us free broadband so we took them up on the offer, on the 30/10/07 our line was switched over and thats when our broadband stopped. 7 phone calls to Technical Support to try and sort it out i still have no broadband! We even went out and bought a new router, this didnt fix the problem.
The last person i spoke to changed the capaciy of the line from 8M to 1M and said that because i could see it change on my router that the line was ok and it was a problem with the pc, well i have two pc’s and they both cant connect.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks
Jamey jfirthracing@yahoo.co.uk
November 6th, 2007 at 12:56 am
It would really be nice if talk talk closes down completely. I have been to a couple of shopping mall and the worst i hate is to see these sales people from talk talk asking me if i am with BT. The experience i had with them a few months ago is more than annoying. What connection does talk talk have with Carphone Warehouse who also happens to be a group of scam. I have purchased two mobiles on two different occassions and have had to return them. They all turn out to be faulty. Someone up there please put a stop to this company. Anyone out there thinking of joining Talk Talk, take my advice ‘DON’T EVEN TRY TO JOIN THEM’.
November 6th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Jamie, the only thing I can think of apart from TalkTalk’s fault have you changed your settings to your new router, I bought a new router a month ago and had to set up a new ip address to the router - just a thought.
I have trouble connecting between 4pm and 7pm which I assume is people coming home from work & school and going on the net. I live out of town also, so maybe your area is busy all the time.
After last months problem with no line as soon as I was reconnected I tranferred to BT it goes live next week - more expensive but I’m hoping for a better service.
reference to Irene’s comments - In my opinion it seems that these big companies getaway with cr*pping on us little people all the time- in this day and age as well, it seems to be worse…
November 24th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
I used to worked for this company for over 5 years. If you’ve not already signed up to this shambolic network then DONT - if you are one of the long suffering customers run as quickly as you can. I had a never ending fault which in turn I lost all broadband for over 6 months! Even working in the same building where all “high level” faults get logged in Warrington… losing the will to live and hours/days/months sat on the phone in endless queues to the call centres in South Africa and Mumbai (being told to do the same old things) it took me to physically sit at a managers desk for 2 hours and rant like I’ve never ranted before, they promised to sort it out, yes, even then they didnt bother!! It worked for one week then F*cked up AGAIN! Disgusting company to work for and even worse if you are a customer! The poor mostly forgein call centre staff are no more than battery hens heavily scripted with no clue if you ask a question thats not written down - not allowed to think for themselves! Their only purpose is to line Charles Dunstones fat pocket… would you beleive they are trying to get in the top 100 best companies to work for…. (They tell the staff what to say on the COMPULSORY form to make them look better)!!! Sh*t network, Sh*t Customer Service, I THINK THEY SHOULD SPEND THE £4 MILLION THEY PAID TO SPONSOR X-FACTOR THIS ON THE DEVELOPING THE NETWORK AND STAFF TRAINING!!! COME ON CHARLIE GET OFF THAT FAT ASS AND HELP YOUR CUSTOMERS FOR A CHANGE!!
ps the backdoor number so you dont have to sit in the three hour queue and press 1 for a muppet 2…etc is 01925554000
November 26th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Any problems with talk talk residential or talk talk business broadband email me at bbrepairz@gmaill.com
I have had my own run ins with this inept company and after they had virtually brought my online business to a halt due to no service being provided i decided to contact ofcom who advised me of my option to leave.
Since then i have been helping people who “crazily” want to stay with the talktalk brand but can’t get any joy out of a non existent customer services.
Need help connecting to broadband
configuring your modem or router
configuring emails
or any other broadband queries please contact me on bbrepairz@gmaill.com and i would be happy to help.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
I have been trying to resolve a problem with my TalkTalk land line for 3 weeks now.
Problem of dropouts started in Nov 2007. After a number of calls to support I gave up. I started again to try and get it sorted three weeks ago. I have spoken to 9 different call centre staff and 3 different escalation staff in that time; all took my mobile number but never called back.
Today I asked to speak to Manager, advised would call me within one hour, no call.
There appears to be a culture in the call centres that believes that apologising, promising the earth, doing nothing and being somewhat economical with the truth will keep customers happy. Come back BT all is forgiven.
Does anyone have a number, in the UK, where I can get some real support.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
People are so quick to blame internet providers. 9/10 times its the person on the computer thats the issue. For example, the comment that the phone line is dead but you still have broadband is not right. If you dont have a phone connection you cant have broadband. Maybe call an I.T guy to get a router setup…
March 19th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
the problem is with the company, because they base performance on targets; they don’t have enough people available to help; and most of the staffing budget goes on sales people. trust me, i’ve seen it 1st hand.
March 19th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
You are wrong Mr Watson. You can lose your phone line and still have internet. It has happened to me and one other peron I know. The phenomenon was confirmed as valid by my ISP tech support.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:00 pm
My business phone lines went down on sunday before easter. Unable to contact talk talk to advise. Made contact on tuesday following easter when they informed me that there was a primary fault affecting several businesses in my area. They were unable to tell me when the fault would be rectified as this was the responsibility of BT. I asked to be advised by mobile to update me and was informed that this would be done. I have never received a return call from talk talk despite phoning them on a near daily basis to be updated and to be advised on progress. Needless to say I still have no phone lines and I can only describe the service provider as inept and I shall indeed be changing as soon as possible.
April 4th, 2008 at 11:50 am
sorry to tell you, but most tt staff would have been off, which makes the bt excuse rubbish. I work for the company and experienced the very same problems over easter.