My Infinity experience so far......

Question

Hi all
Well I thought I would post a message with my experience so far after returning to BT for internet service.
I should first mention I have an extremely low opinion of BT because ever since I first started dealing with them back in 2001 I have had nothing but headaches, blunders, missed call outs and generally poor service. I could go into all of those fiascos, but they have been water under the bridge for a few years now.
Anyway, I decided I wanted an FTTC connection and although my provider at the time could supply it, they wanted to charge nearly £100 and would not supply a cable modem/router so I would have to buy my own.
After some consideration I decided to give BT another try after walking away from them back in 2008.
OK, now no offence to anyone in those call centres in India, but I live in the UK, so I want to talk to a British person, or at least someone who is perfectly fluent in English (not reading from a script). I knew this was a slim hope so I decided to go the fool proof way and place my order online.
Order duly placed and on my order tracking page I had a button to click and enter my MAC code when I received it. I didnt get that for another couple of days but when I went back to my order page to enter it - the button to enter the MAC code had gone! My order was apparently all on track. So I called BT and luckily got through to a UK call centre where the customer service representative checked into the problem. The result?
Well, for some reason they had two orders on the system that were conflicting, and causing an erroneous order status to be displayed on my tracking page. He went off for a few minutes, came back and said it had now all been sorted - both orders had been deleted and he had manually entered the order on the system with the MAC code I had just provided.
Great! All on track now..........
The engineer was booked for Saturday 12th January, 2013. The home hub 3 was due to be dispatched by Tuesday 8th. Anyway, by wednesday 9th, there was no oder tracking code on my order page, so once again I called BT. This time I got through to India where unfortunately the BT representative was unable to answer my question and the conversation went something like:
Me: Hi I have an order placed for Infinity and the BT home Hub was supposed to be dispatched by now but I do not have any tracking number on my order page. Can you please check to see if it has been dispatched, and if not, when it will be sent?
BT: One moment sir, I will just check the order details now. Yes sir I can see on the system that your order is due to complete on 12th January
Me: Yes I know that, but the problem is the BT home hub has not yet been dispatched and the engineer needs it to install Infinity. Can you please tell me when it will be dispatched?
BT: Yes sir, I can see from the order that your home hub is due to be delivered by Thursday 10th January.
Me: Yes I know it is supposed to be delivered by then, but it is now Wednesday and my order status page on the BT website says it has still not been dispatched - meaning it will not be here tomorrow. Can you please check why it has not been dispatched?
BT: One moment please sir I will just put you on hold and check the system (on hold for about 30 seconds).....Hello sir, sorry for putting you on hold, I have checked the system and I can confirm that your Home hub is due to be delivered on the 10th January, and the engineer is booked for Saturday 12th January. Your unlimited evening and weekend phone plan will be activated by midnight on 14th January. Is there anything else I can help you with sir?
Me: (silently banging my head up a brick wall) - No, no thank you, that will be all. 'Click'. 
So I leave it an hour and call back - purposely to a different BT department where I got someone from the UK (presumably) and I explained that I have a problem and I would like to talk to someone in the UK please - NOT in India. So I was placed on hold for a minute and transfered to a representative who could help. Fortunately it was someone who was perfectly fluent in English (although did have an odd accent - so it may not have been their primary language). This person checked the order and came back to say:
BT: Hi sir, sorry for placing you on hold for so long, I have checked the system and it appears you have three orders in place and they are conflicting with each other. The reason the home hub has not been dispatched yet is because the order is saying you have not yet provided a MAC code.
Me: Uhhhhhm, I provided the MAC code over the telephone over a week ago......
BT: Oh.....Sorry sir I just need to pop you on hold while I look into this.
(A few mins later)
BT: Hi again sir, sorry for placing you on hold for so long - I have had a colleague check the system and it appears that one order is cancelled, the other is live with a MAC code, but is not present on your order status, and the final order is live on your order page but showing as no MAC code present - hence why the Hub has not been dispatched yet.
To cut a long telephone conversation between myself and several people BT short - their system dropped the ball big time, and a kind gentleman in India (who could speak fluent English) put everything right. Kind of.
I was verbally promised by him that he would expidite my order through the system, and that the engineer would still call on 12th Jan, even though that slot was now no longer available. But he said he would call me back in the morning to finalise all the details. By 3pm the following day I had not recieved that call.
So I called BT back.
Again I explained to the first person to pick the phone up that I wanted to deal with someone fluent in English. Thankfully the person who answered after a brief period on hold appeared to be British. I went through the problems again and it turned out BT could not honour my original appointment of the 12th, and the kind gentleman in India had placed a note on the system to say as much - to which my first question was "OK, thats fine but why has nobody been in touch as promised?". I got a general response of "I can't answer that sir". So I spent half an hour on the phone with a very nice person from BT who finalised all of the details and managed to expedite my new appointment to 16th January, which I was really pleased with after reading horror stories of people having to wait 2-3 weeks or even a month!
Also, a credit to BT was that they arranged to waiver my first months charges for my troubles. Added to that, on my original order I had ordered a telephone as well, which was offered at £10 less than the BT shop were selling it. I explained this, and they credited my account £10 because it was not showing on their system as available, but the BT shop was showing stock - but at £10 more.
So on Monday 14th Jan, my new Home Hub was delivered as promised in email and SMS messages. Great - almost there!!
So - the day of reckoning - Wednesday 16th January 2013...........
I was up early and ready to answer the door by 07:30 - just in case the engineer was early (my slot was 8am-1pm). I had alo booked the afternoon off work as the email said I needed to make sure I was available for 3-4 hours after my appointment slot ended.
tic, toc, tic, toc the morning wore on. I sat on the 2 seater looking hopefully out of the window. No van. No BT man.
tic toc tic toc. I spent some time on the forums reading horror stories so decided to be pro active and contact a mod - just in case.
Anyway, I got that sinking feeling I have had so many times before when it comes to BT engineers not showing up, and I started to feel disappointed and a little annoyed. I went into the kitchen an started making lunch when there was a knock at the door!
Could it be? Why yes it was! It was a sub-contractor operating on behalf of BT Openreach, but I didn't care, he was here to fit my Infinity! I was grinning from ear to ear. The engineer was competent and swift, and all in all it took around an hour and a half from him knocking the door to me waving bye bye - and that included a 20 min trip to connect the line. Not only that, but as soon as the Hub was connected I was live getting 51mb down and 10mb up - which was exactly as estimated on the speed checker.
So nearly 48hrs later and I am still connected. No drop outs and no drop in speed so far. Fingers crossed it will remain so!
So overall, my experience has been mixed. Shocking service with regard to blunders and problems (yet again) but at the same time I have mostly spoken to people who have helped and got my order back on track. I think it has to be said though, that these problems should not exist and it was only due to my knowledge in dealing BT over the years that I was chasing everything up regulalry which is why the problems came to the attention of BT in the first place. If I had not chased at every turn I would be sitting here with no new connection, and in limbo.
That said, I have to say the telephone service has vastly improved since last time I dealt with BT. I dont think I was on hold waiting to speak to an advisor for any longer than 5-10 mins - and in most cases it was less than 5. But again, due to my past experiences I know how to manipulate the system to speak to the right people and not be transferred to an automated service or to India.
Interestingly, when chatting to the engineer I asked how many he has to do per day. Eight, apparantly. He openly admitted he only normally manages six. Sometimes seven on a good day. I could perhaps say it was because he was slow - but he was very efficient in my house, and I can only assume he continues that efficiency in every property. My conclusion must be that he is simply having unrealistic expectations placed upon him, and two households on the 16th were likely to be disappointed.
My advice - always ask for an AM appointment as there is more chance you will see your engineer.
I would like to know how the appointments are allocated though, and whether it is BT or Openreach that are at fault. Are BT thrusting too many appointments onto Openreach, or are Openreach taking more than they can handle?
So far I am happy with my Infinity, and it does what I wanted it to do. But the crux of the entire process is, why am I so happy? Because I was expecting BT to fail again - which to a large extent they did. I am happy because they did what they were supposed to do. But surely that is a basic element of any customer service? Why should I be overjoyed that they did what they are supposed to? It is kind of like praising a brand new car for starting first time. It is not anything special, it should be expected.
Unfortunately, BT and Openreach have the monopoly, and whilst that is the case we are all at their mercy. Even if you use another provider for FTTC they will send an Openreach engineer. I personally do not think such a monopoly should be allowed, and I think part of the woeful lack of respect for customers is the fact that customers have a woeful lack of options.
My example is just how badly wrong BT can get one simple order. Yes it turned out OK in the end, but only because I was on the ball. I should not have to chase BT to get it right. Why, since I started using them in 2001 have their overall levels of service still not improved? Why am I still having to chase them? Why are they generating three orders and why are there no systems in place to prevent that from happening? Why when they rectify the order they have fouled up, do I suffer from a 3 day delay in installation? OK, its only 3 days - but the fact is it would have been far longer if I had not been on the ball and been expecting BT to fail.
Again it boils down to monopoly - and one which should have been stamped out years ago. Since 2006 BT tried to appease Ofcom by giving the illusion of a fair crack of the whip to other suppliers. But Openreach report directly to the BT CEO. They are an arm of BT and therefore the monopoly remains. Whoever your provider is with, they will be using BT equipment in BT exchanges (unless you are on Cable)
So I suppose the bottom line is that when you don't have any real competition, you can be rubbish and nobody can do a thing about it.
So yes, I got what I wanted in the end, and I am happy with the result - but it is one I have earned myself, and I cannot give BT as a company any praise.
I can, however, praise their staff for bearing the brunt of their companies failings. Keep up the good work guys, and maybe one day you will work for a company that deserves you.
If you are still reading, thanks for bothering!
Kind Regards

Answer 1

praetorian wrote:
foxtrottango52 wrote:
HI. IS THE  BT INFINITY  GOOD.  IS IT  OP1  ARE OP2
Hi
Yes, the Infinity seems to be very good
I am on Option 2 receiving 50-51MB down and 9-10MB up -which is exactly what BT estimated I would recieve on their website. I can download things off Steam at 6.1 mb/s - which I thought would be higher, but it is still 7 times faster than I was getting before
I also have not had any disconnects or drop in performance.....yet. Of course it is early days but so far the connection is great. I cannot fault it really, but getting to this point was definitely a headache!
Kind Regards
That's very good speed, but I think you have your MB and mb's the wrong way round, as I am guessing your internet speed is 50-51mb and your download speed is 6.1MB