Useless Helpdesks
OK, not strictly a web usability issue but kind of related in a little way and will make me feel better when I offload the issue.
To cut a long story short, I needed a German IP for hosting, so after realising that the British education system sucks as well, because I can’t speak any other language I find out that lycos.co.uk do hosting and supposedly with German data centres.
Double Bonus!
Now I don’t want go through all this malarkey just to get hosting, like I did last week only to find out they don’t do .de domains. So I thought I would call the UK helpline number.
0870 730 1135 (12p per minute)
30 minutes later I get through, to an automated system, only problem is that the lady is speaking German. So I hold on in the hope that I will get through to a real person that can forgive my poor language skills.
They now cut me off and a recorded voice from BT chimes in saying that “The other party has terminated the callâ€. WTF!
So the usability issue here is, if you are going to add a UK number for which you charge to call, at least have a British speaking automated system. Then to allow pissed off people like me, to have a way of actually contacting someone to either flag similar issues or suggest they have a good look at their support.
Totally agree with you there.
It’s like when you have any problems with your BT phone bill for instance, you get through to a call centre in India or somewhere. Even though they can speak English, there is a big accent barrier so no one can understand each other.
I think if we pay as much as we do for services, companies like BT should offer a much better level of customer support rather than cutting corners to find cheap call centre locations.
Now look at me… you’ve turned me into a moaner as well!
>>you’ve turned me into a moaner as well!
Well that is one more of us and one less of them.
The accents can be harsh. Dell transfer you to India as their first line, but then in some cases route you to Ireland, which can be just as difficult 🙂
Or another classic moan is when you get a “coldcall”, normally from a telecoms company trying to offer you a money saving deal if you switch providers. They are obviously reading off a script but you still haven’t got a clue what they are saying. I always try to be as polite as possible to tell them that I’m not interested…but I just wish I was the sort of person that could tell them to f**k off. Where do they get these people from that are prepared to sit in call centres getting rejection after rejection?