Bethere Internet - worst customer service award?

Yesterday I had the displeasure of a conversation with the particularly unhelpful “customer services” people hired by bethere.co.uk, and ISP here in London.

I’m staying at a friend’s place right now, and the broadband is supposed to be supplied by “bethere”. In the two weeks I’ve been at this property, I’ve had a total of three days of internet service.  The modem is on, and properly connected. My PC is on and properly connected.

So I decided last evening to give bethere a call, just to let them know that their service was not working at this address. So I ring up and give the call centre guy the details of the property. Then has asks me for the account holder’s details. Obviously I don’t have these, so I can’t offer them up. Call centre operator then advises me that, because he can not verify my identity, he is unable to access the account holder’s details, citing the Data Protection Act.

Fair enough, I say, but I’m not interested in getting any details about the account. All I want to do is pass on information to the ISP about a service failure. Here’s where the conversation goes illogically bizarre;

Bethere: “ Sorry Sir, but I am unable to assist you unless you are the account holder”

Me: “But I’m not asking you to assist me, I’m just passing on information to you, about your services”

Bether: “ yes I appreciate that sir, but I cannot access the account unless I have the account holder’s permission”

Me: “But I’m, not asking you to access the account, all I’m asking you to do is pass on a fault to your technicians. Whether or not I am the account holder makes no difference to the fact that one of the properties you provide to is without service.”

Bethere: “Yes, I appreciate that sir, but I can only assist the account holder”

Me: “That’s irrelevant! Do you have email?”

Bether: “yes”

ME “ OK, now when this call is over, why don’t you open up your email programme and in the address line enter your bosses name, then in the subject line enter “customer complaint”. Then in the body of the email, why don’t you just advise your boss that you have spoken to someone claiming that the service at [xxpostcodexx] is down, but that the caller was unable to identify themselves as the accout holder. That would take about one and a half minutes”

Bethere: “I’m sorry sir, but as I explained before I can only assist the account holder”

Etc… etc.. until I hang up in frustration.

What is it with “customer service” staff that they are trained in such formulaic and nonsensical processes that they simply CANNOT see when a simple, easy measure would go a long way to making the firm they work for look reasonable and not like a bunch of belligerent twats.

Bether.co.uk, your customer service and staff training programme either sucks, or is being completely ignored by your staff. I suggest you spend less money and time on your tiwtter/ facebook accounts and invest some of it in hiring people with brains.