IT'S GOOD TO TALK

The late David Abbott created this wonderful advertising campaign for BT starring Bob Hoskins with his gritty, man of the people voice. At the time I thought it was perfect, capturing as it did the raison d’etre of this big cuddly company.

This month I’ve changed my mind.

Over the several hours that I’ve talked to BT employees over the past month I’ve concluded this lumbering beast needs dismembering and fast. Everyone I’ve talked to from Jordan, Louise, Kate, Mia, Dali to Helen and many others have been articulate, intelligent and well mannered. But the cock-up over which they’ve calmly presided is baffling.

On the 18th of March they accepted my reporting of an imminent change of address and my order for fibre optic broadband with all the bells and whistles at the new address.

A week later having received no confirmation of the order I called and was unable to reach anyone apart from the BT sales team trying to sell me BT Mobile. It was like enquiring  what the next train for London was and being asked if I wanted to buy a banana. Eventually I got someone who said they could help and they told me the first order had not been processed for technical reasons and a new one would be raised.
Hurray. It was and I was e-mailed confirmation and told an engineer would call to sort everything at the new address on April 2nd and that the kit would be sent.

The kit arrived. BT were really bringing it all together. So ‘twas on a Wednesday morning when the BT man came to call….only he didn’t.

And when I complained was told the earliest anyone could call was April 16th.

And then called again to say that was now April 20th. Because the sun was shining, Brighton is laid back and England had just won a cricket match I didn’t shout and was calm and reasonable and the Indian said wistfully “thank you Sir for being so nice in these circumstances”.

And then I got an invoice for the old address for my office which is where the broadband is based which didn’t mention termination so I rang and they denied all knowledge and said the line would remain live till April 20th this being the earliest they could react.

So I have broadband working where I used to live and nothing where I do live.

And about four hours of my life have been spent talking to people who are doing their best but do not grasp that the customer’s always right and needs to be satisfied.

But it’s all clearly my fault and I should be so lucky as to have BT supplying me.

BT is a beast.

I’m going to have to fire them but they’ve been family all my life so it’ll be a real wrench.
I’m going to check out alternatives and move on from bureaucracy….or not.

As Bob Hoskins might have said “it’s good to walk”.

ILLNESS, BT AND THE HOUSE MOVE

As Easter is upon us, I'm pleased to say almost all is well in the new Hall household, relocated after weeks of effort and some anxiety.

However, as regular readers will know, Richard had weeks of multitasking to carry out in the run up, as his gorgeous assistant (and love of his life) suffered an attack of some virus so severe it seems as if it must have been man-flu (- strange in itself as this means it jumped the gender barrier!).

Kate is well now, but Richard is puggled.  Partly this is due to two weeks of skirmishing with BT whose warm words and reassuring customer service platitudes bely astonishing failures and delays in transferring his broadband service to the new domain.

Consequently Richard will not be writing this week.  Sit tight friends and he will return next week.

Yours,

The Blogmeister.

JOHN HUMPHREYS - YOU'RE FIRED

This is about laying the ghost of John Humphreys, icon of negativism and whingeing, a born-again Victor Meldrew, the dreary voice of constant dissatisfaction. Occasionally though, just occasionally, a letter of complaint cheers one up. Here’s an extract of one written to NTL – it went on in similar vein for pages:-

“British Telecom – w*****s though they are - shine like brilliant beacons of success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy.”

It’s been the endless quest of the miserable, negative and of course the media to prove how limitlessly inadequate we in the UK are. Take the weather for example? Useless, hopeless, shameful compared with the continent. Hmmm!!

Here’s a letter from a Dutch lady in Tuesday’s Times describing her recent drive to Britain:

“The roads were appalling in Holland, pretty bad in Belgium- particularly the enormous potholes on the motorway – and not much better in France….. (arriving in Britain) I was pleasantly surprised to have a smooth journey on three motorways without a lane closure in sight. On the other hand my eldest son is stuck in a motel in Germany as conditions are impossible on the autobahn, and my husband spent four hours travelling 20 miles as the Dutch trains went, once again, into meltdown.”

A very Happy Christmas to everyone who thinks on balance everything in Britain is in pretty good nick from the NHS to the gritting system to the academic achievements of our young people to attitudes to work, life, family and friends. And a particularly stupendous New Year to all those actually looking forward to 2011.

To the rest of you and to you John Humphreys, especially, bah humbug and though it grieves me to say it….good luck in that puss filled mire.