Friday, August 09, 2013

Customer retention? Nah....

Before I start this particular post, I was originally going to update one about Orange stitiching up their customers  - but it seems I didn't post that one!

So a quick resume is in order.

Not long after I signed a two year deal with Orange, they decided to up the prices - which was annoying enough, but the really annoying part was the text they sent to all those of us who were affected saying that it was in the tiny small print that they could do this and there was nothing we could do about it.

Their attitude in the text was enough to make me decide there and then to leave Orange as soon as my contract expired. A shame because their quick action to replace my phone when it went wrong was great (see one of the earlier posts about that).

Anyway, that was the background to this post.

So, contract coming to an end, I look around for another provider. This in itself proved annoying (the reasons are not really important - just down to the remoteness of my home and address issues).

But eventually, I found a good deal with the Three network. I have had a 3 phone on PAYG some years ago and got good signal all around and inside my home - ideal!
So, I signed my life away and awaited the delivery of my new phone on the two year contract I had just signed up to.
The phone arrives and I start examining it - really nice phone, but hang on.... crap signal!  I can't get any signal unless the phone is sat in the windowsill and then I can get one bar (or occasionally two bars in the kitchen window!). I can get a 3G signal in the kitchen, so run Speedtest on that - which tells me I have 3.8Mb/s compared to my home broadband speeds of around 1Mb/s at best....

OK, thinks me, the 3G is nice, but the signal inside the house sucks - so off to Google for some researching!
After a short while, I come across the 3 Home Signal device - basically a signal booster for the 3 mobile signal in the house! Great - I decide t oask 3 about it. After a lot of being pushed from Customer Service to Network to the Home Signal service people, I get through to someone who asks some questions and runs a network test on the mast near here.
All is well with the mast, so he proceeds to explain to me all about how the signal travels through the air and how anything in its path - trees, walls etc - can affect the signal.... (Thanks, but I have the A+ Computer Technician certification which covered this stuff.....).
He suggests that I CANCEL my contract since the 14 day cooling off period is still in operation! No, I say, I like the 3G speed here and I have heard about this Home Signal box....
Seems 3 don't issue them unless you qualify - and the qualification seems to include being out of the 14 day trial time. A bit stupid really, because if they had told me I could have this box straight away, it would have been great customer service and would presumably help to sway thise who were less convinced of the pros of the 3 Network. To tell me that I should CANCEL is simply terrible - and I am surprised 3 have any customers if they carry on like that.

Anyway, I am waiting for the 14 day period to end and then they are supposedly ringing me back to organise this Home Signal box....



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