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Delayed broadband activation without communication

TaTka
4: Newbie

Hi all,

it is really frustrating.

I am switching to gigafast and had my installation on the 14th , with the clear commitment that activation would be done by midnight.

After a few encounters with further promises 'of within 24h', excuses like 'activation pending on activation team', 'openreach is working on the line', ' fiberxxx (who?) has problems', 'I have issued the order, I am writing the email now' I still have no commitment to an activation date. Just the feedback that they are not allowed to confirm anything but that everything is on my record in vodafone.
Today I got the information that it will happen in the morning, and that I should call the hotline for confirmation and the hotline told me it will happen within 48h - 7 days after installation - and a promise that vodafone will make it up to me soon ... by providing the service that I pay for.


There wasn't a single email to me to give me any update on the current status or a new date of activation.

I don't have much trust in the current commitments and am really worried that even the overlap of 2 weeks that I have planned for the services won't be long enough and I will struggle to keep my work going.

The lack of communication and competence in support is shocking.

 

 

17 REPLIES 17

TaTka
4: Newbie

... and the drama continous.

 

After a call yesterday that issued another of these orders and no further commitment I asked to escalate this to get it moving. The promise was that I'll be called today with an update on the escalation / investigation by the supervisor.

And I got the call and got informed that my activation is not pending any order confirmation but that there is a DOE and that this is now communicated. I understand that this means there is a problem on my line and that needs sorting. Because someone ticked the BT-complete status tick it was never investigated and everybody assumed it is active.

This has changed now and 7 days after installation someone will follow up what problems I have on my line. After various people have checked my router configuration (how?) and ensured that it will take only another 24h.

 

This time there is no promise that it will be fixed within 24h, because we don't know what the problem is. And as my other provider is running out soon I get now a sim card via mail that should keep me going before the dark ages are coming over this house.

I am happy about this initiative, I am only worried how I'll work on mobile data as my reason to switch to fibre is that I was unsatisifed with the bandwidth of my current provider, to often I had issues in my conference calls and other services.

Somehow the vodafone support is really broken with their scattered teams and various levels... none of them incompetent or unhelpful, but the whole service has to be judged as that.

Best advise was coming in via the twitter account, with the hint that the highest escalation is to make a formal complaint. (really?)

 

I keep my fingers crossed that this is moving somewhere soon.

one week and many calls later I am at the status:
now the line is sorted the order got through and it takes maximum 48h to have the service up and running.

 I'll never find out what exactly the issue was or is. This time I am somehow positive to the new perspective of only 2 more days of waiting for the activation.
I had to pro-long my existing broadband with my old provider for another month, as the mobile solution via provided SIM is not sufficient for working from home for me. I don't want to go to the office because my internet isn't working. At least they were helpful.

Fingers crossed that this will get now somewhere, but it is really poor service that the support is delivering.

On average I was 40min on the line until I got to the right person that in the end wouldn't be able to help me (at least the information was correct), the longest I waited was 1h 10min... I only could bare this because it is a necessary service for me.

It is a horrible feeling to be so exposed and absolutely depending on this very basic service of every day's life, I wouldn't have thought that switching can be such a painful process.

14th to the 29th for the activation after installation is shocking.

TaTka
4: Newbie

another 48h later I have no internet and no information about anything... so I am again on the phone, what a service.

today it didn't take that long, and I got another promise for a call back tomorrow and that it would be resolved within 48h.

TaTka
4: Newbie

And I got a call back yesterday and happily received the information that the issue was resolved and that my internet would be live the same day,

Unfortunately that wasn't true and after another call today I found out that the DOA is still open and that there was an update yesterday that they need further investigation, and that I may get more information in a few days.

 

It is just WOW, 16 days and they don't even know what the problem is and don't intend to inform the customer about the progress.

How does this usually work? People sit at home with no internet and at some point the router starts working without any information about it?

 

Installation on the 14th of October and no idea or plan when the internet will be live.

 

I started baking next to the waiting loop of the support line, the pumpkin pie smells really nice. What are you guys doing with all the lost time at the phone?

TaTka
4: Newbie

Another day another plan.

I called and got the information that everything will work within 24h, after I insisted that there is a DOA open it got 'checked'.
And I got helped to check my browser, and the router got 'initialised' and it would work within 1 minute or within 30minutes. And the promise for a call back in 30 minutes. To get to that stage took only 1h10min.

 

I wasn't surprised that all of it was just made up and got over the pain to call again.

 

This time a competent support checked the DOA and doubled checked for the next actions and confirmed that an engineer has to go an check the line and that this will happen on Wednesday, so I'll get latest on Thursday a call to update me on the status. That were another 1h20minute of my life time.

I have way more confidence in the second call and hope that my issue will now be followed up and resolved soon (?).

 

I'll have to work in the time that I have to spend on the call line in business hours and I am lucky to be able to do so, how does this work for people that can't stick on the phone for over an hour to get support working? (or in my case only today 2h30 )

TaTka
4: Newbie

And I didn't get my promised call back, and the internet is not working.

I had a call and was lucky to get to the offshore team, obviously they can't see anything in there system... but why not again:

I can see that the work is now completed, I have issued now the order it can take up to 48h until you internet is working. Let me reconfigure your router....

 

Surprisingly I wasn't very impressed with the response and I don't believe a single word, that is why I requested to speak with the line manager to get this somewhere... and the only thing I got is the promise that he will call me tomorrow morning.

 

Somehow I am losing my interest to work this out.... my current provider isn't that bad at all.
We will see how much more effort I am willed to put into this 'service'.

TaTka
4: Newbie

And I didn't receive a call, but even better after my first try the agent hung up (20min waiting)
The second call, after insisting that she please should double check what work has happened now on the DOA, the second agent put me into the waiting loop first and hung up too. (1h10m)

3rd try and finally I got a status update.
The line repair is delayed because of open reach resource topics. A new priority ticket has been raised and hopefully this will be fixed over the weekend. In theory activation could happen on Monday. (it took only 30min)
On Monday I'll get a call back regarding the status.

 

And for you guys I'll have a call with the manager later too to ensure that someone is doing something about the team that is giving false information. But who knows maybe even I'll benefit from it.

Somehow this time I don't dare to be positive about the progress(?) ... I was already 3 times at this stage, or was it 4?  I don't even try to reconstruct this, it's too frustrating.