Re: [Hampshire] ISPs (again): Recommendation and warning

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Gibbins" <sean@???>
To: "Hampshire LUG Discussion List" <hampshire@???>
Sent: Sunday, March 02, 2008 4:49 PM
Subject: Re: [Hampshire] ISPs (again): Recommendation and warning


> Ottavio Caruso wrote:
>> On Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:33:11 +0000, "Sean Gibbins"
>> <sean@???> said:
>>
>>
>>> Yeah, smart techies cost money and that's where they are making the
>>> savings I guess.
>>>
>>
>> That's not rue. I have a top of the range salary as a tier 1 support,
>> yet I am incompetent...
>>
>>
>
> Hehe - that may be the case for you Ottavio, but I suspect it is the
> exception rather than the rule.
>
> Some of the people I have dealt with on first line support have
> struggled with basic competencies - manners, simple communications,
> reading from the card that tells them what to say - and I can't imagine
> that they are highly paid to be honest.
>
> Generally it's a position that sees a rapid turnover of staff, with
> anyone who is remotely competent and ambitious moving on as quickly as
> possible to a more varied and better paid job. Only people who can
> handle the tedium of answering a phone to (often difficult) customers
> all day long stick around otherwise, and one of the challenges facing
> good service desk manager is to retain the staff, and with them their
> skills and experience.
>
> One of the excellent things about AAISP was the fact that the support
> staff /did/ seem to stick around and /did/ know what they were talking
> about; I suspect that they rotated around various aspects of the
> day-to-day running of the service since, as someone else mentioned, it
> was not uncommon for the boss to answer a support call. AAISP are a
> relatively small company charging a relatively high price for an 8Mb
> ADSL MAX connection.
>
> Sky on the other hand are a large company charging considerably less for
> pretty much the same service, and I have yet to experience anything
> remotely impressive about the first or second line of support.
>
> I suspect the model is:
> - keep it simple
> - discourage the punters from stuffing up their config and bothering the
> support staff
> - pay a few smart guys to run the service efficiently in the background
>
> Sean
>
Yes - I'd echo all of that.

It is customer service that cost Orange my custom. I guess we're still
comparatively early in the days of services operating in "regulated"
competitive markets so hopefully more people will vote with their feet and
these companies will start to realise that poor customer service will cost
them customers.

I bet it'll take Asian wages to catch up to UK rates before that happens
though.

Cheers
Rob