How the hell do I get (well known mobile network provider) to get their act together

[yegnold]

How the hell do I get (well known mobile network provider) to get their act together?

I am a longstanding customer with a well known mobile network provider and have not had any call quality issues in the 8 or 9 years I have been with them until November/December 2010, when I and about 10 other people local to this area got problems in that they would make a phone call and then not be able to hear anything in terms of audio in either direction. There is some mast-phone communication though, here's how I know:

If I ring my home landline then the home phone will ring, but on my mobile I won't hear the 'ring ring' noise. When someone on the home phone picks up, my handset vibrates to indicate that the phone has been picked up. However, the landline hears no audio, and I on my mobile hear no audio. Making a second (or sometimes third or fourth) phone call will resolve the issue.

This has been going on, like I say, since early December. I first thought it was just me, so left it and put it down to dodgy signal, but later found out that all people on our local mast had the issue, so here starts the story:

I first reported this issue on Thursday 23rd December when I spoke to a lady who immediately escalated the issue to a high priority as I mentioned it was affecting multiple people and definitely wasn't just my hand set.

I then received a phone call from the technical team on Sunday 2nd January, when I was away from home. They promised to phone back after 5pm on Tuesday 4th January.

I never received that phone call so chased up with my original support lady via email on the morning of Thursday 6th January, she kindly called me back and left an answerphone message explaining that the technical team were investigating a fault.

I then emailed the same lady on Friday 7th January with full details of a few calls I had made that were problematic as well as several other mobile numbers on this same network that are also experiencing issues in this area.

I received a phone call from that lady on Monday 10th January when she explained that the technical team had found and fixed an issue with the mast on Thursday 6th January but that there was obviously still another issue as I had subsequently had problematic phone calls. I confirmed that other people have also had problematic phone calls. She said she would pass this to the technical team and try to get them to ring me that day. Unfortunately I didn't receive any phone call from this mobile phone company on Monday 10th January.

Sent another email on 11 January describing another phone call that morning that had been problematic

Tech team tried calling Mon 17 Jan at 10:33 and on Tue 18 Jan 10:33, both times left a message asking me for more information.

I spoke to Kirsty in cust services Wed 19 Jan to try to give that information, she promised to call back and put me through to technical team on 20 between 5 and 6pm. This phone call was never received.

Contacted twitter support team for this company on Thu 20 Jan, they said they would look in to it. No result.

Called 9.30pm 20 Jan 2011,after demanding immediately to speak toa customer services manager I got quickly put through to a lady in the technical team, who was v helpful and took the required information down. Said it was still an open issue and that it is a priority.

I reluctantly changed my signal to 2G only on HTC desire on evening of 24 January just to satisfy the front line support guys who always ask that question, tried to make phone call at 23:04 this evenign and still experienced the same issue i.e. just a high pitched electronic noise, no voice. Reiterated to twitter support team that my issue was still ongoing.

The mobile company did, to their credit, refund me £30 for the last month's bill because I have not received the service I have been paying for. What I ultimately want though is my mobile service to be like it was before!

Any tips on how I can get them to sort this out and stop cocking around? Do I really need to write a letter to their customer services HQ? I'm having to spend an awful lot of my time getting this sorted (and it still isn't by any means sorted), time which I should be spending freelancing and actually earning money! This is incredibly irritating and alL I want is a resolution!

Edited 24 January, 2011 by yegnold

[agentz]

TO be honest, I wouldn't bother with CS/Tech much longer, you've given them a fair old crack at the whip, have been more than helpful when they've asked you for further information.

Try one of the following Chief Executive email addresses - pick your company...

o2: [email protected]

Orange: [email protected]

T-Mobile: [email protected]

Three: [email protected]

Vodafone UK: [email protected]

They'll most likely be picked up on my some PR drone, but they can get results, this issue has been affecting you and others for six weeks plus now. I had horrendous issues with Vodafone customer services a year or so ago, where they were constantly billing me for insurance even though I'd never signed up for it, and despite repeated phonecalls, and promises from CS staff, CS managers and customer liaison team that they would cancel it and refund the payments it took over a year to sort out. It would disappear from my bill for a month or two then would come back again. I eventually emailed Guy Laurence, got a very nice reply from a very helpful lady, and had a letter confirming that the insurance had been cancelled and I'd been credited in excess of £150.

Good luck, and well done for tackling the issue - other people may just have assumed that they'd already be aware of it or that someone else would report it.

[yegnold]

I'm having one last swing at customer services by sending a physical letter to their complaints department. After that I will give contacting more directly a go, and after that I will just throw a passive paddy and complain about them all over the internets.