Loss of TalkTalk Broadband  for 25 days
Please note that the rating refers to Customer Services and not to the company or its products and/or primary services.

The aim of this report (as with all others) is to record case studies for researchers and also, as in this case, to provide customer feedback and suggestions to help providers improve their Customer Services and retain customer loyalty.  All broadband (BBand) network providers are getting adverse coverage in the media.  It looks as if they have signed up more users than the current hardware and liveware infrastructure can support.  Even so, the customer experience can be improved.

Attractions: Let us admit it.  TalkTalk BBand is free and fast.  My personal knowledge of the following case leads me to conclude that TalkTalk can retain customer loyalty if it addresses some areas of concern, which are highlighted. 

Until the loss of BBand  Once we got over the teething problems and got connected, we were quite pleased with the service for 5 months until we lost BBand.  When it was finally corrected 25 days later, it turned out to be a faulty card in the local BT exchange.  The telecoms engineer, who came to the house and went to the local exchange, identified the problem and fixed the fault with a replacement in minutes.

So, why get annoyed with TalkTalk? The way in which Customer Services is structured is a waste of customers and TalkTalk staff time.  Better use could be made of the same staff with a change in procedures.

The free front line access to technical support 0870 444 1820 x 2/3/2/3 gets you, (if you are lucky) after a long wait, to a call centre in India.  The lines are sometimes poor and the accents can be difficult to follow.  They seem to stick to a set script.  We lost BBand on 26th Feb 07 but only rang on 28th in case there was a temporary problem at the local exchange.  We were fobbed off by one member of staff who said that there was no fault on our line.   He was adamant that TalkTalk could do no more and, despite our insistence that we had only one wall socket, he maintained that the problem was with internal wiring and suggested that we get a local technician to sort it out.  We later found out that the call centre cannot do a definitive test on the BT line with software alone.  On telephoning again, other front line staff attempted to go through the same connection procedure again and again using the Connect & Go CD, despite being told repeatedly that there was no ADSL input.  At some stage, if you persist and are insistent, you get through to 2nd line staff.  On rare occasions, you do get staff who appreciate that they need to refer you to 2nd line without wasting their and your time.

The 2nd line staff have been technically more competent and helpful in general.  Their initial response on the 28th Feb (Wednesday) was that our SpeedTouch modem had developed a fault.  A replacement modem would be sent and a note would be put in our file to say that we should be put through to 2nd line directly.  The modem arrived the following Tuesday (6th Mar)  When we rang back on 7th Mar (Wednesday) to say that there was still no BBand signal, the frontline staff insisted on putting us through the same hoops again before we were eventually referred to 2nd line staff.  One 2nd line staff said he would test our line and ring back.  We waited and waited - the phone did not ring - so we rang back.  After going in circles once more, we got through to 2nd line again and this time were told that the replacement modem must also be faulty since it had no ADSL LNK light.  Another modem would be sent!

By now, we had talked to 12 people and so decided to email Contact Us on 11 Mar 07.  The email response from Emma Webster only provided the telephone numbers to ring.  But, we kept her updated throughout of the lack of progress.  When modem3 did not arrive by the 14th (another week later) we wrote to the CEO Charles Dunstone.  We have not received a reply to-date (24th Mar),  Modem3 arrived on 15th and we went around in circles again despite the fact that it too had no LNK light.  When we eventually got through to 2nd line, we enquired as to the outcome of the investigation of the BT line.  He could find no notes on this but said he would report a fault which should be acted upon within 48 hours.  It was a very bad line and we could not follow his accent - so we were not entirely sure of what was going to happen.

To her credit, Emma Webster took the trouble to ring on 16th and tried to arrange some help.  2nd life staff from Stornaway rang on 17th Mar (Sat).  Since he wanted to test the modem again and wanted us to fit the microfilter, he said he would ring back.  We waited and waited and gave up in the end.  After dinner, when we checked 1471, we found that he had rung promptly and at other times when one of us had been waiting by the phone.  The phone had not rung!  Fortunately, we own a mobile and could check this.  We had not realised that there was a dial-in problem when the microfilter was fitted since we had no problems in dialling out. So, we rang TalkTalk and explained the problem and asked 2nd line to check the BBand line and ring back on our mobile.

On 18th Mar, we rang the Landline section and reported the problem with phone not ringing when connected via the microfilter.  She did not detect a fault but arranged for a call from the BBand section.  We again went through the tests, including taking off the faceplate and plugging the microfilter directly into the internal socket.  He confirmed that a fault had been detected and ticked by previous 2nd line staff (one on the 7th and another on 15th - both of whom had left voicemails for us) but a form had not been sent to BT for some reason.  He would do that and someone would ring after 48 hours to check and follow it through.  Someone did ring on Thu 21st Mar and arranged for an engineer to call on Friday.  It did not take him long to note a fault using his modem and filters, trace it to a faulty card at the local exchange and fix the problem.  He rang the following day to check that we were able to connect before closing this case.

Conclusion:

The failure in the BBand Customer Services occurs because the standard procedure at the front line leaves the problem with the customer, who has to do all the running and pushing for over 2 weeks.  In contrast, the Landline section took ownership of the problem and had it sorted within a week.  Yes, there are many reasons for a loss of BBand, and these should be checked by Front line staff - connection procedures, connections, faulty microfilters, modems etc.  However, once a line fault is suspected or detected (as was the case a week after our initial approach), 2nd line should have taken control.  Perhaps they would have done so if  we had not been sent faulty microfilters with the SmartAX modem (as noted by the telecoms engineer when he called).  When we swapped them for those sent with the SpeedTouch modems, the phone does behave as expected - i.e it rings when we have a call.  However, they did not seem to exercise some common sense to deduce that someone who kept ringing for assistance was unlikely to ignore their phone calls - equally, with hindsight, we should have suspected that something was amiss much earlier.

So,  in our opinion, it looks as if TalkTalk has been let down by:

• a faulty card in the BT exchange; BT dealt with this problem fairly promptly.

• sending out incompatible or faulty microfilters which do not function as expected

• tardy Royal Mail

• front line staff who for some reason seem to want to hang onto customers for as long as they can before putting them through to 2nd line.  This major blockage in Customer Services needs investigating for a possible link to payment schemes.

• 2nd line staff not raising a fault with BT after having detected it.  Perhaps they were waiting to check this out with us before taking action.  Again, this potential for hold up needs to be unblocked.

We do not know how things would have turned out if we did not have:

• a different set of microfilters to those sent with the SmartAX modem

• a mobile phone for troubleshooting by us and another means of contact

• another ISP whom we could reach through dial-up to send an email to the Contact Us address.

• a laptop which could be taken more conveniently to the wall socket to test the BT line from our end.  TalkTalk will not assist until you do this even if you have used an extension successfully for months before the fault developed.

• some confidence and a lot of persistence and energy to cope with the stress of dealing with 22 different people, who were just doing their job, following instructions and scripts but in a rather intransigent or mindless way at times.

In conclusion, we think the main problem lies with the call centre in India.  With hindsight, we are convinced that 2nd line engineers did take ownership of the problem, tried to resolve it and were thwarted by being unable to get back to us by phone.  We suggest that:

• Procedures and proforma need to take into account possible glitches, such as, customer's phone not ringing because of faults;

• The online forms for tracking 'reported faults' should be re-designed such that once troubleshooting has gone past a certain stage (eg when the BT line fault was first detected) this can be prominently ticked so that customer calls can be automatically referred to 2nd line.  Or better still,

• Giving the customer the job number such that they can ring 2nd line directly and with justification once fault diagnosis has reached an appropriate stage (eg it is no longer a modem configuration problem)

• Better liaison between Landline & Broadband - so that customers who have got to the line fault stage are not bounced between Departments.

• Since 24 other customers and not just us would have lost our connection if we were on a faulty card, is it not possible to match the telephone numbers of customers ringing in to report a loss of BBand against the telephone numbers switched by cards?  This could lead to earlier detection of potential line faults.

Yes, it was extremely exasperating - but we hope that we have all learnt something from this case. 
 

Rating of TalkTalk  on the categories used by BBC Watchdog on Wed 21 March 2007.

Value for Money - 2+/5
Given the loss of BBand for 25 days, our time and the stress of it all. 
Reliability - 2+/5
On this occasion, TalkTalk may not have been responsible for the faulty card.  These things occur from time to time.  But, it needs to insist on better quality assurance from suppliers, e.g. of modems and microfilters.
Ease of Setup:  variable
5/5 if Connect & Go completes successfully the first time as it did on our desktop.  But, we now have a) hanging Connect & Go software on the laptop which locks up the system until we can get WIndows XP to shut it down (we think that this has now been resolved); and,  the ghost of the Thompson SpeedTouch modem software, which we coul not exorcise out of either the laptop or desktop.  But, see solution below.
Customer Services:  1/5 for call centre in India;  4/5 for 2nd line technical staff;  5/5 for landline; 0/5  for BBand Technical Dept since wait times of over 20 mins at 10p/min makes this a non-service.  5+/5 for telecom engineer called on by TalkTalk
Cancellation:  N/A

After our experience with OneTel (also owned by Carphone Warehouse), we hope that we are not going to have to fight to get our money back if we have to cancel with justification.  Life is too short to waste time unnecessarily.
 

But, some of the above are teething problems - so we will monitor how things develop during the contract period.
 

29 Mar 07
We wrote to Mr Charles Dunstone on 25 Mar 07 to update him and give the address of this web page.  Mr Duncan Ocquaye, Chief Executive Officer of High Level Complaints, made contact on 27 Mar 07 with apologies for the delay.  He agreed to consider the suggestions in this page.
 

Uninstalling SpeedTouch software after connecting via SmartAX modem

Frontline staff tried the uninstall software on the Connect & Go CD, using Add/Remove Programs and deleting the Thompson modem driver in the List of Drivers.  None of this would work - the error message was that you need to close down the open connection before you can uninstall the program.  Well, I was not connected.  I eventually realised that you need to click on SpeedTouch icon in status bar tray; untick 2 boxes there, and exit the program to get rid of icon.  If you then use Add/Remove Programs to uninstall the SpeedTouch software, it does get rid of it.  It also removes C:\Program Files\Thompson and hopefully any registry entry.  Perhaps the TalkTalk website should include instructions for uninstalling and not just installing the software since the Frontline staff did not seem to know when I rang.
 

3 Apr 07

Belated reply, after the event, to our letter of 14 Mar 07 to Charles Dunstone from Correspondence Department to say that BBand section had rung twice while we were away to say that the problem had now been resolved.  The BT engineer had rung on 26th March to check that the problem was fully resolved.    This rather tardy response says that if there are any residual problems we should ring the usual Helpline (Oh No - we cannot get through!).  BUT, also had a call from BBand section to ask if there were any residual problems.  This shows they are taking ownership of and tracking the job.

19 Jun 07
See Telegraph business profile of Charles Dunstone.  All is forgiven, Charles.  For our sakes, we hope that it is plain sailing from now on.  Good Luck.

Nov 2007

Given reports of problems from friends, here are our solutions to some residual problems.

1. After the engineering works we were forewarned about, we kept getting disconnected from BBand every time we used the Landline phone.  I eventually worked out that it was the Fun-Jin Microfilter sent with the SmartAX 882 modem by Carphone Warehouse.  After I swapped it for a Speedtouch ADSL filter, the problem vanished.  This is now stated on the TalkTalk webpage - but why did they send me the wrong filter and not replace it with Speedtouch 330?

2. We seem to get disconnected from BBand periodically for some unknown reason.  Unfortunately, the TalkTalk Assist & Go program does not seem able to reconnect quite often.  I am usually able to get over this problem by checking all the physical connections and then:

   • a) opening Network Connections (Click on Start/Connect to/Show all connections);

   • b) right clicking on the Marvell Yukon Ethernet Controller (which is our controller for TalkTalk BBand)

   • c) Clicking on Disable

   • d) Then double click on the Marvell Yukon icon to enable the connection.  You can see an icon pop-up on the right-hand side of the Windows Task Bar at the bottom of the screen.  When it closes itself, try connecting to www.bbc.co.uk .  If this does not open the BBC homepage, try this again.

3. Sometimes the BBand server is down for protracted periods and you will lose your BBand connection.  In which case try later - there may be nothing wrong with your computer or set up.

So far, this has worked for us - but I agree it is unsatisfactory, worrying and very inconvenient.   The information provided through the TalkTalk helpdesk links do not always give me the feedback I should get as indicated on their page.  I think that it is deplorable that people are having to buy third party assistance to get and stay connected - i.e. basic services which should be provided by first and second line Customer Care.

Mahes Visvalingam, 23/03/07
Last updated on 21/11/07