I had the most appalling service from BT when my broadband kept dropping at my one-person one-room business, their One Bill system failed to draw on my direct debit for the telephone element and they failed to notify me until I was six months in arrears. It is unsurprising therefore that I picked an alternative supplier when I planed to move office.
I won’t go into the details but suffice it to say that it’s not a good idea to ask Utility Warehouse to help you move seamlessly, for they have no procedures whatsoever for being able to set up a line with broadband and transfer a number from elsewhere, all on the same day. They cannot even instigate the orders for the number or the broadband until the line is in their possession. Whether that’s their fault - and I’m inclined to think it’s not - doesn’t really matter. What matters is that they didn’t tell me until it was nearly too late and seemed to think that their business service, which would leave me up to five days without any telephone line and up to 10 days without broadband, was acceptable for a business. I cancelled in high dudgeon just one day before calamity. Utility Warehouse - or UW Club as it prefers to be known - has a great deal to learn about business customer service.
So with my move fast approaching and in desperation I rang BT and said I was sorry, I did love them after all and could they do the move for me? No problem, they responded. You can have the line and the broadband transferred on one day and that can take place in five days time. I was ecstatic, my joy knew no bounds. The stress fell away now that I was firmly in Nurse BT’s hands once again - how reassuring.
My delight was however short-lived. It turns out that British Telecommunications couldn’t do the job in five days as the salesman said - but seven. OK, I’m a reasonable person and bearing in mind that I had committed the dreadful sin of unfaithfulness and a contrite heart was now mine, I resolved to be patient.
All the emails that followed were very reassuring. I presumed an engineer would call me to arrange a time for the installation. He hasn't and there's been no call, so since tomorrow is a very long day and I’m unable to be at my new office, I called the Business Movers Team this morning. Could they give me a time? No, absolutely not. The only thing they could do was assure me that the job would be done between 8 am and 6 pm - and even the person on the phone agreed that time span for an appointment was hardly reasonable. After I kicked up a fuss she did agree to try and contact the installation team. I'm not holding my breath.
What I find amazing is that I’ve just turned my PC on and I’ve received another reassuring email from BT in which is states that my appointment is .......... wait for it ..............”Provisionally appointed for 01/07/2010 00:00:00” Ah, so BT you do actually have a system with a slot for the hour, but you’re just not prepared to tell me what that time is. Instead I am expected to ensure someone is in my one-room office for a total of 10 hours.
BT, I call this totally unreasonable - a bit like the totally unreasonable fact that I have one telephone line with broadband on it and had to set up TWO direct debit accounts. Totally unreasonable like when my broadband failed and I was bounced between “wholesale” and the broadband team, neither of whom wanted to take responsibility for me. It was only my email to the chairman of BT that put me in touch with the most charming Scottish BT Escalation Team who did have the right buttons to push and did eventually sort out the problem.
One thing that is quite clear to me is that if you are a small business and you use BT you will be treated like a domestic customer. A line with broadband on it is in their minds a domestic affair and despite the fact that as a business you are fleeced for a service just because you’re a business you get the same flakey service you would if you were just a householder.
BT - and I really do hope you and hundreds of others are reading this - such lack of understanding of your customers simply isn’t good enough. The majority of the businesses in this country are small businesses and many of those are micro businesses like me. Just try looking at the service you are giving and ask yourselves, would you wait in 10 hours for someone who is only booked to attend your premises “provisionally”?
