We have recently moved from a 2 bed rented flat to our own little building site, er I mean, house.  This of course means moving all of our services, which isn’t a major problem unless you have experience of dealing with Virgin Media.  I don’t know if I’m just unlucky but it does seem that every dealing I have with them it feels like a game of russian roulette.  It’s a sad state of affairs as the actual service they offer is good, but the support/customer service they offer is so bad its almost comical.

My first job from college was working in a customer service environment where I helped customers with your normal day to day customer service issues (where is my parcel?  where is my refund?  what are you wearing and where do you stand on spanking?) and technical support (why won’t this work?  which button is the any key?  I still want to know what you are wearing and now i’m naked).

What I’m saying is that I know how hard it is to work in a callcentre and i’m sympathetic everytime I speak to someone in that situation, so it does take quite bad service for me to start complaining.

So…. we moved into the new house and moved the virgin across from the flat.  We had internet over the telephone in the flat and have moved across to cable.  The installation didn’t go too well partly due to us not having the sockets powered up on the ground floor so the engineer didn’t test/connect the service before he left.

When we got the power connected a few days later, we tried to connect the internet but it didn’t work, so we had to phone support.  Got through to the outsourced callcentre who took all the details and ran some tests.  Only to be told that an engineer would have to come out.  A few days later he came out and said that it hadn’t been installed correctly and fixed the problem.

The next day we tried to connect the tv to virgin and nope, this didn’t work.  Yet again another phone call to support, another outsourced call agent following a script and another engineer booked to come out and fix the problem which again was due to a bad installation.

We’re about 2 weeks in now and finally the services are installed and working, huzzah!  No more dealing with Virgin and I can just sit down and do nothing!

I then get my first bill and the confusion started.  My services have always come out via direct debit and the debits had continued as normal, so why was I getting a first bill?  I suspected that I was still paying for the previous address, so deep sigh and back on the phone to virgin media.

I’m at work and I don’t have my details, no worries I think – i’m internet savvy (I should do it for a job really) so I look up the virgin media website and can I find a telephone number?  No!  Lots of frequently asked questions (funnily enough none of them are “WHAT IS YOUR PHONE NUMBER”) and its all very interactive but no numbers to be found.  I googled it, and found the number on a separate website, so took a deep breath and gave them a call.

After navigating the phone system (Customer services / Billing) I was passed through to an agent in the outsourced call centre who took my details.  I gave him my new account number, he checked my address, password and asked all the necessary security questions.  I then explained the problem and that I suspected my old account was still active and was being charged.  He took a look at this and confirmed that I was right and it was still active.  Unfortunately as it wasn’t a cable account he would have to pass me through to a different department.  Fair enough I thought… So back on hold and passed through to operator number 2.

Operator number 2, asked me my account number.  I explained that I don’t have the account number as i’ve moved and its an old account.  He asked me my address, password and a few security questions.  Then asked me what he could do to help.  I explained the problem and he said “Ok I’ll have to pass you through to the right department, please hold”.

Operator number 3 answered the phone.  I’d already had enough by this stage and asked her straight away “You are the 3rd person i’ve spoken to, can you help me?” she asked me for my account number, but I explained that as i’ve moved yadda yadda blah blah smash smash head head wall wall.  She then explained that i’d need to talk to the moving team and she’d transfer me.

It’s at this point that some part of me died inside.

Operator number 4 answered the phone and took my details.  As I didn’t have my account number, he had to ask some security questions – funny that eh?  I explained the situation and it went something like this.

VM (Virgin Media): What can I help you with today?
Me: I’ve recently moved and you’ve not closed my old account down and you’re still charging me for it.
VM: Ah ok so you want me to close this down?  When do you want me to close this?
Me: It should have been closed on the 30th June.  So can you explain to me why this hasn’t been done.
VM: I’m not sure sir but we’ll close this down and credit your account.
Me: When will this be credited and how much?
VM: I’m not sure sir but I’ll have to get my manager to give you a call back and he can give you more details.
Me: Riiiight.  When will that be.
VM: He’s just walked past my desk a few minutes ago so it should be within the hour sir.

I then confirmed my contact details and hung up.  I knew they wouldn’t phone as this was a pretty standard customer service fob off tactic that we used to use all the time!  It’s up there with my all time favourite, which is.

“Hey sir would you like to buy this crap we’re selling today?, we can give you a great deal….. in fact let me just put you on hold and i’ll talk to my manager to see what special discount you can have today”

Hold Music: Fleetwood Mac – You can go your own way

“Good news, my manager says I can give you 50% off if you order today….  Sir… Sir?”

It’s a classic and it always makes me chuckle, but I digress.  They didn’t phone me and after speaking to 4 people I wasn’t going to waste my time again, so back to the website and followed the complaints procedure.  I emailed them and informed them of the problem and then promptly cancelled my old direct debit to stop any future payments coming out in error.  Within a few hours I got an email from virgin who had noticed that I’d cancelled my direct debit and warned me that i’d need to make alternative payment arrangements!

I got no other response from Virgin.

I’d phoned and spoken to them, i’d cancelled the debit and emailed in a complaint and nothing.  I wasn’t sure what else to do, and then I realised that I did have one final option.  Twitter.  I joined twitter last year (@tonyhearn) and definately fall more on the Facebook side of the social networking divide but I have tried to keep up with Twitter and know that if you want to directly communicate with companies then this can be a very effective means of communication.

Now even though this felt a little like “Airing my dirty laundry in public” I had no real choice, so I found Virgin’s twitter account and Tweeted them. Thus follows that conversion.

Tony Hearn after being let down by customer service, I emailed in a complaint and have heard nothing – how long should it take to reply?
Virgin Media ‏Where did you send your complaint to Tony? BMc
tonyhearn sent through the website and got a auto response, am not phoning cs again, passed through 5 different people and then ignored
Virgin Media ‏It can take up to 28 days to reply to those forms, however it usually is much sooner to be honest. BMc
tonyhearn that’s terrible service. I imagine when you fail to take the money from my account then you’ll waste no time chasing that.
Virgin Media ‏ Can I ask for you to tell us a bit more about your complaint? | SD
tonyhearn I moved house and you’re still charging me for old account. Simple problem no idea why it can’t be sorted quickly
Virgin Media Can I ask why it wasn’t sorted out when you rang our guys? KB
tonyhearn you tell me! The 5th person I spoke to said they would get someone to call me back within an hour. Heard nothing since.
Virgin Media Oh my! Please fill out our form here http://virg.co/social  so that we can investigate this for you | SD
tonyhearn Ok, i’ll filled that form in – can this be resolved?
Virgin Media ‏We’ll give it our best shot 🙂 You’re in good hands. TB

After this I filled in their form and they phoned me back with 2 hours and sorted it all out straight away, also they emailed me afterwards to confirm everything.

This was such a simple issue to fix and its frankly ridiculous that it even got to this point, but mistakes happen.  However how a company deals with its mistakes speaks volumes and even though they resolved it in the end – they really should sort out their customer service issues, certainly the callcentre staff i’ve spoke to generally don’t give me the impression that they care and are just reading from a script and passing you on to someone else if your square peg doesn’t fit into their hexagonal hole.

Twitter though does give you a voice, and it can be quite a loud voice.  Send them public messages, write on their facebook walls.  Anything that is public is damaging their image and they need to be seen to be doing something about it.

It’s all as Winston Churchill once said “We shall fight them on facebook, we shall fight them on twitter, we might fight them on myspace and we might even consider fighting them on bebo but we shall never bother phoning crap customer service again!”