We have been using Vodafone for more than a year to connect to the internet, and then got an iPhone from them about 6 months ago, and have found dealing with them great, much better than dealing with Telstra and another organisation we were recommended to, whose name we’ve forgotten. And the support we got in person when we went to one of their branches was great too.
But then!
When one of us went to their branch recently on a matter which was quite urgent, the particular guy we saw was completely and utterly hopeless. To cap it all off, when he was asked what our password was, (we’d been a bit careless with our password, but this had never been a problem in the past, others had always come up with it without any problem,) he replied solemnly, and with a tone in his voice as though I’d been a “naughty boy” for asking, “Only you would know what your password was.” It was madness! If we’d known what it was, we wouldn’t have asked. And to for him to suggest that we would and could be the only one who would ever know it was insane.
And then, with our new phone, an iPhone, voices on it were so soft we could hardly hear what was being said. But when we saw one of their consultants and asked if the level of loudness could be adjusted, she advised that nothing could done.
When we get time, we’ll go to the Apple Genius Bar, and see what they have to say. We’ll be so cranky if they say this advice was wrong.
To us there’s a world of difference between support which is offered by email and that which is offered by phone or in person. When it’s offered by phone or in person, and it’s rubbish, which, in our experience, it quite often is, there’s usually nothing you can do about it, but when it’s done by email, quite a lot can be done. At the very least, you may be able to let top management know what’s going on – although they might not care. To us, support offered by phone, isn’t real support.
(By the way, we’ve been dealing with Telstra for many years. In the 1980s we used to have a contact we had to bribe if we wanted Telstra to do anything. And if we wanted any more lines or extensions or anything like that, even though it made no difference to us, the work always had to be done on a Saturday, obviously so the workers would get paid double time or something like that. One day, our guy who used to liaise with the contact, was asked, at about 2.30 in the afternoon, where the contact would be now, and the reply was, “He’d be at home. He goes in at 4 o’clock to knock off.”
Then in later years, when we were with another organisation, we’d apply to Telstra for some work to be done, and after 8 weeks nothing would have happened, so we would contact our local Federal Member of Parliament and it was only then things would start to happen.
We have the impression that nothing much has changed at Telstra.)