If you do a Google search on “telstra sit-in police,” a number of results will be found with articles on a story which is highly amusing, but which is on a subject which is deadly serious.
After claiming to have spent hours on the phone with Telstra trying to get his connection to the internet working properly, a guy named Matt Dooley decided to stage a sit in, with his girlfriend, in a Telstra shop, demanding that their case be looked into. All the Telstra shop people did, of course, was call the Police to have them removed. But when the Police arrived they more or less took Matt and his girlfriend’s side, and negotiated far more progress with Telstra in relation to their problems than they had been able to achieve in more than 4 months!
Our view is that as soon as you find that you have to spend minutes on the phone to an organisation, let alone hours over 4 months, and still haven’t got anywhere – and as far as we’re concerned, that is what Telstra is like – there may as well be a sign up somewhere which says in big red letters, “THIS ORGANISATION IS COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY HOPELESS TO DEAL WITH,” and you have to move heaven and earth to try and find a competitor that performs better, to deal with in the furture.
As far as we’re concerned, as soon as you HAVE to deal with anyone by phone, although sometimes it works, you are dealing with an organisation in which the top management doesn’t care.
We’ve been saying for years that it’s inevitable that it will come about that there will be people, working on their own or within organisations, but people, who specialise in helping people deal with organisations like Telstra – although, to be honest, we’ve seen no indications of this happening yet! They will have an ordinary email address, and if you have a problem in dealing with a Telstra, or a question to ask a Telstra, the first thing you will do is email them to get their help, rather than trying to deal with Telstra yourself.