From todays Sunday Observer.

"Eight month's after Carphone Warehouse's Talk Talk service offered customers a 'free broadband forever' deal, up to 100,000 frustrated customers are yet to be connected. As a result, Cash today launches its Why Are We Waiting campaign to put pressure on companies such as Talk Talk that promote a service, only to consistently fail to deliver it to customers.
Since the middle of November, when Cash reported on the company's persistent failure to connect people to its free broadband deal - which it launched to much fanfare in April - we have been deluged with emails and letters from readers wondering what they can do to get the service they were promised."



http://observer.guardian.co.uk/cash/story/0,,1973619,00.html

Amazingly, I overheard a conversation on a Train last week between 2 member of TalkTalks training team, they were discussing all sorts of things, however they were saying what they needed to do about the complaints they were getting about the free broadband, and it does'nt sound good.

They (as we know) have been receiving a lot of call about the free broadband, mainly over the waiting time to get installed, they were saying that many people have been getting the run around, with managers never phoning back, customer wanting compensation etc etc

The outcome of this was basically "dry your eyes, you don't get something for nothing", they appear to be training the staff in the best of the fob off techniques possible, she was givng an example of what to say to customer when they ring up and complain - put the customer on hold, pretend to ask a manager, then come back tot he customer and say the manager is on a call / in a meeting / at lunch or anything else that could get them off the phone, and they will call you back, she was saying as they make money from the phone calls "the company" don't mind doing this to customers, the only time that they should put people through to supervisiors is when they will not wait for a call back and will not clear the line, or where the call is being recorded by the customer as this could cause legal problems for them.

I think this confirms what we all know.!!

After reading the above, I'm left wondering why Talk Talk don't just change the company name to Shysters and be done with it?

I,m very sorry to hear so many complaints, clearly justified. We have been lucky - TalkTalk installed way back in Sept, after a short (2 month) wait, and working well. Can absolutely understand the rage of those who have been led up the garden path - I would have been mad as h*** if I'd still been hanging around waiting for service: but I did want people to know that there are (some) successful installations.

lol, I love how 2 months can be seen as a speedy broadband activation.  ;D

Cruz wrote on Dec 18^th, 2006 at 2:06pm:

After reading the above, I'm left wondering why Talk Talk don't just change the company name to Shysters and be done with it?

Don't you mean Ratners? ;) ;D

Even people in the City are  worried about them.

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/analysis_and_features/article2087571.ece

" You don't have to be a business school guru to tell that the next six months are going to be crucial for Carphone Warehouse, 2p worse at 308.25p. Free broadband and the acquisition of AOL UK have created a make-or-break situation for the group, probably more crucial to its future than its first foray outside retail, the 2003 launch of TalkTalk.

Not everyone is convinced it will be a brave new dawn for the company. The US investment bank Citigroup released revised forecasts yesterday to include the AOL acquisition, and reiterated its "sell" recommendation on the back of the new numbers. The broker highlighted increased net debt of approximately £610m, from £306m, increasing interest payments. It also believes its 235p price target assumes "near perfect" execution of the group's broadband expansion - generating 1.8 million subscribers, successfully rolling out 1,000 unbundled local exchanges and maintaining average revenue per user. In what is becoming an increasingly crowded market place, Citigroup believes that the current price discounts too many risks."

I found the above information very interesting and here's why. Setting aside the five months without connection whilst waiting for my "free forever" to become live, I am now experiencing connection issues. Sine 2nd Dec, I am making a detailed note of each days connections, ie 7 attempts to connect = 2 success's,  the most attempts has been 21 with 5 success's. However, it isn't straightforward, many of the times, I have to follow TT's route, of clicking on this then that then reboot whilst it attempts to connect me. Now and again the blue screen appears, but I've accepted this now as the norm. yesterday it only took me 6 attempts to connect three times. I cannot leave the computer on once connected as after hald an hour, pages slow down and it freezes.

I have been reluctant to attempt to phone because of the long holds, but now I will inform them I may be recording the conversation.

islandman wrote on Dec 27^th, 2006 at 8:59am:

I have been reluctant to attempt to phone because of the long holds, but now I will inform them I may be recording the conversation.

Surely its cheaper and more effective to email dunstonec@cpw.co.uk? ;)

Do you honestly believe he would respond and if so, would you also guess that he would say he would get someone on to it then would they ?

I have had cause to e-mail him,i got a quick response from him,and then one of his regional managers called me shortly after, and quickly resolved my problem.

islandman wrote on Dec 27^th, 2006 at 6:12pm:

Do you honestly believe he would respond and if so, would you also guess that he would say he would get someone on to it then would they ?

Emails to the CEO always gain higher attention and a higher level of investigation in an organisation than an email or phone call to customer service underlings.  They may not be replied to by the CEO but they are usually referred to a departmental manager, director or other senior person for further investigation.

Customer service persons never do anything productive with complaints because they get them all day long so are hardened to them and ignore all of them.

The decision to use an 0845 and 0871 number for National Rail Enquiries Services will be one taken at board level and not in the customer services department and thus it is board members you need to get your point across to.