August 2022
The companies who supply Broadband and TV services are loosely considered to be “Communications Companies”. However, It would seem that these companies don’t actually know how to “Communicate” with their customers, unless it is by phone! They all seem to make use of the email system to send out emails but you can’t reply because the email box is “not monitored”. e.g. no one checks it for incoming messages. So one way communication seems to becoming the de facto method where they can send you all sorts of Cr*p but you can’t reply! Emails that have a “noreply@whatever” in the “reply to” box (field) are so annoying and are the epitome of rudeness and arrogance! If the “reply to” box contained a valid email address that was “monitored”, that’s OK but if an email is sent and it is impossible to reply; this suggests that the sender is not interested in having replies and in principle breaks the ethics of the awesome email system. The companies who abuse the email system in this way clearly demonstrate they have no interest in providing a quality customer service. They want to use the awesome email service (because it is low or no cost) but they expect the recipients to “use the phone” to reply to the email! How arrogant is that!
If you look hard enough, some of them give an email address to contact Customer Services or a “Snail mail” address. In either case you need to look very hard because they want you to use the phone and engage you in the idiotic (out of date) robotic system of press this button or press that button, listen to some announcement that is not relevant to why you are trying to contact them. If you don’t have a life and you patiently work your way through the robotic system and play the guessing games, you might be rewarded with your goal of actually speaking to a real person. Unfortunately in most cases, the real person is only a script reader and can’t actually assist you 🙁
FWIW, the “Robotic telephone System” was considered a bad idea 20+ years ago and it hasn’t improved!
Most of them have a live “Web Chat” facility so you can exchange messages with a real person and this used to work quite well. In situations where the real person couldn’t help, they advised that they would pass it on to someone more qualified and they would contact you in due course. It was a “service” that had merit but needed a bit of polishing.
Unfortunately “Live Web Chat” no longer uses “Real People” and has been replaced by “BOTS”, so you are now “chatting” to a BOT whose level of Artificial Intelligence is at the highest level of stupidity and you have to play guessing games with this stupid BOT to ascertain why you want to contact Customer Services. Kill me now!
Lets not forget the “Forums”, this is a great “Community led” no cost method of finding out how to do something but when it comes to stuff that is “Account Related”, answers are always phone customer services and then it’s back down the rabbit hole you go!
Lets not forget the “already asked questions”, which are rarely relevant!
Twitter and sometimes Facebook appear to be useful ways to get in touch with “Customer Services” but in the case of say SKY, they have a “Social Media Bot” that gives you the impression you are chatting to someone who can actually help. Unfortunately this is rarely the case. You exchange a few messages (sometimes with a real person) and then discover that they don’t actually have access to “Customer Services” and can only advise to “contact the team” so back down the rabbit hole in search of contacting customer services without using the annoying robotic phone system!
I have yet to find any of the “Communications Companies” who offer a “Secure Message” system, which is accessed by logging on to your account and allow you to “log a call”. In many cases you need to ask a specific question and a “Secure Message” system would enable a qualified person to respond to your message. Providing a “Secure Message System” is so easy, it is “Customer Friendly” and it indicates to customers that the company is actually interested in provided a quality customer care service. The fact that a “Secure Message System” is not in place, suggests the company have no interest in providing a quality customer service.
It’s good to talk but only if you are talking to a real person that can help with your issue. The useless Robotic answering services need replacing with an answering machine to allow a message and / or a number to be left for a call back! Some might say “how retro” but it is simple and just works. The robotic system is designed to prevent you contacting customer services.
If the “Communications Companies” really wanted to provide a quality “Customer Care Service”, they would offer a “Secure Message System” or at least an email address but it seems apparent that they don’t really want to provide a quality customer service, they only want your money so do you feel lucky!
With regards to the companies that supply Set Top boxes for TV content, it beggars believe that they are still using a “TV Remote box” for a “Set Top remote box“! The Set Top Box is a mini computer that often needs a “Text Input“, it isn’t a “dumb” TV. None of the current Set Top Boxes have a remote that makes it easy to enter text for say WiFi passwords or doing a search for content. It seems that the Remote” is an afterthought that isn’t really fit for purpose. In reality, the “Set Top Box Remote” is the device that should allow communication which gives full control of the “Set Top Box” and its UI (User Interface). It NEEDS an easy way to enter text.
In Conclusion:-
It seems that “Communications companies” don’t want to provide a quality customer service and don’t want to employ people that are qualified to provide a quality customer service. It is very likely that the “decision makers” don’t actually understand modern technology and think that using the phone is “The be-all and end-all” because it’s good to talk ! They don’t seem to understand that the modern world mainly use “Instant messaging” (inc SMS) to communicate. Email is still the de facto method of “communication” for many people, the phone is mainly used to talk to Aunt Maude because she doesn’t use email or SMS!
The advantage of SMS and Email (or secure messaging) is that there is a record of the conversation, which can be referred back to. This ensures that there is clarity in the communication, that can be referred back to.
Set Top Box manufacturers need to give their heads a shake and provide a remote that makes it easy to enter text e.g. qwerty style keyboard. This would mean a major redesign of the “TV Remote Box” that masquerades as a “Set Top Box remote” but it is easily achieved. One option is to have a remote that is “hinged” so that normal button pressing is not affected but when there is a requirement to enter text, there would be a “QWERTY or other” keyboard available by opening the “hinged” device. My Nokia 9000 phone had this system 30 years ago and it was a game changer. “Set Top Boxes” are mini computers and are not “dumb” like TVs of old. The “remote” is the main device for communicating with the “Set Top Box” and NEEDS an easy method of entering text for things like WiFi passwords and “Search Criteria”. Currently all “Set Top Box” manufacturers only provide a TV Remote style remote box that does not provide an easy method of entering text so it is basically a major fail.
In closing.
If you don’t have a life and are happy to use the (out of date) robotic phone system to contact customer services, no problem.
If you never have a need to enter a WiFi password for your Set top box or enter text for a “search”, no problem.