(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)
(aka WEEK 3 of my battle for good customer service)
It’s always nice to know I’m not alone, and last week’s column detailing my painfully slow broadband connection speeds certainly provided me with plenty of company.
Frustrated net-surfers got in touch via e-mail, phone and — in one case — in person to tell me about their own problems. Wow, there were a lot of us suffering for our internet habits.
I also got plenty of recommendations for potential new internet service providers, so a big thank you to everyone who got in touch.
My net connection was back up to speed by the next day but as yet I’ve still had no explanation from Telecom.
Not surprisingly, there hasn’t been an apology, either. Nice customer service, guys.
For those of you who, like me, find the creepy, Xtra helpdesk automated, voice-recognition wench a bit on the irritating side, a helpful reader informs me that you can dodge conversing with her by phoning 127, then selecting option 4 (reset password) from the menu.
Thanks John.
My other customer service whinge about NZ Post is also still unresolved for now. Although, once again I got some interesting e-mails from readers, detailing their own dramas with our postal service, including Margaret, who suggested I might need to check with my neighbours to see if they had received any little surprises.
You see, Margaret got a parcel from Australia in December. It was taped up and had a note on it to say it had been opened for inspection.
Nothing unusual in that, you might think. But wait, there’s more.
Inside the parcel was another parcel, unopened and addressed to someone else living in the same neighbourhood.
Margaret phoned her rellies in Aussie who had sent the original parcel to see if they had included the mystery package, but they hadn’t.
It would seem that somehow, when Margaret’s parcel was opened for inspection, some genius had managed to wrap another totally unrelated package into it when rewrapping.
When Margaret’s hubby phoned NZ Post to clarify things, he was asked it he would mind just popping it back in the post.
Margaret says she has been left wondering if perhaps instead of going to all the trouble of taking our mail to a Post Shop or letter box, it would be easier for all of us to wait on the highways with parcels and entrust them to likely looking strangers going in the right direction.