Valued Customer - Not in my case (BT)

Member Name: taylor72

Product:	BT
Date:	13/03/09 (89 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: for this situation none

Disadvantages: hard work to prove your point

A personal experience of BT customer services

Apart from a brief venture with another company I have always been with BT - more through the convenience really. As the credit crunch bites harder and harder I decided to look into other options with regards to phone / broadband / tv packages and after full investigation realised I could save a lot by downgrading my package with BT to landline only and defecting to a different company.

When phoning BT and going through millions of options and being on hold for a very long time I was eventually put through to an "agent". I explained that I wanted to downgrade as there was a large saving to be made going elsewhere - I gave them the figures and then was put back on hold for a further 10 minutes. When the "agent" came back online he gave the usual jargon about me being a valued customer ( this is something they use to try and massage your ego I feel - I never fall for it with any company) and they could match the price for a year of what I was quoted as they did not wish to lose me.

Changing broadband supplier etc can be a bit of a hassle so after weighing it all up I decided to stay with BT at a much reduced rate - I was albeit temporarily, a happy customer.

Around 1 month after this call, I had an email from BT advising me I had gone over my monthly allowance on broadband and they would overlook it this month but in future months I would be charged?? As our family uses the internet a lot I always have an unlimited package so usage charges have never come into it. Must be a mistake I naively thought as I set about phoning and navigating round the options to speak to another "agent".

The agent explained that when I had called a month ago I had asked to downgrade my broadband , there was no "record" of me being persuaded to stay at a reduced rate, nothing about them trying to get me stay - just me wanting to downgrade. Luckily for me I also now record all calls like this myself and asked to speak to a manager.

After another 10 minutes on hold I was put through to a manager who said they always write notes according to phone conversations and I had definately not been given a reduction in price - this is not their policy etc etc and so forth. I asked him if he could listen to my earlier call - he agreed and I played it to him.

The manager said there was no guarantee this was a genuine recording - may as well have called me a liar in my opinion - and agreed to investigate further - meanwhile I am unable to increase my plan to unlimited without paying a lot more money - I am, at this stage, rather unimpressed to put it mildly.

Two months later another manager calls me full of what I call "humble pie", terribly apologetic and promising to repay any charges to my account for usage and reduce my bill accordingly for the remaining year.

In my opinion they do not treat customers with the respect deserved and on no occassion should a company such as this insinuate the customer is not being accurate with the truth. I will wait out the year - apparently they put me on another year contract when I "downgraded" and quite frankly I have not got the energy to argue that one. I will definately be looking to change a renewal and unfortunately will not be able to believe any offers I a so called "valued" customer, am suddenly entitled to.

Rant over lol

Summary: Get off contract when you can - ask for everything agreed in writing