O2 = Oh Dear (O2)

Member Name: jonotinx

Product:	O2
Date:	09/07/04 (906 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good Network

Disadvantages: Very Poor customer service, bad advice (put me on wrong tariff), poor handling of problems / complaints

I've been with O2 for quite some time now (remember when it used to be Cellnet ?)

My main reason for choosing them was they seemed to have the best tariffs for my needs. Coverage is pretty good (most of the time) but is not without the loss of signal here and there, sometimes in the most unlikely places.

However, it has to be said that the customer service is appalling. I've never been impressed with their service, and it's now getting to the point where I think I'll change my network provider next time the contract is up for renewal.

For a start, it's the usual problem of trying to get through to the call centre - endless automatic telephone services - 'press this for that' type of thing, and then taking ages to answer the phone.

Now, here a thing for a communication company; on my bills they print an e-mail contact address - I've tried to e-mail them twice regarding separate issues, and on each occasion, despite getting the automatic acknowledgment of receiving my e-mail, I then get another mail saying they are having technical problems and cannot deal with e-mail and asking me to phone them instead (and waste another half hour of my life going round in loops in their bloody phone system !)

I seem to have trouble accessing my bills on line - first of all it was because I was on such and such tariff, and that didn't support on line billing. But even after switching tariffs, I can't get my account on-line.

Talking about tariffs, I was quite happy plodding along on a pay in advance subscription - I paid my line rental 12 months in advance, and got a small amount of free minutes and then paid for call charges as I used. This worked out a good deal, as the line rental was cheap over 12 months. However, this time around, at renewal time, O2 advised me to switch to their O2 Leisure time tariff.

This means £15 / month with 500 off peak minutes. I also buy a text bundle

of 50 each month. - this works out more than the old tariff I was on, and I'm not using anywhere near the 500 free minutes a month; I worked out I'd spent over £150 more on the new tariff (which O2 said would be better for me!) than my old tariff

I've since learnt they're doing away with the pay in advance tariffs (although if you were on it, you could stop on it - but it's not available to new customers). So, when O2 said the new tariff would be better for me, what they really meant was that it'd be better for them.....

My complaints have fallen on deaf ears - I wrote a letter (via snail mail, seeing how e-mail didn't work!) and got a bog standard reply with a list of their current tariffs asking me to switch if I want to. There was no apology for putting on what is obviously the wrong tariff (at their advice) in the first place, and importantly no offer to refund any of the £150 the new tariff cost me.

Also, when I upgraded last, I did it over the phone. When my mobile arrived, there was a problem with the inbuilt software. So I thought I'd pop into the local O2 store to get it sorted; no such luck - the stores and the 'over-the-phone / web' services are dealt with completely separate - so the store could not help as I'd ordered the mobile over the phone. But hang on, I thought it was all the same bloody company... To be fair to the store, they did try, but when they spoke to their call centre they were told not to swap my phone.

The call centre wanted me to send the phone back and wait possibly up to 2 weeks for a replacement ! - they wouldn't send a new phone out until they received my old one first, so this meant I'd be without a phone during all of this.

In the end, I had to cancel my contract with the call centre and take out a new contract with the store. I also had to return the faulty phone myself to the call centre, as the store wasn't able to take
it i
n for me.

I tried to complain via e-mail (after being given an alternative address) but no-one was interested. The department I complained to said it wasn't anything to do with them, and I should contact someone else, who also passed it around saying it was another department. In the end I just gave up with them

They seem to have a very disjointed set up - as it's all the same company (O2) it shouldn't matter weather you deal with a store, call centre or via the web - but they seem to have a different view, and you might as well be dealing with separate companies.

So, all in all a very poor attitude to customer service. I'm not impressed with that aspect so I think it's time for a change

Thanks for reading,
Jon

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