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loosedobbs
join:2006-06-13
Toronto

loosedobbs to sbrook

Member

to sbrook

Re: Teksavvy of yesteryear (rant)

said by sbrook:

OK ...

I think perspective is needed here ...

First, as has been bemoaned again and again and again, and is now mentioned in the CRTC proceeding filed by CNOC on behalf of its members, Rogers provides NO information to TekSavvy and chasing for information results in a rebuke to use the mail system already in place (with its inbuilt 48 hour delay).

Also included in the that proceeding is the fact that Rogers appears to be giving itself preferential treatment so that it has no urgency in fixing the problems let alone the problems it creates itself. (And make no mistake about it, these DHCP IP allocation issues are caused by Rogers)

And if you get the impression that these problems appear to be unique to TekSavvy, then no, they're not, but with far more customers than most other TPIA providers, and more of them posting here, they have far higher visibility.

As to support quality, this is a problem any company providing technical support has. There are two parts to providing support ...

First is customer management ... that's the process of listening to the customer, and setting customer expectations for the process of problem resolution. The second is problem solving skills which includes the taking of an accurate problem statement, asking the right questions, sometimes it's about following a script, and determining whether the problem can be solved by TekSavvy, or if it needs to be handed off to a vendor (a "ticket")

Now, since the vast majority of calls actually involve very little technical problem solving since most technical issues get handed off to a vendor, you don't have to go and hire highly technically trained people at commensurate salaries.

A few years ago when TekSavvy was a smaller company, doing DSL only, with a lot fewer customers, you could find more technically oriented people willing to do the job down there in SW Ontario. Today with over 200,000 customers, you need a LOT more agents, and you won't find the number of technically oriented people so easily. Being in Toronto won't help much either ... staff may be plentiful, but the turnover is high.

The bottom line is that it's very very difficult to provide the quality support that they used to because of the increase in the number of customers. I'm sure they'd love to be able to have every agent with the skills of their senior agents, but it ain't possible.

As to the CRTC, it is a quasi-judicial body ... so as much as we can file complaints, there's not a lot those complaints can actually DO unless someone pushes hard enough to show the incumbents are breaking the regulations. Remember that UBB at an ISP level only went away because of the push on the Minister, not from the complaints to the CRTC, because at the time UBB wasn't breaking any regulations!

Growing big is not an excuse. All I hear is excuses. Blame growth.
Blame Phone system. Blame turnaround in tech support. Blame Rogers.

It is job of TS pros to handle all this. right up to proving that Rogers is breaking regulations.
Allegations are cheap and can be made without proof. It is TSI job to prove it. So dont blame the users and ask them to prove that Rogers is responsible.

And it is about time criticism of TSI to be taken justified and not as troll comments and delete it. Mods have to be impartial and fair.

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook

Mod

Loosedobs, I think you need to understand the differences between reasons and excuses. A reason is valid and unavoidable. An excuse is an attempt to deflect taking responsibility.

For example ... "I'm sorry I am late, I missed the bus" is an excuse because of the very obvious ... "why didn't you go a little earlier to the bus stop?" A reason on the other hand is credible and out of your hands ... "I'm sorry I am late, I was on that bus that crashed into the train".

Most of the reasons given in my post are out of TekSavvy's hands, and therefore not excuses, although they would become like an excuse if they were doing nothing to remedy them.

First, they are getting and training more staff. It takes time to train staff to the quality you need for this job. Interestingly, not many people, even those with good technical skills, actually make good CSRs. CSR burnout is surprisingly high amongst those who survive the initial turnover problems of working in call centres.

Second, the issues with the vendors are factual. It took time to assemble a suitable complaint to the CRTC, but there remains NOTHING that they can do in the short term. The vendors do not appear to be responding to requests to improve the situation and coercion is not an option ... you can threaten them all you want, they'll just cut you off and face the wrath of the CRTC. (After all Eastlink has not opted to provide TPIA at all)

Nobody's blaming the users. No company in a service industry likes to be in this position and they know that the last people to blame are the users.

Absolutely
@hostcenterten.com

Absolutely to loosedobbs

Anon

to loosedobbs
said by loosedobbs:

said by sbrook:

OK ...

I think perspective is needed here ...

First, as has been bemoaned again and again and again, and is now mentioned in the CRTC proceeding filed by CNOC on behalf of its members, Rogers provides NO information to TekSavvy and chasing for information results in a rebuke to use the mail system already in place (with its inbuilt 48 hour delay).

Also included in the that proceeding is the fact that Rogers appears to be giving itself preferential treatment so that it has no urgency in fixing the problems let alone the problems it creates itself. (And make no mistake about it, these DHCP IP allocation issues are caused by Rogers)

And if you get the impression that these problems appear to be unique to TekSavvy, then no, they're not, but with far more customers than most other TPIA providers, and more of them posting here, they have far higher visibility.

As to support quality, this is a problem any company providing technical support has. There are two parts to providing support ...

First is customer management ... that's the process of listening to the customer, and setting customer expectations for the process of problem resolution. The second is problem solving skills which includes the taking of an accurate problem statement, asking the right questions, sometimes it's about following a script, and determining whether the problem can be solved by TekSavvy, or if it needs to be handed off to a vendor (a "ticket")

Now, since the vast majority of calls actually involve very little technical problem solving since most technical issues get handed off to a vendor, you don't have to go and hire highly technically trained people at commensurate salaries.

A few years ago when TekSavvy was a smaller company, doing DSL only, with a lot fewer customers, you could find more technically oriented people willing to do the job down there in SW Ontario. Today with over 200,000 customers, you need a LOT more agents, and you won't find the number of technically oriented people so easily. Being in Toronto won't help much either ... staff may be plentiful, but the turnover is high.

The bottom line is that it's very very difficult to provide the quality support that they used to because of the increase in the number of customers. I'm sure they'd love to be able to have every agent with the skills of their senior agents, but it ain't possible.

As to the CRTC, it is a quasi-judicial body ... so as much as we can file complaints, there's not a lot those complaints can actually DO unless someone pushes hard enough to show the incumbents are breaking the regulations. Remember that UBB at an ISP level only went away because of the push on the Minister, not from the complaints to the CRTC, because at the time UBB wasn't breaking any regulations!

Growing big is not an excuse. All I hear is excuses. Blame growth.
Blame Phone system. Blame turnaround in tech support. Blame Rogers.

It is job of TS pros to handle all this. right up to proving that Rogers is breaking regulations.
Allegations are cheap and can be made without proof. It is TSI job to prove it. So dont blame the users and ask them to prove that Rogers is responsible.

And it is about time criticism of TSI to be taken justified and not as troll comments and delete it. Mods have to be impartial and fair.

This sums it all up right here. Everyone has a supplier of some sort, it's about how you deal with your customers that keeps business going no matter the delays. If you look at the forums everywhere, Teksavvy is becoming known for 'excuses'. Plain and simple.

They sound whiny and tho i sympathize 110% with the issues, a lot could be done within the company to rectify many issues not even related to vendors. Teksavvy was once great, they've turned themselves in to "like the rest" all on their very own. How many years have we heard "hired new staff?", "rapid growth", "Growing Pains", "Not our fault".

Drop the vendors then, oh wait it's making you money even at the expensive of your reputation. We the people can only do so much wriiting letters to the CRTC and every joe, but the business side is all on Teksavvy.

TSI Marc
Premium Member
join:2006-06-23
Chatham, ON

TSI Marc

Premium Member

And the trolls are out.

loosedobbs
join:2006-06-13
Toronto

loosedobbs to sbrook

Member

to sbrook
said by sbrook:

Loosedobs, I think you need to understand the differences between reasons and excuses. A reason is valid and unavoidable. An excuse is an attempt to deflect taking responsibility.

For example ... "I'm sorry I am late, I missed the bus" is an excuse because of the very obvious ... "why didn't you go a little earlier to the bus stop?" A reason on the other hand is credible and out of your hands ... "I'm sorry I am late, I was on that bus that crashed into the train".

Most of the reasons given in my post are out of TekSavvy's hands, and therefore not excuses, although they would become like an excuse if they were doing nothing to remedy them.

First, they are getting and training more staff. It takes time to train staff to the quality you need for this job. Interestingly, not many people, even those with good technical skills, actually make good CSRs. CSR burnout is surprisingly high amongst those who survive the initial turnover problems of working in call centres.

Second, the issues with the vendors are factual. It took time to assemble a suitable complaint to the CRTC, but there remains NOTHING that they can do in the short term. The vendors do not appear to be responding to requests to improve the situation and coercion is not an option ... you can threaten them all you want, they'll just cut you off and face the wrath of the CRTC. (After all Eastlink has not opted to provide TPIA at all)

Nobody's blaming the users. No company in a service industry likes to be in this position and they know that the last people to blame are the users.

You have right to defend TS but I am not buying it.
When I wanted to switch to TSI I faced phone system problem.
People blamed me so much but TS posted on this forum yes it was the system problem. That was almost 2-1/2 years before. Then also heard about new hiring about 150-250 people. Problem with Rogers

It is still same after all this time.
I also heard excuses from "Techies"/users that all this is because the idiot users have joined and are tying up the phone system and CSR time. I mean really? They decide who should join TSI?

What is most disturbing is any criticism is treated as Troll or Rogers employee comments and modes deleted it.

TSI Marc
Premium Member
join:2006-06-23
Chatham, ON

TSI Marc

Premium Member

You watch. As soon as these outages are fixed. Instantly the phone lines will be wide open.

fluffybunny
@teksavvy.com

fluffybunny to loosedobbs

Anon

to loosedobbs
because your "criticism" is pointless. i can point out that you are too short. why dont you reprogram your DNA and grow taller ? because you cant.
people have repeatedly told you TSI is hiring staff. your criticism is they dont have enough. ok. fine. they have hired 250. now what ? If rogers cuts off 10,000 customers what can those staff do ?
you have been told repeatedly TSI has no SLA with rogers. yet you insist on legal action. There is no court which will address this issue. only the CRTC. and TSI has approached the CRTC. what else can they do to "prove" it ?
your good sir are a troll. someone who repeats the same pointless argument even when confronted with facts.

Absolutely
@hostcenterten.com

Absolutely to TSI Marc

Anon

to TSI Marc
said by TSI Marc:

And the trolls are out.

Because of a little criticism??? If i'm trolling, answer this.

When the callback system was at it's worst, you blamed the phone software, when your new phone offering had troubles, you blamed the vendor or the hardware. When wait times are you high as they still are, you blame back to school, vendors, DHCP issues. When you were congested and overselling, you blamed the vendor for upgrading your uplinks too slow.

It's always an excuse. You should have prepared who you were getting in bed with, you should have ordered the higher capacity links earlier, you shouldn't have continued selling on nodes that were congested. You cannot just come out and call people names because they show a little criticism. We don't all have to sit back and be a fanboi to be respected by you do we?

Feel like unless you have a customer that LOVES you, you think we're all trolls.

loosedoobs has a point, that even us, non-techie guys were blamed for tying up the phone lines when it started getting busy. There is always an excuse, no matter what. Where is the accountability within?
The Mongoose
join:2010-01-05
Toronto, ON

The Mongoose

Member

said by Absolutely :

It's always an excuse. You should have prepared who you were getting in bed with, you should have ordered the higher capacity links earlier, you shouldn't have continued selling on nodes that were congested.

Yes Marc. You should have anticipated a link installation schedule that Rogers won't give you and that changes constantly. You should have predicted exactly how they would lie and delay and obfuscate. And you certainly should have broken into their offices to steal the node upgrade schedule that they refuse to share with you. Your excuses sicken all decent human beings.

Dssgrntld
@209.226.137.x

Dssgrntld to Absolutely

Anon

to Absolutely
I really just needed to get some words to 'paper' to appease my own feelings here and to give what I think is an honest opinion of how SOME of us as customers view the situation. I blame the incumbents for this mess and I'm most definitely not switching to the very companies who are purportedly causing these issues (nor am I or was I implying anybody should). I will be sticking with Teksavvy through this.

My issue simply comes down to the lack of info. I read the forums (well started reading them as of last week) and I now know what's going on, but I didn't and I'm a fairly informed human being. Teksavvy needs to explain to their customer that DHCP/RF issues are provided by X and that they have no insight into repair times and that you're working towards measures to try and get more access in the future. Customers need to know that I will be reimbursed and you as a company are just as frustrated as I am and doing everything in your power (which I'm sure you are, but haven't heard anything from my calls). Without reading the forums, I wouldn't have known about the CNOC, etc. That's where my rant comes in. The average customer knows that they're paying money for a service they aren't receiving, not the reasons or realities behind it.

@Mark. I'm sorry you guys are going through this mess and I'm sorry you have to go through posts like mine. I'm sure it's a huge pain in the ass. I understand the situation. I simply feel the message needs to get relayed to us the customer (in my humble opinion) regardless of an legalities (there are always ways around this). I've written the CRTC and competition bureau already.

Hope this gets resolved soon and that the incumbents don't get away with this.
LittleBrutus
join:2004-08-21
Nepean, ON

LittleBrutus

Member

said by [Dssgrntld :

]Teksavvy needs to explain to their customer that DHCP/RF issues are provided by X and that they have no insight into repair times and that you're working towards measures to try and get more access in the future

I bet that TSI (or any other TPIA) can not legally state publicly that the problems are caused by "X".

They have stated in other posts, that they are working towards getting a better handle on things, Hence the CNOC submission to the CRTC. If you read through that, you will see even in that document, a lot of the issue are referred to as "vendor x" or "vendor y", without using the actual name in public documents.

Absolutely
@hostcenterten.com

1 recommendation

Absolutely to The Mongoose

Anon

to The Mongoose
said by The Mongoose:

said by Absolutely :

It's always an excuse. You should have prepared who you were getting in bed with, you should have ordered the higher capacity links earlier, you shouldn't have continued selling on nodes that were congested.

Yes Marc. You should have anticipated a link installation schedule that Rogers won't give you and that changes constantly. You should have predicted exactly how they would lie and delay and obfuscate. And you certainly should have broken into their offices to steal the node upgrade schedule that they refuse to share with you. Your excuses sicken all decent human beings.

Wow dude, you read what you wrote before posting it? You think an ISP cannot anticipate rate of growth? Projected numbers based on volume of customers = rapid growth = order early. Wtf does stealing their "node upgrade schedule" have to do with ANYTHING? You just came off as a massive fanboi.

I don't argue that the vendors drag their feet, but ordering a higher capacity uplink is up to Teksavvy to anticipate based on rate of growth/expansion.

Now if Teksavvy was a reseller, i'd be saying the same as you, but they are not!!!... So yes, they can anticipate their growth each and every week that passes. You want investors, you need to provide investors current #'s and expected numbers by dates. Nothing written in stone but you should have a good idea on the growth of your business. This is after all what makes Tek a business last i checked. They are supposed to know these things.

Problem is, they ordered late, continued selling causing more conggestion at the time and this was the time "newbie" customers were literally called out for destroying Tek and tying up the phone lines.

TSI Marc
Premium Member
join:2006-06-23
Chatham, ON

TSI Marc to Absolutely

Premium Member

to Absolutely
said by [Absolutely :

]

said by TSI Marc:

And the trolls are out.

Because of a little criticism??? If i'm trolling, answer this.

When the callback system was at it's worst, you blamed the phone software, when your new phone offering had troubles, you blamed the vendor or the hardware. When wait times are you high as they still are, you blame back to school, vendors, DHCP issues. When you were congested and overselling, you blamed the vendor for upgrading your uplinks too slow.

It's always an excuse. You should have prepared who you were getting in bed with, you should have ordered the higher capacity links earlier, you shouldn't have continued selling on nodes that were congested. You cannot just come out and call people names because they show a little criticism. We don't all have to sit back and be a fanboi to be respected by you do we?

Feel like unless you have a customer that LOVES you, you think we're all trolls.

loosedoobs has a point, that even us, non-techie guys were blamed for tying up the phone lines when it started getting busy. There is always an excuse, no matter what. Where is the accountability within?

You are the one calling it blame. I'm calling an ace an ace. I've done my share of accepting faults where they were due. This is not one of those situations.

You talk about phone system. there's only one phone system, it's really not possible to have two phone systems running the call center. so either it works or it doesn't. What can I say when it doesn't work? I say... guys, it's not working. you, call that blaming it seems. net result = the phone system is down. I don't know what else I can possibly call it or plan ahead or anything else... still to this day, the callback feature has some issues. (oops, there I go again blaming! geez)

fact = back to school is the busiest time of the year for us. sorry for doing all that blaming though.

fact = DHCP issues are 100% NOT in our court to fix. we can not fix what is not in our power to fix. it's part of the CRTC submission... hopefully something comes of that.

fact = 2 years ago, it took more then 7 months to get ANY capacity upgrades. this led to congestion. We did stop selling. 7 months to deliver capacity is NOT normal!!

today... we ordered way way more capacity then needed way back in January of this year.

we hired way more than we needed.

we did everything humanly possible to make sure we were well prepared.

somehow. now that there is basically nothing left to hit us with. look what happened now.

you ARE trolling. I'm calling that ace the way I see it as well.
TSI Marc

TSI Marc to Dssgrntld

Premium Member

to Dssgrntld
said by [Dssgrntld :

]I really just needed to get some words to 'paper' to appease my own feelings here and to give what I think is an honest opinion of how SOME of us as customers view the situation. I blame the incumbents for this mess and I'm most definitely not switching to the very companies who are purportedly causing these issues (nor am I or was I implying anybody should). I will be sticking with Teksavvy through this.

My issue simply comes down to the lack of info. I read the forums (well started reading them as of last week) and I now know what's going on, but I didn't and I'm a fairly informed human being. Teksavvy needs to explain to their customer that DHCP/RF issues are provided by X and that they have no insight into repair times and that you're working towards measures to try and get more access in the future. Customers need to know that I will be reimbursed and you as a company are just as frustrated as I am and doing everything in your power (which I'm sure you are, but haven't heard anything from my calls). Without reading the forums, I wouldn't have known about the CNOC, etc. That's where my rant comes in. The average customer knows that they're paying money for a service they aren't receiving, not the reasons or realities behind it.

@Mark. I'm sorry you guys are going through this mess and I'm sorry you have to go through posts like mine. I'm sure it's a huge pain in the ass. I understand the situation. I simply feel the message needs to get relayed to us the customer (in my humble opinion) regardless of an legalities (there are always ways around this). I've written the CRTC and competition bureau already.

Hope this gets resolved soon and that the incumbents don't get away with this.

no worries. we're all frustrated..

BronsCon
join:2003-10-24
Fairfield, CA

BronsCon to loosedobbs

Member

to loosedobbs
said by loosedobbs:

It is job of TS pros to handle all this. right up to proving that Rogers is breaking regulations.

Therein lies the problem. Rogers is fully complying with the regulations that Rogers and Cogeco bought.
BronsCon

BronsCon to Absolutely

Member

to Absolutely
said by Absolutely :

Drop the vendors then

And use whom, exactly?

rogersmogers
@start.ca

rogersmogers to Dssgrntld

Anon

to Dssgrntld
said by Dssgrntld :

I Teksavvy needs to explain to their customer that DHCP/RF issues are provided by X and that they have no insight into repair times and that you're working towards measures to try and get more access in the future. Customers need to know that I will be reimbursed and you as a company are just as frustrated as I am and doing everything in your power (which I'm sure you are, but haven't heard anything from my calls). Without reading the forums, I wouldn't have known about the CNOC, etc. That's where my rant comes in. The average customer knows that they're paying money for a service they aren't receiving, not the reasons or realities behind it.

And the majority of customers don't care about any of this stuff and to sit and explain it to them would just cause higher call times and longer waits.