My BT Consultancy

The story so far: This month BT increased its evening call costs by 2000%. It kept the hefty price hike pretty secret (tucked away in the small print) while shouting about its new free weekend calls offer. As a shareholder I emailed Chief Executive Ben Verwaayen to point out that, when they discovered the truth, this sneaky change would cost millions of customers. He emailed straight back, not once, but twice.

BT customers can avoid the worst of the new charges by signing up for a 12 month contract and paper-free billing. But BT has botched it - not many customers know about the deal and BT's own staff can't explain how it works. No wonder customers are leaving in their droves.

Emailing the company chief executive isn't just target practice. A whack on the bulls eye and you pack up and move on. My mission isn't to waste the valuable time of the people who can actually do something. You can write and phone customer service as much as you like - you may get some personal joy - but you are very unlikely to change the way the company behaves in future.



BT's Chief Executive; Mr Verwaayen, or Ben as he signs himself, promised me:

"we will learn from your email, believe me"

It's a BIG promise, but it seems he really did mean it. Since Ben's reply I have been swapping emails with Anthony Vollmer, General Manager Voice Propositions. He describes himself as the manager in charge of the recent price changes. In his first email he agreed that BT needs to be clearer about price changes in future, he also agrees that when customers sign new contracts they must be told when they take effect - and that customer services should be able to give clear answers when asked direct questions.

I emailed him back to congratulate him on his clear, straight-forward answers to my criticism and suggest that his own example be applied to all communication with customers. I wrote:

"If you had come clean and revealed (in your letter to customers) that evening call costs were increasing dramatically - but customers could now make evening calls for free (instead of 5p) in exchange for a 12 month contract - I think many customers would have accepted that. Your letter already goes to some trouble to explain how customers can avoid the rental increase by opting for paper-free billing"

I also sent him a copy of my blog entry about Scottish and Southern Energy's attempt to poach BT customers confused by the new prices. Naturally he was alarmed. But he also assured me;

"the level of sign-ups among BT customers to the free weekend and evening deal is very encouraging"

I replied with a report from the Independent - according to BT 640,000 customers had signed up. This is less than 6% of the 10 million customers affected by the price increase. I noted that judging from online comments made about the article many BT customers were now looking for a new phone provider. I suggested that BT should launch a TV and press advertising campaign to tell BT customers that they could benefit from free evening calls too - simply by signing up for 12 months.

Today Mr Vollmer has emailed again. Apparently BT will now be writing to some customers, and advertising the deal throughout the summer.

"As you say its clearly in our interest that customers know about the deal"

BT would also like me to give their fair trading department a witness statement about the sales call I received from Scottish and Southern:

"There is of course there is no obligation whatsoever for you to do this"

BT's marketing mistake will probably cost it dearly. When the bills go out next quarter and customers realise they've been charged a small fortune for calls they thought cost 5p they won't be happy and they'll be open to rival offers. The Independent report quotes £30m as the likely amount of extra evening call revenue. I wonder how many of BT's 10 million former Option 1 subscribers you have to lose before that extra revenue becomes a net loss?

I have to admit I'm surprised BT took my complaint so seriously and at such a high level. They've emailed me not once, but half a dozen times in an on-going dialogue. I hope my unpaid consultancy has been valuable.

BT - stop press - reply from the Chief Exec

The story so far:
I believe British Telecom tricked customers into paying an extra 2000% (was 5p now 90p) for 60 minute evening calls by offering free weekend calls as a smokescreen. I emailed BT's chief exec to complain. He personally replied not once, but twice.

I felt it was only fair to send a copy of my last post to BT's Chief Executive Ben Verwaayen, which I did immediately. I prefaced it with a note:

Dear Mr. Verwaayen,

I very much appreciate your quick and personal response to my complaint
yesterday.

I have published an account of the handling of my complaint in my blog and
pasted it here so that BT may learn something from my experience.

As a shareholder I hope BT won't lose too many customers as a result of the
recent poorly implemented price-plan changes.


Within 4 minutes I received another personal reply:

We are going to learn from your email, b elieve me!

Thanks

Ben

More telephony misery

It's all telephony problems today. An executive calls from the Chairman's Office at BT (see previous post and update). He explains they will investigate the poor customer service I have received and respond. Just for fun I set a deadline of 4pm before I notify Ofcom.

O2 have an altogether different customer service approach. UK based call centres, no endless menus to select from and people who know stuff (or more accurately have been trained). Unfortunately the bit of my O2 broadband service which delivers email to my mobile has abruptly stopped delivering. After an hour on the phone I discover that this is a freshly emerging fault at O2 HQ. I am assured they will come back to me when they know more.

A couple of hours later and I start receiving test emails to my O2 inbox (but sadly not my mobile). Then O2 call me to discuss my broadband service. They offer helpful general advice and reassure me they are working fast to resolve the email issue. I also have a 100 day money-back satisfaction guarantee on my side (but I doubt I'll be exercising it).

Meanwhile BT are very quiet. If o2 ever decide to offer home phone packages I will happily give BT the boot. I see from the various forums I visit that BT has lost a lot of loyalty over the sneaky way they've introduced the new price hikes.

BT - Oh dear!

I wanted to make a few telephone calls tonight. Nothing that couldn't wait, so I wanted them to be free. Last Friday evening I signed up for a 12 month BT contract in exchange for free weekend and evening calls. A year long commitment isn't a problem - I've just taken a 12 month broadband contract with O2 so I need a BT line. In fact the two contracts being in sync will be an advantage if I want to change providers in the future.

So have BT actioned my new calling plan with free evening calls? I dial 150. Big mistake. After many menus, press 1, press 2, etc I appear to be talking to an offshore call centre. After 15 minutes I am assured my new calling plan has been in force since Monday. I am sceptical about this. I have an online BT account and in the recent calls tab I can see a call from Monday evening lasting 16 minutes billed at 27p. If I was on the new plan the call would be free.

My call is transferred to e-billing. After much delay, and constant reference to my 'broadband' by an operator who is working on auto-pilot in the wrong department I am informed they only have a verified bill until the end of March. So I have more information about my account than BT? Yes, apparently.

I ask for my call to be transferred to a manager. 'I have been told my evenng calls have been free since monday, but my account shows you are charging for them.'
'We can refund the 27p' offers the manager. I explain he is missing the point.

BT has been heavily criticised for its latest marketing wheeze - free weekend calls, but a 2000% cost increase for evening calls. You can avoid this by signing a contract for 12 months. But their operators can't tell you with any confidence when the contract is effective.

If I make 60 minute calls tonight will they be free, or cost 90p each? I have no idea and neither does BT.

I aksed the manager to have someone from customer care call me - because I planned to complain to Ofcom. When asked for the spelling of his name he hung up.

BT has decided to extract more spend from its customers - but (like British Gas) will probably learn the hard way that more value can come at great cost - fewer customers.

UPDATE 10th April 07.45 hrs. I was so frustrated after writing the above post that I copied and pasted it as an email to BT's chief executive Ben Verwaayen. To my surprise he personally replied at 07.45 this morning to say:

"I will ask our high level complaints team to look into this
Ben"

Don't hold your breath, but I'll keep you posted.

Sneaky BT...

BT recently announced free unlimited weekend calls for its customers. Sounds like a great deal, doesn't it? Er, no. Buried deep in the incomprehensible terms and conditions Together Option 1 customers (who make up 10.8 million - in other words the majority - of BT's customers) will discover the real cost of those 'free' weekend calls next time they get their bill.

A few years ago BT ran a very high profile TV ad featuring Jeremy Clarkson extolling the virtues of BT's 5p an hour evening call rate. BT has just scrapped that rate, but they've kept it pretty quiet. Now it will cost 1.5p a minute or 90p an hour for a call which used to cost 5p.

OK so for 3 nights of the week calls will be free - but for 4 nights of the week a 60 minute call which used to cost 5p now costs 90p. BT say their customers will be better off. That, I suppose, depends on how many calls you make. You'd have to make 18 'free' weekend calls (which used to cost 5p) to save the new 90p cost of one weekday evening call. Go figure. How has Ofcom allowed BT to confuse its customers like this? Perhaps not unlike the FSA - they are they asleep at the wheel? (as they were with 'premium rate TV telephony and still are over adult 'chat' TV channels - the babe stations).

BT can't do maths and they can't spell either. In their terms and conditions they refer to Weekend Unlimited (formally Option 1) sic. Hope some legal eagles can have fun with their mistake (void terms and conditions perhaps?)

Finally moneysavingexpert recommends switching all calls to primus 2 saver. This apparently gives free weekend and evening calls. BT will offer you this too - in exchange for a rolling 12 month contract, with penalties if you terminate early. I think BT may have shot themselves in the foot and the head this time.

Finally Madasafish live up to their name

I succumbed to the lure of a Broadband connection in August 2005. I'd just come back from Canada and finally realised that dial-up was stone-age after experiencing always on, super fast Internet. However having come to such a breakthrough decision I promptly made a big mistake. I signed up with Tiscali. Tiscali were TV advertising a market leading low price and I had previously used them for a very cheap dial-up package. Tiscali was a Bad Choice. After over a month of waiting several 'live dates' came and went so I called their ever so unhelpful off-shore call staff (why is it that when you sign up the operators are all in the UK, but when it all goes tits up you're speaking to someone 5000 miles away who's working the night shift?) to cancel as they were in breach of contract. "No problem" they said.

That was when my problems began. It's now well known that you need a MAC code to migrate your broadband to another provider. Would Tiscali give me a MAC code? Silly question. I tried to order with another provider 'And your MAC code?' I haven't got one. 'Phone us back when you have'.

So Tiscali were 'squatting' on my telephone line. I couldn't shake them off and I couldn't sign up with another Broadband supplier. These are the situations regulators are dreamt up for. In my time I've complained to quite a few regulators and threatened to complain to quite a few more. It doesn't always work - there can be quite a lot of hurdles to jump through before they'll help. But when it came to evicting Tiscali, Ofcom - the telecoms regulator - were more than up to the job. One phone call explaining the problem and I got a phone call from Tiscali and a letter from Head Office explaining that following contact from Ofcom they were releasing their marker on my telephone line.

It was then that I began my love affair with Madasafish. However like many love affairs it would one day turn stale. That day arrived late last year when Madasafish 'The Friendly ISP' got involved with someone else. Then there were three of us in the relationship and sadly the 'other party' was BT. It may have been a co-incidence but after BT went shopping for small successful broadband suppliers they managed to screw up the very thing which had made them successful in the first place - excellent customer service.

A few minor niggles with Madasafish turned into a string of disasters during which their customer service team (based in South Africa) managed to undo all the good work of two and a half years of service with barely a glitch. My speed had dropped - I needed a new computer they said, a new router...a new service provider I began to think. I began to research (the first stage to any complaint) and discovered that I had been taken for a mug. New customers were being offered a far lower price - not just as an introduction (as I had been) but forever! Now I noticed that the forums where techy types swap broadband horror stories - in particular the excellent www.thinkbroadband.co.uk weren't so glowing about Madasafish as they had been when I signed up.

It was while I was following the posts on Thinbroadband that I realised Madasafish were actually providing better customer service via secret PM's (private messages) between an omni-present poster named 'Samara - proud to be part of the Madasafish team' than they were from their own customer service centre. Suddenly my speed problems were being investigated, a new deal was on offer - cheaper than any on offer to other new customers. I received telephone calls, and attention. Madasafish were courting me again. But then their new systems intervened to destroy the best efforts of their loyal staff. I didn't receive the crucial email confirming a new deal and my technical problems didn't get resolved. When their metering of my broadband use appeared to be broken (I was away from home but my 'usage' was sky high) they suggested I sign up for a higher allowance - at a special nudge, nudge, wink, wink rate of course. I had made my mind up, the love affair was over. Not only that, I was now feeling just a little bit 'mad' with them. Not perhaps 'madasafish' but certainly they had driven me 'mad'.

Finally after two and half years 'madasafish' lived up to their curious name.

Two and a half years is a long time in the broadband world. Now there are deals for under a tenner a month which will give you a free wireless router, super-fast speeds up to 8mb and unlimited downloads. Sign up for a package bundled up with satellite TV, cable TV, a home phone or a mobile phone and you can even get broadband for free (although of course I do believe you get what you pay for - free is very rarely the least hassle - ask any Talk Talk customer about their 'free' broadband).

Tomorrow I expect to be rid of Madasafish, their broken promises, their secret whispered messages and offers of token gifts. For the last week I've been receiving lovely texts, emails and gifts from my new interweb partner. I hope my new found love affair with O2 won't end in tears. At least BT sold off O2, so there's little chance I'll ever find myself back in bed with BT...