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3UK’s completely disconnected customer experience

This is just brilliant. AND we’ve got AUDIO!

Remember I blogged the other day about the super 3UK offer for pay-as-you-go USB modem deal? Well, reader Dan Lane went straight to the 3UK site and ordered one. The result? Well. Complicated. I’ll let him explain…

– – –

Ok, first things first. Who am I? I’m Dan Lane, mobile geek, entrepreneur and CTO at Howler Technologies (a title I share with legendary mobile developer Jay Fenton, yes, we have two CTOs). I am the polar opposite of a “normob”.

I have strong opinions on most things but this article isn’t about sharing my opinion with you, it’s an opinion-less factual representation of an exprience I just had with Three customer services.

Ewan posted about the £69.99 PAYG USB Modem deal that Three are currently running, in the small print I noticed that there was a further £50 off for existing Three customers and decided that was great value for money and I’d have me some of that action.

When ordering they look up your postcode and guess your address. I always write my address in the following format:

Apartment 123, Building Blah
Street Name
London
SE12 3AB

When I entered my postcode I was offered a list of apartments in the following format:

Apartment 123, Building Blah, Street Name, London, SE12 3AB

Brilliant, I picked mine from the list and my address was filled in as:

Apartment 123 Street Name
London
SE12 3AB

That should do, I know my credit card has authorised payments to similarly mis-formed addresses and there is only one building on my street so the courier can find it. I place the order and think nothing more of it.

Delivery day comes around and I don’t remember seeing a confirmation e-mail so I check my spam folder and there it is, along with another e-mail telling me my payment didn’t go through due to a “mismatch” because my address eventually ended up as:

Building Blah
Apartment, Street Name
London
SE12 3AB

I am told to visit a link and correct my details, the link is: http://threestore.three.co.uk/3pay which, at the time of writing, displays the standard IIS “The page cannot be found” error.

No problem, I’ll just call the 0870 “Three Shop Helpline”, correct my details and we’ll have this sorted in no time at all.

I record all the calls I make to any customer service dept, simply because of all the terrible terrible experiences I’ve had in the past, here is my first attempt to traverse their IVR.

Notice that when I select 5 for any other queries it asks me three questions specific to delivery, when I then select option 3 for “all other delivery options” it claims to be transferring me to a customer service representative but actually dumps me out to the main customer service number for existing customers which, presumably, isn’t going to be able to help me with my existing order. I go a few options into this menu before realising where I am and hang up.

In my second attempt when I select 2 for a query about an existing order it asks me the same delivery-specific questions as it did in my previous call when I pressed 5 for any other queries. Sensing that this call was going the same way I ditched it and called back.

The third time I hit magic number 4 which put me straight into a queue, which was playing a horribly jittery skipping version of Dionne Warwick’s Walk On By interspersed with a crackling voice thanking me for my patience, here is a sample. I won’t post the whole call because a lot of it involves me reading out my address multiple times.

Eventually someone answered and said that because the order had been cancelled I’d have to re-order, since I couldn’t use the website she passed me through to direct sales so they could take my order over the phone. Unfortunately the sales chap told me that the £50 discount offer was a mistake and he was unable to offer me the same price, however they would do the same deal but with £20 off instead of £50. Fair enough, this is still a great deal and I’m happy to go ahead with that, I ask the chap if that’s the very best price he can do and he goes away and checks.

When he comes back he tells me that unfortunately £20 off is the best they can for existing customers but it’s only available on the website. When I point out that the website won’t work for me he apologises and I ask him to confirm that there is nothing he can do to help me before ending the call.

In situations like this I like asking that final question because it gives the other person one last chance to think about it and perhaps say something like “actually, maybe my manager can help”.

My name is Dan Lane, and I constantly find myself an unfortunate victim of customer service.

8 COMMENTS

  1. This kind of experience completely stinks and 3 seem to be a pretty regular offender. The trouble is you tend to have to put up with it/fight through it because what you’re after is an offer you really want. Quite how/when it gets turned around I do not know. As to the £50 off being a ‘mistake’, I’m pretty sure there’s an advertising law about that. Don’t they have to give you what was offered? Got a screen grab by any chance?

  2. @MarkW the law goes something along the lines of “if you acknowledge the order and accept payment then you have to deliver”, since they didn’t accept payment from me that’s fair enough. £69.99 is a fair price and with a £20 discount for being an existing customer it’s still a great deal.

    Unfortunately when ordering I encountered an amount of “rot” that’s set in on their website, e-mail templates and IVRs. It’s easy to see how this happens in a large organisation and it does happen in nearly every single one (recent examples from calls I’ve made are: Vodafone, Orange, Royal Mail & Sky) and it’s completely unacceptable.

  3. 3 customer services are shocking. I have called several times trying to find out a simple question, but as its not stated on the bloody tariff and the sales people dont seem to be able to go outside of their script its useless.

    What I have been trying to find out (but gave up) is whether this USB modem lark also includes mobile browsing. I would have thought if they are giving me broadband speeds to my laptop and a gig limit they would be able to spare a few megs for me checking my emails on my phone… Anyone know about this?

  4. @Josh – The answer is no. The modem has a separate SIM and is a separate account. You can have the HSDPA on your phone (and use it as a modem) if it supports it, but you can’t share the data across the two devices. That’s why I have X-Series data on my N95 8GB as well as a 3UK USB modem. It’s still more cost effective than any other network, as far as I know…

  5. Mark – Hmmm, I have an N95, and it can be used as a modem, but will 3 allow this on Xseries or will I get non Xseries data rates? I wont use either thaaat much, but it would be nice to have it and only have to pay for one 🙂 if its do-able.

  6. Blimey it really is hair pulling stuff. Anyone who has read my rants knows I hate customer support lines too. But the other day I had a sweet and lovely experience with T Mobile…

    I called 150 and am straight through to a lovely lady who asks my mobnum and password and then says “how is you day steve, can I call you steve?”. I say my contract is up but am considering staying. She tells me that I’m paying too much!!!!!! I think you’d be better staying with us but moving to Flex 20 given your call pattern, and then it will only cost you £20/month instead of 40+’odd you’re currently paying. Great, I will do that then.

    Next day my girlfriend calls as her a/c is to also expire in one month and says “I’d like to move to flex 20 because my boyfriend is and we’ve both decided it is the bext tariff for us. but my a/c isn’t up for another month”. “no problem” comes the reply. “better still if you extend for a further 18 months I’ll do Flex20 for £5/month instead of £20”.

    “Erm what’s that catch?” asks my girlfriend. Nothing. obviously we want you to extend for 18 months but at £5/month that is a mere £90 total for an entire 18 months for the flex20 tariff.

    Well yes I’d love to she says, but my boyfriend wasn’t offered this. I’ll only take it if you give him the same deal.

    “ok what is his number?”. tap tap, tap. “yes he can have it to”.

    Now I have an in-built physchological issue with signing up to anything for 18 months. But at £5 per month how can I go wrong.

    So there you have it: no IVR system, a lovely friendly support lady, willingness to offer great deals to both of us. Yes I am in a state of shock at the moment.

    And then the next day after another call to T Mobile to rectify my MMS settings which I’d mucked up, they called back an hour later to “check if your MMS is now working ok Steve”!!

    Believe me, I do not recommend any mobile operator as I think 666 should be the number they all use for their sales departments. But based on this experience, T Mobile are definitely winning the customer support stakes at the moment.

  7. Wow, this is pretty bad. Had a similar IVR experience with Vodafone this morning (08700 700191).

    “Please enter your mobile number”
    *enters number*
    “Press 1 if you’re a business customer, or hold to be connected to customer services.”
    “Please enter your mobile number”
    *enters number*
    “Press 1 if you’re a business customer, or hold to be connected to customer services.”
    “Please enter your mobile number”
    *enters number*
    “Press 1 if you’re a business customer, or hold to be connected to customer services.”

    etc etc..

    Whenever I come across these IVRs now, I just randomly press numbers on the keypad. Within about 10 seconds, I’ll usually hear it going through to someone, and it often seems to bypass queues that they have…

  8. Josh – unfortunately 3 are not that stupid/generous! You can’t use an X-series add-on as a modem (well, you can but, as you say, you’ll be charged standard data rates) and I don’t think you can use the broadband add-on to browse data on the handset. I’m happy to be corrected on the latter, but as I recall I looked into it – cos it’s the obvious solution – and was told it couldn’t be done, which is why I got the modem.

    Still, can’t complain because they still offer the best mobile data deals around no matter how you do it.

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