Orange Customer Service (terrible)

I have heard many people complaining about Orange Customer Service but I had
never experienced it before today.

They took 27 minutes to answer the phone which I thought was terrible, and
others have reported much longer waits. Vodafone answer straight away, most
of the time, or sometimes 1 or 2 minutes wait but nothing like 27.

Why dont they sort this out as with so many complaining they will loose even
more customers?

---

› See More: Orange Customer Service (terrible)

James Lewis wrote:
> I have heard many people complaining about Orange Customer Service but I had
> never experienced it before today.
>
> They took 27 minutes to answer the phone which I thought was terrible, and
> others have reported much longer waits. Vodafone answer straight away, most
> of the time, or sometimes 1 or 2 minutes wait but nothing like 27.
>
> Why dont they sort this out as with so many complaining they will loose even
> more customers?
>
>

They've been bad for as long as I can remember, I'll never forget around
1999 when they once took over 90 minutes to answer the phone, this was
back in the days where your phone would go flat before they'd answered!

I'm sure that used to be the point though!

"Charlie Mitchell" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> James Lewis wrote:
>> I have heard many people complaining about Orange Customer Service but I
>> had never experienced it before today.
>>
>> They took 27 minutes to answer the phone which I thought was terrible,
>> and others have reported much longer waits. Vodafone answer straight
>> away, most of the time, or sometimes 1 or 2 minutes wait but nothing like
>> 27.
>>
>> Why dont they sort this out as with so many complaining they will loose
>> even more customers?
>
> They've been bad for as long as I can remember, I'll never forget around
> 1999 when they once took over 90 minutes to answer the phone, this was
> back in the days where your phone would go flat before they'd answered!
>
> I'm sure that used to be the point though!

I've never had causes to use them BUT... as I am now looking for a new phone
is this something to be concerned about? Should I be thinking of going with
another telco? Are the others any better? There seems to be a lot of
negative stuff about Orange on this forum - are they in decline?

John.

no_spam_£[email protected] declared for all the world to hear...
> I have heard many people complaining about Orange Customer Service but I had
> never experienced it before today.
>
> They took 27 minutes to answer the phone which I thought was terrible, and
> others have reported much longer waits. Vodafone answer straight away, most
> of the time, or sometimes 1 or 2 minutes wait but nothing like 27.
>
> Why dont they sort this out

They are trying, but it takes time to recruit and train people. You
can't just suddenly come up with a hundred CSRs overnight!
--
Regards
Jon

Jon wrote:
> no_spam_£[email protected] declared for all the world to hear...
> > I have heard many people complaining about Orange Customer Service but I had
> > never experienced it before today.
> >
> > They took 27 minutes to answer the phone which I thought was terrible, and
> > others have reported much longer waits. Vodafone answer straight away, most
> > of the time, or sometimes 1 or 2 minutes wait but nothing like 27.
> >
> > Why dont they sort this out
>
> They are trying, but it takes time to recruit and train people. You
> can't just suddenly come up with a hundred CSRs overnight!
> --
> Regards
> Jon
Orange customer service has been hard work to get through to for as
long as I can remember, so saying they can't recruit overnight is not
relevant. They have had problems for months/years, or don't care, or it
is part of their business plan.

"Jon" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]
> no_spam_£[email protected] declared for all the world
> to hear...
> > I have heard many people complaining about Orange
> > Customer Service but I had never experienced it before
> > today.
> >
> > They took 27 minutes to answer the phone which I
> > thought was terrible, and others have reported much
> > longer waits. Vodafone answer straight away, most of
> > the time, or sometimes 1 or 2 minutes wait but nothing
> > like 27.
> >
> > Why dont they sort this out
>
> They are trying, but it takes time to recruit and train
> people. You can't just suddenly come up with a hundred
> CSRs overnight!

<cynic>
Maybe if they had a halfway decent network they wouldn't need so many
CSR's.
</cynic>

I never had any problems getting through when I first joined Orange in the
late 90's. It all went downhill when Snook left.

Ivor

Jon wrote:
> no_spam_£[email protected] declared for all the world to hear...
>> I have heard many people complaining about Orange Customer Service but I had
>> never experienced it before today.
>>
>> They took 27 minutes to answer the phone which I thought was terrible, and
>> others have reported much longer waits. Vodafone answer straight away, most
>> of the time, or sometimes 1 or 2 minutes wait but nothing like 27.
>>
>> Why dont they sort this out
>
> They are trying, but it takes time to recruit and train people. You
> can't just suddenly come up with a hundred CSRs overnight!

Maybe they should stop upsetting the current ones and then they wouldn't
leave quite so quickly.

No doubt the rest of their operations will be moved to India soon anyway
along with their pay as you go operation.

[email protected] declared for all the world to hear...
> No doubt the rest of their operations will be moved to India soon anyway
> along with their pay as you go operation.

I certainly hope not!
--
Regards
Jon

On Sun, 29 Oct 2006 23:07:59 -0000, Jon <[email protected]>
wrote:

>[email protected] declared for all the world to hear...
>> No doubt the rest of their operations will be moved to India soon anyway
>> along with their pay as you go operation.
>
>I certainly hope not!
I have never had so much trouble doing a simple thing like changing
bank details. I rang one company and it was done in about 3 minutes.
Orange was a very different story. I was asked if the account I wanted
to switch to was a savings account. No, I said, it is a current
account. Oh, the woman replied, you can't set up a direct debit with
that account it must be a savings account. Then I tried to explain to
the woman what a savings and what a current account was. She still
insisted I needed to have a savings account.... this went on and on
(needless to say she had an an Indian accent). Constant referrals to
the supervisor. It must have taken about 45 minutes and that was
once I had got past the music. I was well stressed by the time the
call had ended.
Remove 'no_spam_' from email address.
25/10/2006:Symantec charge exactly as much in GB pounds as they do
in US$ for the same Norton DOWNLOAD.
It's goodbye Norton - hello free AVG until they stop ripping us off.
Why should we be ripped off in the UK?

Jon wrote:
> no_spam_£[email protected] declared for all the world to hear...
> > I have heard many people complaining about Orange Customer Service but I had
> > never experienced it before today.
> >
> > They took 27 minutes to answer the phone which I thought was terrible, and

> > Why dont they sort this out

> They are trying, but it takes time to recruit and train people. You
> can't just suddenly come up with a hundred CSRs overnight!

They're trying to cut costs. If they were that concerned they wouldn't
be shutting the Peterlee call centre.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/5224268.stm

[email protected] declared for all the world to hear...
> They're trying to cut costs. If they were that concerned they wouldn't
> be shutting the Peterlee call centre.
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/5224268.stm

I heard that most of those people are transferring to Darlington so
headcount will only dip a little bit.
--
Regards
Jon

Jon wrote:
> [email protected] declared for all the world to hear...
> > They're trying to cut costs. If they were that concerned they wouldn't
> > be shutting the Peterlee call centre.
> >
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/5224268.stm
>
> I heard that most of those people are transferring to Darlington so
> headcount will only dip a little bit.
> --
> Regards
> Jon

In all seriousness Jon do you have any tips/numbers for getting through
to Orange customer services, tried to get through today (around 2-3pm)
1st call was still not answered after 1Hr 36 mins second 2nd was
answered after 31minutes (dialled as after an hour I wasn't sure the
initial one was still even in a queue,) Do you use "special" numbers to
get through, while the rest of us outside the internal orange world are
left to suffer LONG queues. Or do you suffer the same queues? It is
just about unbearable.

Regards

Mark

[email protected] declared for all the world to hear...
> In all seriousness Jon do you have any tips/numbers for getting through
> to Orange customer services, tried to get through today (around 2-3pm)
> 1st call was still not answered after 1Hr 36 mins second 2nd was
> answered after 31minutes (dialled as after an hour I wasn't sure the
> initial one was still even in a queue,)

Sadly not.

> Do you use "special" numbers to get through

For certain things we do, for example for processing a 28-day in store
exchange, and we have a dealer IVR line which routes calls to various
teams within CS but the queues on those are shared with regular CS so
it's no quicker for us.

Fortunately we can do most things electronically and we use the phone as
last resort.

> while the rest of us outside the internal orange world are
> left to suffer LONG queues. Or do you suffer the same queues? It is
> just about unbearable.

It's very unbearable! Took me an hour to perform a 28-day swap out
yesterday. Once you get through it's a 3-minute call, vast majority of
the time is spent waiting.
--
Regards
Jon

>> Why dont they sort this out as with so many complaining they will loose
>> even more customers?
>
> They've been bad for as long as I can remember, I'll never forget around
> 1999 when they once took over 90 minutes to answer the phone, this was
> back in the days where your phone would go flat before they'd answered!
>
> I'm sure that used to be the point though!

Generally I think Orange have been very good at customer services, they have
always answered my call quickly and dealt with my query quickly.

At the moment they are having a few problems for whatever reason but any
company can hit snags eventually.

Compared to 02 who are only open during business hours, and take 3 months to
not sort out a problem I had when I mistakenly went with them.

Jon wrote:
> [email protected] declared for all the world to hear...
>> No doubt the rest of their operations will be moved to India soon anyway
>> along with their pay as you go operation.
>
> I certainly hope not!

They're just in the process of closing one UK call center and hiring
more India op's to take over...