Third time lucky for Three customer
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday August 18, 2009
IT NEVER fails to amaze how difficult many communications companies find it to, well, actually communicate with their customers.Theres plenty of talk about responding to customers needs and were here to help, but when it gets down to old-fashioned things like returning a call or email, sending a text or even providing a consistent point of contact, all too often, in our experience, they fall down.This was the case with Philip Roger, who had a slightly unusual but far from unreasonable problem with Three. At the end of June, he bought a USB modem for his son along with a prepaid data plan.He thought the modem had been set up correctly as his sons laptop was working fine. Then Roger received a message from Three saying it was time to recharge and he realised something was awry.When we investigated it seems that his computer is connected to mine wirelessly and not using the Three plan at all, he wrote. It also seems that we have not activated his plan and he does not still have the voucher number.Luckily, Roger still had the receipt for the voucher so, through their online customer contact system, he asked Three if they could give him another voucher number so he could activate the plan. Thirty-four days later, he received a response from the customer service folk saying they were unable to deal with his query as he had not supplied enough information.Looking at Rogers original email, it is clear that the average, literate 10-year-old could have grasped the issue and figured out a response, but it was evidently beyond Three.With admirable patience, Roger once again spelled out his problem.A courteous phone call to resolve the matter one way or the other is all that is required, he wrote. Sending me standard responses that have no use whatsoever will not make me go away.At the same time he contacted us at Troubleshooter. We called Three and you guessed it it was all sorted within 24 hours. Rogers son would receive a credit and be able to start using his new account.Great result. Great customer service, finally. A little real communication can work wonders.Got a consumer issue with your technology? Drop us a note to troubleshooter@smh .com.au and well do our best to help.
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald
