How Difficult can it be?

When we picked the keys up for Tre Agan, our first thought was phone line/broadband. I know how shallow can I be but I need the internet, socially as well as for my addiciton to just internet browsing lol.

My first call to BT to arrange for the phone line was on 15th May and it was then that I first encounted the problems that were in the way. I spoke to a nice young man who, after taking all my details, tested the line and said there is a 'problem' I can't deal with the order right now until we have established what is wrong with the line. He said he would call back within 48 hours; like the gullible idiot I was I trusted him (hmmm wisdom comes with knowing).

My second call was on Monday, this time I spoke to someone completely different, but there was no record in the system of the previous call, nor of what the problem was, so we started again but to no avail. I even got put through to someone who was on the technical side who asked me if I had a master socket, apparently this is BTtalk for do you have a bt socket in the property. It didn't help much and this time, they were going to call me back in 10-15 mins or 48 hours; so we waited, and waited.

My third phone call to BT took place on Friday, I spoke to yet another person, very nice lady by the name of Claire who also failed to find any record of my previous calls, again couldn't process the order due to this 'fault' that was showing and was going to raise it with the engineers and someone would call me back within 48 hours but as Sunday wasn't included in that they would probably call by Monday. I despaired at the thought of waiting, but like a good little customer I held my tongue; god do you know how hard that was?

My fourth phone call was on Monday, by this time I was an old hand and could almost read Graham's mind as he fumbled for the right answers, and even his line manager was struggling to make sense of the record or lack of it as it transpired. I had explained from the start that this was the fourth attempt to get a phone line, and that I was getting increasingly annoyed but we still ended up with him saying someone would ring me back within 48 hours. Although he did give me a VOL number which apparently is trackable.

Lewis rang me back yesterday, with no idea of what the problem was, in fact I don't even think he rang about that but about the fact that I said I would provide feedback to BT on their customer service. Boy did his ears burn. He also ended his call by saying he would ring back later in the afternoon. Hmmm.. he never did.

This morning, I flipped. No more talking to customer care reps, no I contacted the CEO of BT by the name of Ian Livingston, and to give him credit he emailed a response almost immediately saying "one of the high level service team members will contact me."

Well said Ian, but god help you if someone doesn't contact me to discuss the problem. BT have a monopoly of the installation of Landlines, but they don't over telephone services and broadband and I will simply go somewhere else at the end of the day.