Water cut

[Brosville]

This morning, turned tap on to fill kettle - not a drop! - This is not an unusual occurrence hereabouts, we tend to get water cuts two or three times a year........
Phoned "24 hour emergency line" which exhorted me to "Press 1 for updates on any problems" - the message informed me that there were no problems at all, anywhere, and to hang on for an advisor "as all the lines were busy" (somehow those two statements appeared a touch at odds......)
Eventually I get through to (the new) Reggie Perrin's secretary (not the attractive one after whom he lusts, but the other one, the dimboid.......) who runs me through possibly the longest "prove who you are" rigmarole ever, who eventually tells me that there are no problems anywhere in the area, and has me turning stopcocks and taps on and off - eventually she grudgingly takes my word that there is no water, and they'll "send a team out" to investigate.......

At which point 'er indoors tootles off out........ a few minutes later I get a call from her laughing her head off "I thought I remembered there was a team with the road up working on an enormous leak yesterday" - sure enough, a couple of miles down the road there's traffic lights, flooded road, the whole bit, and Southern Water knew nothing about it......

As a public-spirited citizen I felt it wise to inform the company of the works about which they knew nothing........ (Me? - sarkie? - )

 

[MrB]

Brilliant!
Why does that not suprise me

 

[victor meldrew]

Doesn't surprise me at all
Cable customers in my area frequently get cut off and are subsequently given the information that there are no probs in your area.
Now to illustrate the insanity of the system
The last time I had a problem I went through the same rigmarole as yourself .
The Zombie I finally contacted reiterated the no prob line ! I reminded him that my neighbour had lost his telephone line as indeed 2 more houses on our lane had .
His unbelievable answer was " An engineer will call on Friday to ascertain the problem on your property " .
"Excuse me! at least 3 more properties on our lane are affected !"
"Only 2 other than yourself from your area have reported a fault, we require 5 reports to declare an area problem "
"Er', so 4 engineers have to bee despatched to 4 different properties to assess 4 different problems within those properties when it's obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse that the problem is external to all of the properties involved ?"
" silence apart from the rustling of the pages of the customer service manual ,by Zombie searching for relevent Mantra to respond with"

At this point I lost the will to live !.

John Wilkinson

 

[Brosville]

It gets better! Just got home having been out in the opposite direction............. this time, a few hundred yards away, the road is littered with vans loudly proclaiming "water", large hole, blokes down hole, large pump discharging gobbets of muddy water across road - obviously not started today...... ask amiable chap in safety jacket what goes on, and for how long....... "dunno mate, couple of more hours probably" - recounted my tale of reporting the problem - "funny you should say that, just had a lady say exactly the same thing........"
So, there's two major burst pipe problems within 2 miles of the property, neither of which Southern Water knew a thing about........

 

[tkwinston4]

After reading these I thought I would tell you my latest "customer service" complaint.

I recently tried to log onto my online banking after they changed from Alliance & Leicester to Santander but I had been locked out through no fault of my own. I rang them up and the robot asked me the usual raft of security questions the last one being "can you tell me the name of your online savings account?” I laughed and asked if she was joking to which she sternly replied no.
“But I presume you can see on your screen my details?” I said and she confirms this is true. “So you can see that my ONLINE account hasn’t been used for a long time and the fact that I can’t log into my ONLINE account means I can’t tell you the name of it” I pointed out.
She then tells me that without me confirming this I can’t have access to my account because I could be anyone. I would have to go in my “local” branch (25 miles away) to prove who I am.

Shortly after I send off the obligatory complaint letter and ten days later a cheque arrives.

So they won’t give me access to my online account but they will send me money - I presume it’s not just me that sees the stupidity of this????

Oh and I still don’t have access to my online account!!

 

[Queens59]

A few months ago we had no phone line, so using my mob. I called BT - they said 'Oh, there are no probs. there!' so I pointed out our line and our neighbours was as dead the the proverbial and she said...'Don't worry I will call you on the file phone number in an hour to see if you have a problem...' again I said 'we don't have a phone working for you to call on, you'll need my mob. number...nope 'company policy states that we can only phone your official number...' and if that isn't working? 'We'll phone you back after we've talked to tech. services'...I crawled into a small dark hole and pulled a rock over my head at that point...

 

[victor meldrew]

Further to this, I contacted the company forum !
Turns out the moderators are company employees .
Problem sorted in grand style . Postings responded to almost instantly .
Moral is ,check if service your having a problem with has indeed ,a forum .
The internet is a powerful animal and fora are read by all; future as well as present customers

John Wilkinson

 

[hedgerow pete]

when we lived in rural wales we lost the phone line for eight weeks after we complained we were told it was an under ground fault, shame all the cables were 14 foot in the air. electric if it went off, was off for at least a week or two and normaly three or four times a year, best was the water as we were feed from a spring, no leaks to worry about there