FIDO needs to learn new tricks
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- p2pnet has always been vocal about the disgusting way in which Canadian telecoms treat the people who keep them in business.
Earlier today we posted an item on Rogers ‘new’ FIDO ’service,’ leading off with, “Bell, Rogers and Telus … consistently treat their users as marks to be scammed rather than customers to be respected.”
At the time of writing (8:05 am Pacific), the page had 5,108 page visits and a number of Readers’ Writes, such as »»»
fido calls constantly over ridiculous outstanding debts, I got calls (several a day) over 10$ i mistakenly forgot to pay and I was cut off right in the middle of a road trip up north in ontario I was in a car accident and had no telephone. When I tried to reconnect my expensive phone I was told I would have to pay a reconnection fee. Of course I told them I wasn’t paying it and where they could shove their policy.
Lesson learned DO NOT sign any contracts with rogers or fido they will find any circumstance to rape your wallet or gouge you at every turn.
And »»»
“Ask Bell, Rogers and Telus who consistently treat their users as marks to be scammed rather than customers to be respected”
This is not news. It is standard operating procedure.
tiredofbeingdissed also raised several issues which are rarely discussed, saying »»»
Just my topic! Below is part of a letter I sent to my mobile phone provider just last week. It outlines only part of a long running dissatisfaction with what I see as exploitation of Canadians by mobile phone providers. I was describing how it is that the cell phone providers do not offer a single phone that accommodates arthritic fingers on the keyboard. Not one! And they do not care that this is so.
There is much more on the table than this, and I sincerely hope consumers will speak up and demand real service and equity.
“I am pushing just ahead of the “boomer” population. You likely have not missed the fact that they represent a huge demographic and will dominate the population for several years. I fail to understand why it is that corporations like yours and others have so narrowly focused on the “youth” market to the extent that the rest of us have been dismissed. I do not understand why there is not a wide range of choices of equipment and service plans from which to choose.
I do not understand the ethics of turning away from the needs of customers such as elders and disabled people. What does it say about corporate values and administration when so consistently customer’s needs are unmet? I happen to know that this issue has been presented to Fido and Rogers before.
I know that many of your sales people have let you know that they get requests all the time from people like me or from people who simply want a functional telephone – no camera, no mp3 player, no movies, no games – just good reliable phone service and an efficient and dependable phone.
I have sometimes wondered if the answer to my questions may be that the people making the decisions that we all have to live with are mainly very young people. If that is so, I still do not understand how it could be that such a huge corporation as Fido and Rogers represents does not have administrators that can see the bigger picture, and who have lived long enough to understand the variability of customer needs and can, as mentors, help young staff see beyond their excitement about technology and speed and bling and teach about service. (And I do not mean what passes for “customer service” in your world.)
You can serve the “youth market” AND the rest of us. Seems like that would help grow your business.”
As I post this (8:42 am Pacific), the page has been viewed 5,773 times and if p2pnet, a small one-man site on Vancouver Island, BC, is drawing this kind of response, its obvious the problem is significant and maybe it’s time for the telcos to pay attention to what their customers rather than their shareholders are demanding.
After all, with the arrival of the Net and P2P and new technologies, cellphones aren’t the only form of communication.
FIDO and all the other corporate dogs had better learn new tricks. And fast.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
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November 4th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
I’m an ex rogers agent from a third-party call center called ICT.
I can truley say the way rogers reps treat people is displicable. While i wasent the bright ray of sunshine you all expect from us 24/7, i can say this… I tried.
I no longer work for rogers for these reason (the reasons i was put on probation, which caused me to quit):
* I credited back disconnection fees for brief suspensions, anything under 2 days.
* I gave a $750 temperary credit (With the authorization for 3 supervisors, as well as the now-defunct and horribly named “IQ” (managment) department) because she was going into the hospital, living off a limited income, and told was trying to pay off her $750 debt while receiving $500/month in benefits. Needless to say, this was charged back to her because “Rogers doesent give temperary credits”. Despite supervisor approval, i was written up for this.
* To those with high “revenue” (meaning how much money rogers took from you each month) who wanted to upgrade multiple lines, i would credit the second line to match the discount they got on their first line, as their “revenue” resets, and the prices go back up.
* I “spent too much time with the customer”. Funny, my average call time was 3 minutes for billing disputes…. 30 minutes for upgrades (I made sure the customer got what they needed, and not some $1000 phone that they wouldent even need), and at least once a week spent 3-5 hours with a customer with advanced problems, such as “Rogers errors”. Those errors occur when rogers “accidently” charges you for additional data and text messaging.
The above is my “good” side. What i did to make customers happy, and sadly, i stopped ALOT of customers from leaving rogers, despite me having a blackberry 8100 (pearl-black) with them, and having too many problems.
My “bad” side, is in my first week on the floor, i told someone to fuck off…. You heard my supervisors reactions to the above, and how they were negative. I had my supervisor come up to me, and laugh about it. (Honestly, i dident say fuck off, he said a previous rep told him to fuck off, and i said i dident blame her due to the notes multiple reps wrote on his account).
The rogers call centers, including third party services such as ICT are horrible places to work if you cannot handle the stress.
My suggestion to anyone considering working for rogers, be it first party or third party… Make sure you get into the cable department. There are people in THIRD PARTY centers making $1000/month in commishin alone. A first party rep can make anywheres between $1,500 – $2,000 in over-selling customers in the cable department. First party cell reps can make around $300-400 from commishin a month. Third party reps, making the same amount of sales as the first party reps, make $30.
My girlfriend, who i met working at rogers, still works for them, and makes $40 a month at most for celling cell phones, and her sales are 2x above the required target.
November 4th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Sorry for the double post.
But looking back at the spectrum auction, how do you think Rogers/Fido/Bell/Telus could possibly spend BILLIONS of dollars on spectrum, when they are hardly making money off of us, as they claim.
November 4th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
It is now 10,498 times