Kafkaesque customer service

[SquidwardBound]

I have been trying to cancel my broadband for more than a month now. I appear to be caught in some sort of kafkaesque WhatsApp conversation with bloody Virgin Media. So I’m going to have a rant.

Feel free to tell me your stories of absolutely shite customer service. I wonder if there is a company who are even worse to deal with than this.

It’s going to be an essay… but let’s detail the process I’ve been through so far.

28 February

• Call virgin media. Faff through various menus etc to be told they’re oh so busy but I can use the WhatsApp service instead. Foolishly I think this will be better than just being on hold for an indefinite amount of time.
• The WhatsApp service starts with a chatbot. I should have known it was going to be a nightmare when it asked me my first name twice in 5 minutes.
• I navigate through some multiple choice menus culminating in me selecting option 4 ‘cancel my services’. The bot tells me I’ll be transferred to an agent.
• but wait… no. It needs me to give some more information. Including clarifying again that I am cancelling my broadband. I’d selected the broadband option a whole two minutes before this.
• The bot then asks me for various details of the new provider and deal etc. I answer the questions as requested.
• Then the bot asks me for details of my account. Loads of them. Including last bill amount. Date of direct debit.
• The big recaps all of the above in one handy summary. Then says it’s transferring me to an agent. Wonderful.
• Alas no though. They’re very busy but doing their best …

Stay tuned for the next instalment in SquidwardBound repeats the same information again and again and gets no closer to cancelling her broadband.

The level of detail above is important because, as you shall learn, i wi be asked for such information many, many times.

Oh I feel your pain, just reading that makes me tense up. Why can't it just be a button on your online account - Cancel. Are you sure? Yes. Done.

It sounds already as if you will need copious gin and chocolate to sustain you through this process, @SquidwardBound.

Between then and actually connecting me with an agent (on 2 March) I go through the screenshotted process twice.

finally on March 2, I am connected to an actual human.

The human asks me to confirm that they’re still talking to the account holder and asks for my full name (again).

They then want to go through a security process involving links. After the third link simply won’t open and they start suggesting resetting my router so that their useless broadband will let me use the link they’ve given me, I lose patience and get on with my actual job.

I actually forget that I’m supposed to be trying to cancel my broadband. I have ADHD and also plenty of much better things to be using my memory for than trying to keep track of trying to navigate a really badly designed customer experience process.

We come to yesterday. Open reach are coming to install broadband. I remember that I need to make sure I have cancelled virgin media (although by now I am not budging from my contention that I very clearly have them notice on 28 February and it is not my fault that their processes are to retain customers by making it impossible to leave).

Buckle in for being asked to do the same stuff more times than you can possibly imagine.

4 April

• the system does remember that I am looking to cancel a service. And says it’ll transfer me straight to an agent.
• But it also asks me to confirm I’m the account holder and give my contact details - email and phone number. Now, remember, I’m using WhatsApp. So that’s using my phone number…
• I give the details and 30 minutes later I’m back to the security process with all the links.
• the first link doesn’t work and I have no idea what password I put on the account 2 years ago. So I get to do multiple links which start by asking for… my email address.
• I’ve just put this in the chat. But now I have to use a secure link. My phone thinks it’s a password too, so I have to take extra steps so I can actually type in my email address and see the text. Fun.
• i also figure out that the link will work if I use mobile data. It just won’t work on virgin media broadband. Wonderful.
• the next two links ask for my last bill amount and direct debit date. Again as if they’re passwords.
• It tells me I have passed the security questions so I think I’m going to get somewhere.
• but no. Now the fun really begins.
• apparently they’re busy and need me to confirm I’m the account holder and my contact details haven’t changed since 3pm when I last provided them.

Call them and press the buttons for some other service like wanting to add something. Then when a sales person answers tell them you think you pressed the wrong button but can they please help you. It worked for me with a few different impossible phone calls.

Apparently I also have to do the bloody security checks again.

I point out that I have already done them. And show the agent that I passed the check (since it appears checking back through the transcript is not easy for virgin media).

But no. The process requires me to do this again. 🤦🏻‍♀️

And DH wonders why I keep procrastinating about ringing sky, to ask why our “super fast” broadband that we pay for is so glacially slow. I’m having a cold sweat just thinking about it!

So I decide I will complete it again. But the links don’t work.

the agent sends the links again. Eventually I get links that open. I complete the process.

Wonderful. Now the agent can do something.

So they ask me how they can help me. Again. And for my reasons for wanting to cancel.

They want to offer me a better deal. And my not being interested in one is not going to stop them. I play along because it’s not the agent’s fault that the process is absurd.

The agent offers me a different deal.

I explain that I don’t want it. But the poor sod is obliged to try to persuade me.

Just phone them.

But the fun is still not over. I hear nothing til today.

I need to confirm I still need help with my query. So I do. This is just before 8am.

At 10:04 an agent responds. I am, however, working and busy in a teams meeting.

less than 10 minutes later, the agent is asking for confirmation I’ve read their message.

less than 10 minutes after that, they’re asking me if I want to continue to conversation today - it’s clearly passing me back to the bot.

No!!!!

What would happen if you cancelled the direct debit or standing order?

The same thing happens at lunchtime - but I’m busy. It kicks me to the bot within 15 minutes.

i finally get an agent… and we start again with asking for confirmation I’m the account holder and that my contact details haven’t changed in the last 24 hours.

By this point I’ve actually just made a written complaint to virgin media about it and asked them to resolve my issue. So I’m not phoning anyone (because the phone equivalent of this won’t be better - there’ll just be more hold music involved and still me repeating info and being passed between departments).

But the agent on WhatsApp has reverted to asking me… why I want to cancel and going through the offering me a new deal process. Again.

I’m not game though so I just tell them that I am fed up with this. I just want them to cancel my services and I’ve made a complaint about the dreadful customer experience (not the poor agents, who must despair of this crap).

I have cancelled it. In my complaint about the process I outlined that I did tell them I wanted to cancel more than 30 days ago - I have the transcript, so I have cancelled my direct debit.

We are not using their service because I have a new provider (with a new open reach supplied connection and router). So I’m paying them because their customer service processes are dire.

It should be this. It’s unacceptable that they’re allowed to put you through al this nonsense to exercise the basic consumer right to give them the notice in your contract and cancel.

Just telling them formally that you want to cancel should be enough.

The moral of this tale is: never let virgin media put you into the WhatsApp customer service option. No matter how much they’re trying to get you out of the phone queue.

I had exactly this with EDF. We all know the drill, so I put my name, account number, address and query in the first message.

It seems to understand, and asks me to confirm my issue. I do so. It says everyone is busy, but can I just conform my name?

And my postcode?

And do I know my account number?

What is it?

Ah, they're still busy. They'll be here soon.

Oh dear, they're shut. But someone will be with me tomorrow, can I just conform my name? Etc etc etc.

They're still closed by the way.

MORNING! Can they help?

What's the problem?

What's my name? (can you see where this is going?)

They're very busy, but there will be a real person ASAP.

Oh, they're closed.

What's my name?

JFC. I only wanted a new smart meter display.

Don’t let them bump you to a chat based service whatever you do.

IME sky phone customer support is not as awful as this. But I’m struggling to think of anything worse.

I’ve been asked for the same information so many times. This afternoon I just started saying ‘no. I’ve provided this information multiple times. I am
not willing to provide it again. I just want you to cancel my broadband service.’

Yes. Exactly this.

It’s so frustrating. Genuinely who designs this UX/CX?

Log into My Virgin Media, make changes, no problem.

God this is dreadful- it's bringing me out in hives just reading your thread. After suffering at the hands of Vodafone once and getting stuck in their ninth circle of hell, the human I finally spoke to said whatever you're calling about, ask for retentions. And it works like a bloody charm. I fear it might not work for VM though, they're in a league of their own.

You can’t leave this way. They just don’t let you.

I got retentions. Twice.

Hilariously the second agent from retentions tried to offer me a worse deal than the first one. Even though I said I’d already been through this and wasn’t interested. And didn’t provide the information about my broadband usage again.