How Not To Impress New Customers
For about 10 years now I've used (and recommended friends use) Pipex broadband. Over that time I've had only a handful of problems and always been happy. So happy that for the last couple of years I've been paying over the odds (50 pounds a month) for "business broadband" (20:1 contention).
Despite knowingly paying too much, I'm still happy, as, when it comes to my internet connection, it's a definite case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". You can't put a price on reliability when it comes to something as essential your internet connection.
I had a nasty reminder of how much I rely on that internet connection this weekend.
Pipex have been bought out by TalkTalk and are now known as Opal. Despite lots of emails reassuring me nothing would change I found myself without internet on Sunday afternoon. After trying all the logical things I called their 24hr tech-support number to find out my account was "on hold" for "billing reasons", but I couldn't find out why or do anything about it until 9am the next day.
Roll on Monday morning and I call Opal to find out that, unlike Pipex, they don't accept recurring card payments. Just Direct Debits. So my account hadn't been paid for two months and they'd gone on to disconnected me. When I asked "At what point were you going to tell me about this change in payment policy before you go and cut me off?!" the weary, but polite, phone-bod told me their "credit control" department claimed to have told all customers of this. Although he told me he sided with the hundreds of annoyed customers he'd since dealt with.
Anyway, I then paid up to date and had my account re-opened within the hour.
So, dear TalkTalk, if you're going to take over companies here are a couple of tips on how to keep their existing customers:
- Even if you did send an email (I'm sure you didn't!) this is something that should have been explained in a letter in the post!
- If you are going to disconnect me, please do it when your offices are open. Better still send me some advance notification. I am paying for business broadband. That should tell you something about how important the connection is to me.
- If you realise you've made a mistake and disconnected lots of customers without any warning, why not reconnect them all, explain what happened and then contact them like you should have done in the first place.
TalkTalk/Opal are now on their first written warning from me. If there's any whiff of an issue in the near future then I'm off elsewhere!
I can no longer recommend "Pipex". Can anybody in the UK recommend the most reliable broadband provider? Not bothered about price or speed. I just want reliability.
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What out a doubt I recommend http://www.idnet.net/
More expensive than your run of the mill but they have excellent support.
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i personally swear by http://www.eclipse.net.uk/ who have provided my business broadband for years now, i have never had even a peek out of them despite topping 100+ gig per month, speeds always constant and very reliable
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I can second this.
I used to deal with them at my old company, and they are based just down the road from me in Exeter. We never had any issues with them and when I used them for my home ADSL connection they were equally as reliable.
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I'll back Eclipse too. 3+ years, never a hitch.
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Talk Talk - yuck. Zen.co.uk all the way mate, years of non interupted (that I noticed) broadband and top notch customer service.
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Indeed. As soon as I noticed Opal were part of the TalkTalk group I thought "Oh god, here we go". I'm not expecting much of my future with them.
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Oh God, I've been on Nildram for ages and had a great service and they've jut been bought out by Opal/TalkTalk.
This is not a good sign... but then TalkTalk were well mentioned for their poor customer service, at least at the outset.
I also see a change afoot...
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Zen, they are a bit more expensive but the support is amazing. Even their Customer Service desk ( as opposed to the tech desk ) seem to be geeks
http://www.zen.co.uk
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Virgin everytime. 50gb connection never fails and always v fast.
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It's been a while since I was with them (they were NTL then...) but it was pretty good, until something went wrong. Then just getting hold of someone was painful.
Didn't hang around long after that.
Looking forward to Fibrecity connection soon (SewerNet), but that's just Bournemouth and Dundee for the moment I'm afraid.
I'd reccoment Nildram, who we just left at work (for upgrade to leased line reasons) except as mentioned above they're part of Opal now.
PlusNet at home, work and everyone elses house I've recommended them to have been nothing but brilliant. Part of BT now, but they seem to be run separately and are good value too.
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The above should read 50mbps. Its fast, but not that fast!
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+1 for Zen, very reliable with good support although you do pay for it
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(sigh) Do y'all really have that much choice in providers?
I'm stuck with Cox or AT&T. Which will suck less?
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I prefer AT&T. You can get more bandwidth at times with Cox because they're cable, but if you are in a heavily populated area the bandwidth drops quickly when all of the kids get online.
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Everybody disses them, but I have never had a problem with BT. £27/month. Unlimited bandwidth. They keep wanting to "upgrade" me to have additional features but I don't need those features, so why bother? I was one of the first people in London to receive broadband (I shut down my kilostream line and switched to broadband at the same time. Kind of gives you an indication) and I have lost count how many years I've been connected. But I *can* count the number of times I've been disconnected by them or had issues with them... zero.
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"they don't accept recurring card payments. Just Direct Debits."
Here in the U.S., allowing a company to directly debit your account is just asking for trouble. The smart thing to do is to is to only allow monthly billing to a credit card.
Of course the banking rules there might make it safer.
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Another vote for Zen from me. Of all the providers I have used they we the best - I just didn't realise it at the time..
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Zen did me proud but it was expensive after I closed my business. I would recommend them though!
I've heard nothing but good things about http://aaisp.net.uk/broadband.html too - proper Business Class service by all accounts.
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I use Freeola and have done for many years now. Can't remember how I saw them and I never see them advertising but the service has been great and if asked I point friends at them. Again you can get cheaper but they've been good and the Web hosting is included. For the office we use Internet for Business again with no probs.
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Eclipse gets my vote too having been with them for many, many years after leaving Pipex.
Was forced to go with BT for new office due to timing issues but have been with Eclipse for many years and had 20Mbit/2.5Mbit at the old office and still have 10/2.5Mbit from ADSL2+ Annexe M trial.
Had a customer with dubious line issues and immediately got to speak with an engineer who was sitting their tweaking settings on the line etc. asopposed to a similar situation with BT at my current office which left me down for part of about 3 days until the decided actually yes there was a problem and needed someone out to test the line. Would never willingly choose BT again after that lengthy fix.
Anyway I digress. Eclipse. Basically unlimited for something like £20+VAt a month. an No extra £5 a month like BT charge for a fixed IP.
Steve Knight
http://www.dragon-it.co.uk/
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Can't help you with broadband providers. I can give you an even worse horror story, though.
Ten years ago, as CTO of a small but growing business offering a web-based service, I got a fractional T1 line installed to handle both our internal internet access and the connections from our customers to our Domino web servers. This was before the days of inexpensive "business broadband" and reasonably priced co-location. If you wanted reliability, you had to go with a T1. In the USA, that generally meant that you signed a contract with an ISP, and they procured the actual line through one of the local phone companies. The cost was over US$1000 per month, but for that you got SLA guarantees from the ISP and they got SLA guarantees from the phone company.
About 4 months later, I signed a new contract to upgrade to a full T1, but due to clerical error at the ISP, the old contract was not removed from their active account files. A few months later the old contract was flagged for non-payment. The ISP issued a cutoff order to the phone company, and since there was a shortage of available T1 circuits in the area, our line was immediately reassigned to another customer -- and of course this was a customer of another ISP.
We were completely cut off, and we had no recourse because we were not the phone company's customer. The ISP was their customer, and as far as the phone company was concerned their cutoff was a valid order and they had executed it and that terminated their SLA obligations!
The only thing that saved us was the fact that we were already about 80% of the way toward getting a second line installed for redundancy, and that was with a company that was both ISP and local phone company with its own fiber infrastructure. They had already run fiber into our office, and we managed to get them to come in just a couple of hours later and install the termination gear, allocate our IP address range, and formally sign the contract for their service. Then we called the first ISP, demanded that they immediately update DNS with our new addresses, and informed them that was the last thing they would ever do for us. We transferred DNS for our domain elsewhere a few days later.
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Jake,
I've been with PlusNet for years and can honestly say that I have NEVER had a single problem with them! In addition, they are pretty good value for money - probably one of the cheapest providers around. Not sure what they offer in terms of business connections though.... Good luck - and I WANT AN iPAD TOO!!!! Definitely going to give in and get one soon....
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Am getting Fiber internet in 7 days :) 49mb per second Bothways. Ipad nahhhh dont need one.
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I would add my name to the list of Zen recommenders. Dearer than most but good service.
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I can highly recommend PlusNet. I was with them for 6+ years including a house move and they were without fault, speed wasn't as fast as some of the others at the time but reliability & support were great.
I'm now with BeThere broadband and don't have any complaints. I moved because of the speed (24mb) but so far so good (1+1/2yrs).
My father in law was with talktalk and he had a horrendous experience trying to leave (after a horrendously slow & unreliable connection) - very difficult to get the MAC code, he ended up getting a call from a talktalk exec after he kicked up a stink and went to ofcom... So be aware!
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I am or was a Nildram subscriber for years. Now I have no incoming email. Just try contacting technical support without running up the national debt as no one picks up and they charge for the privilege. They do not answe emails. Opal are rubbish rubbish rubbish.
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I was with Nildram 7 years. Opal are shocking. My line speed has dropped from 6meg to 0.5 meg. Can't get through to them on the phone - Everyone I speak to gives me a different number to get a MAC. Nightmare.
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