Swiftel Size, Customer Service

[lukesal]

I read an article this morning that Swiftel is expanding rapidly. They provide a good service, but I am afraid they may travel down the same road as these other ISP's once they are big- zero customer service, and very unhelpful generally. I changed from a 'big' ISP to get away from all of that.

I hope Swiftel doesnt end up travelling down the same road.

:)

[Slacker_au]

I dont believe that swiftel will go down that road as i believe that they are very customer orientated :)

So keep up the good work swiftel

[forumadmin]

"I read an article this morning that Swiftel is expanding rapidly. "

Swiftel is not expanding any more 'rapidly' than it planned to do when it first started offering ADSL.

The growth in subscribers is exactly what was planned each month for the past 8 months.

It is not difficult to manage a business if you accurately predict the growth and plan to handle that growth.

So far Swiftel's planning, in these early days, has been very accurate.

The company is still very small with slightly less than 4,000 ADSL users in WA, NSW and now VIC.

The support quantity and quality has been uniform since Day One and there is no reason to believe that it won't stay that way.

[actiff]

Hi,

Swiftel's customer support based on my experience with them is shit. Worse than iiNet (where I came from) in terms of replys via email. Got connected on the 19th, emailed support on the 20th (Saturday), got no reply till Monday, then got told it wasnt swiftel's problem and its my responsibility to check Telstra's ADSL outgage (Wholesale) website myself to find out if there was a problem. Blame Telstra again.... hate that!!! then say I should check it myself. FU** that, I got my adsl with Swiftel, U would think that someone would check the support email over a weekend and reply to let their customers know what is going on, or at least help them.

Next thing, I finally got a reply on the Monday (22nd) then sent a reply back that night, then got a reply again on the 23rd, then sent a reply back on the 23rd (at night), then the 24th, then the 25th and got no replies. I have been sending the same email every day since and I just get ignored. All I can say is that is fu**in hopeless. I wasnt nasty in my email at all, I was simply asking a few questions about QOS. I must say that this is a terrible way to treat a customer and I am deeply regreting churning away from iiNet. At least with iiNet they informed me of outages or replied to my support email questions, Swiftel havent done JACK SH*T, and its now been a week and 2 days, with so many questions, but Swiftel just cant be bothered replying to my emails at all....

Fingers crossed Ill get a reply now, but I am sure Ill be the one in the wrong, and swiftel will have no blame at all... Well see...

Awaiting swiftel's reply!!! *Up To 6 days, 5 emails and climbing*

Regards

Pete

[ibishop]

Originally posted by actiff
Awaiting swiftel's reply!!! *Up To 6 days, 5 emails and climbing*


Good evening Pete,

Please send me a P.M. with the questions, and I'll follow this up for you when I get to a place where I can log in to the helpdesk system.

Ian
Certified Support Specialist (SSPA)
Offsite Support - Swiftel Sydney

[lukesal]

this doesn't sound like Swiftel???

I hope it isnt....

[ibishop]

Originally posted by lukesal
this doesn't sound like Swiftel???

I hope it isnt....

It's not - I've been logged into the helpdesk system for periods of time every day in the referenced period, and I've not been ignoring tickets that were within my sphere of responsibility.

If there were questions outside my sphere, they have been referenced in my daily report which goes to the in-hours staff.

Best regards,

Ian
Certified Support Specialist (SSPA)
Offsite Support - Swiftel Sydney

[actiff]

It is Swiftel........... Believe me.... Beyond a shadow of a doubt... The tech (NO)support person was "Alan Li"... He replied to all my email requests (2 of them) then ignored the 5 others. Alan Li works for Swiftel, therefore "This is what Swiftel is all about" Ill keep waiting for a email reply to see how long it takes...

Regards

Peter

[actiff]

Hi Ibishop....

Thanks for your reply.... but I wont be PM you. I will be waiting for Swiftel ADSL Support to reply to me. To be honest and frank, this has nothing to do with Swiftel "forums". Forums are designed (as I see it) as a medium for people in which company set them up for the purpose of helping people in which email communication is unreliable or where there are too many emails for a group to keep up with that monitor that email address. Its all fine and dandy that a Sydney "tech" support "person" is monitoring this forum, but I dont want to speak to a Sydney tech person, I want to talk to Alan Li, the person with whom I was speaking to for 3 emails previous. By you saying "Send me a PM and Ill help" (something similar) just doesnt cut it.... All that means is that Sydney is picking up the pieces for a "VERY SLACK and INCONSIDERATE" tech support in Perth.

Thanks for the offer, but I will wait to speak to a local tech support person that is going to answer my email.

So far from my experience is Swiftel suck, pings are hopeless and download times suck during the period in which you expect them to be efficent...

Waiting as per usual (based on joining since then 19th of Sept and waiting 6 days and counting for a tech support email)....

Regards

Peter

[actiff]

Hi Ibishop....

If U have been monitoring tickets, checkout ticket #14440

Regards

Peter

[lukesal]

Actiff,

Have you tried calling the Swiftel direct number in Perth? Its in the phone book. Thats what I do. I don't worry about emailing.

[ibishop]

Just for the record, I'm having a look at the ticket referenced by Actiff now, and will contact him via a direct e-mail rather than keeping this in a public forum.

I would encourage anyone who believes we (support in general) have failed to provide adequate support to drop a line to the management@ e-mail address, providing appropriate documentation & call numbers, so that our work can be reviewed, and action taken if necessary.

Best regards,

Ian
Certified Support Specialist (SSPA)
Offsite Support - Swiftel Sydney

[actiff]

Hi Lukesal....

Yes I have tried calling the support line. I tried calling it on the weekend but got no answer. (Saturday).... then I emailed them on the same day... then got a reply on Monday morning... then sent a reply back Monday night... then got a reply back Tuesday morning, then sent another reply back... Then got no more replys back from Swiftel to date. Ringing the customer support line has nothing to do with this. Its irrelevant... For some people calling a number works. For me, I prefer email... It worked 2-3 times... then didnt work for the next 6... To be honest, I dont care really wether I could have called there support. It wasnt there for me when I needed it.. (Sat the 20th), so I resorted to email. IBishop said he was logged into the "support" "ticket" system all the time, (periodically I'd imagine) otherwise I would have received a reply over the period when I sent 6 emails and counting.... I will continue to send emails every day till I get a response.

I have never been exposed to such bad customer service as I have with Swiftel. To be completely ignored just takes the cake. To be told that ADSL outages are my problem and my responsibility to check when there are outages is just ridiculous. Thats just like telling someone who bought a "Nissan" car that the car woiuldnt start over the weekend because it was a fault of a part that they didnt manufacture. I dont give a shit whether they manufactured/produced it or not... They put their name "Nissan" or in this case "Swiftel" behind the name of the supplier in question... If a part/supplier they use fails to adhere to standards then dont ****in not tell your customers for two days whats going on, then blame it on the supplier/part of the part in question. After all, Swiftel are offering the service.... Not Telstra, I left Telstra cable years ago (mind you, without a single minute of downtime in the whole 2 years of being with them)..... Look after your customers Swiftel... Inform them... Pass on the4 information from Telstra ADSL wholesale to your customers... Dont send them a lame ****in email telling them its their perogative to visit Telstra's website to find out if their are any problems within the network. Thats just ****ed and you will die if that is how you deal with your clients...

Excuse my swearing, but I am being so explicit because Swiftel continues to annoy me.... Ibishop, it was good to get a reply from you... But your in Sydney..... If U are the only person that responds to tickets on the support system then Swiftel is in big trouble. If I have to post a message in a public forum to get a reply then that is pathetic.

If u monitor this forum Ibishop.... and U monitored the ticket system of the tech support side.... then why the **** isnt someone in Perth doing the same in Perth, and replying to messages from customers to the support email address within at least 1 day. I am sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that over that weekend someone read my email/ticket before the weekend was over but chose to ignore it. I am positive that at least one tech support person logged on to check out how the Swiftel network was functioning but just chose to ignore my email. (Especially based on what Ibishop said)

Extremely unhappy......

Regards

Pete

[Zebee]

Originally posted by ibishop
Just for the record, I'm having a look at the ticket referenced by Actiff now, and will contact him via a direct e-mail rather than keeping this in a public forum.



I suggest that someone should post the resolution here though. If there was a crack in Swiftel that this guy fell through how you fixed it, and if it was a misunderstanding, that it was resolved.

I've had my issues with Swiftel's support model, especially as regards notification of outages and the support hours, but for the price and the quotas, I figure it's good enough.

However, as Swiftel deliberately use net.based forms of communication as their main support, I need to have confidence in those. So if someone's saying "no one listens", I want to know if that's so (and what's been done to fix it) or if it's more the customer doing what some customers do....

Zebee

[ibishop]

Originally posted by Zebee
I suggest that someone should post the resolution here though. If there was a crack in Swiftel that this guy fell through how you fixed it, and if it was a misunderstanding, that it was resolved.

Good morning,

As you'll appreciate, I took the decision last night not to continue with a somewhat emotional debate, and instead worked on actually putting a coherent e-mail together to the customer (as promised), while also ensuring that other support issues from the evening were attended to.

With regards to an analysis of the events of the 20th, that isn't my place to comment on - I have offered to raise the issue with management for review if that is what Pete would like me to do. I'll leave all public comment on that side of things to the people within Swiftel who have relevant authority.

Best regards,

Ian
Certified Support Specialist (SSPA)
Offsite Support - Swiftel Sydney

[SMR]

Originally posted by actiff
Hi Lukesal....

Yes I have tried calling the support line. I tried calling it on the weekend but got no answer. (Saturday)....

Swiftel do not have telephone support on weekends.

If you had spent any time at all reading their site before you signed up you would know this.

As for ADSL outages, they are listed in the Forums, standard procedure.

Seems like you want your hands held......

Swiftel are low frills, low price, high performance that is why I signd up.

[forumadmin]

"but I dont want to speak to a Sydney tech person, I want to talk to Alan Li, the person with whom I was speaking to for 3 emails previous"

Alan IS a Sydney support person.

[wensu]

I have to admit, I've had a one or two silly supposed help desk/support replies to my (telephone) questions .

One didn't even speak english that proficiently, although quite legible, some words were just wrong and I could'nt really describe my problem to him as he just seem to pick up on a few keywords I was saying and repeated his wrong answer to me, which of course was not the answer I was after. And as one could expect, I just hung up a little frustrated.

I eventually worked it out myself, albeit a few hours later.

I really suggest Swiftel review the skillsets and competency of some telephone support staff. Just so things like this don't re-occur.

This is just my humble opinion, please disregard at your leisure.

- wensu

[forumadmin]

"Swiftel's customer support based on my experience with them is ****. "

Swiftel has now investigated your allegations.

This is the view of the senior manager of engineering at Swiftel:

"http://helpdesk.swiftel.com.au/display.php?ticket=14440&sid=97c8ed02921d7f224f9b9d6d462a5ec7

As far as I can see, his one support question was answered within a few hours of him sending an email. He asked the same question several times and received a 'same day' response.

He also included some musings and other observations about what he thought constituted good or bad support for him, but it's not immediately apparent if this was actually a support question or not - I have reread it several times and it seems to me to be a complaint rather than a question. I thought Alan's answers had completely addressed his question earlier.

His outstanding issue on network routing is not a fault at all, it is just the way routing works, and has zero impact on his connection. I thought Alan had also addressed this earlier when he specifically asked is it was affecting anything.

In future posts please do not use offensive language; if you do the post will be deleted.

[paulF]

I also have had a situation identical to the post 'wensu' placed two above this one.

I was unable to fully understand the support person I'm afraid and I also ended the conversation feeling very frustrated.

Its unfortunate that possibly some excellent technical people may not have the ability to communicate the language as well as is needed.

I fully agree with the observations 'wensu' has made.

~P

[ibishop]

Originally posted by paulF
I also have had a situation identical to the post 'wensu' placed two above this one.

I was unable to fully understand the support person I'm afraid and I also ended the conversation feeling very frustrated.


I just hope that you've not come away with that issue if you've dealt with me. :)

Ian

[luddite]

In an attempt to balance the specious criticisms levelled at Sydney Support ... my two penneth.

I've dealt with Alan (and JL) on a number of non-trivial routing issues
and was impressed with the technical skill and thoroughness
shown in solving my problems.

The service provided is great, but don't expect the hand-holding
that often substitutes for real technical skill.
You'll also get VERY direct answers, i.e. they tell it as they see it !

pjc

[Haydn]

Swiftel has great customer support. I haven't had any problems with my connection except for maybe one or two dropouts which does happen with any ISP sooner or later. The service is damn cheap and extremely good performance wise.

I think this person is having problems elsewhere as well as with his internet connection....

Keep up the great work ppl :D