What is the Virgin Media definition of "a few"?

[Theodoric]

Somehow I suspect that it is completely different from that found in any dictionary. I emailed CS on 7 September about a small issue and I received an automated reply the same day promising a reply "as quickly as possible, usually within a few days."

As I've had experience of CS promises before I took this one with an extremely large pinch of salt. Anyway, it's 10 days later now and still no sign of a reply to what is a very simple query. Out of interest, has anyone had any recent experience with CS and therefore able to give some guidance on what Virgin Media really mean by "a few days"?

By the way, I like the way that they put a discreet reference number in their reply. It gives that certain hint of professionalism.

[chickendippers]

They seem to be ignoring emails, just give them a call.

[Theodoric]

Originally Posted by chickendippers

They seem to be ignoring emails, just give them a call.

Well, that seems like a good start on VM's part. The query is not important enough for me to waste time waiting in a telephone queue; besides which, I doubt if the CS call centre would know the answer.

The more serious issue is that if they really are ignoring emails, and my experience would seem to confirm this, what does it say about VM's much vaunted policy of improving customer care?

[Nemeth]

I had a minor issue a few weeks ago, sent an email first of all then thought I'd be better off posting on one of the support newsgroups. I had a reply to the newsgroup post the next day (it was a Sunday) and a resolution the day after. Two weeks later I got a generic cut and paste reply to the email.

VM seem to be aware of the problems they have responding to emails, but like many big organisations still struggle to deal with them. I'd always look for another way to contact them.

[Theodoric]

Originally Posted by Nemeth

I had a minor issue a few weeks ago, sent an email first of all then thought I'd be better off posting on one of the support newsgroups. I had a reply to the newsgroup post the next day (it was a Sunday) and a resolution the day after. Two weeks later I got a generic cut and paste reply to the email.

VM seem to be aware of the problems they have responding to emails, but like many big organisations still struggle to deal with them. I'd always look for another way to contact them.

Yes, but why do they compound the problem by saying "a few days"? Why not be honest and say, perhaps, within a fortnight? We could complain about their time scales then, but not about their honesty. At the moment they are both dishonest and lethargic.

[chickendippers]

Oh yes, I forgot about the newsgroups. If it's not important enough to warrant a phone call then use virginmedia.support as you'll get a reply very quickly: http://www.virginmedia.com/customers...omernewsgroups

[VMCC]

When I left Customer Concern had 10s of thousands of letters awaiting reply.

No idea of how many Emails. Also a lot of complaints waiting to be processed on the system (CCCS).

They may outsource the Customer Concern department next in an attempt to resolve the back-log issue. There again is it the outsources causing the issues, I do not mean Liverpool or Swansea but a bit further afield.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by VMCC

When I left Customer Concern had 10s of thousands of letters awaiting reply.

No idea of how many Emails. Also a lot of complaints waiting to be processed on the system (CCCS).

They may outsource the Customer Concern department next in an attempt to resolve the back-log issue. There again is it the outsources causing the issues, I do not mean Liverpool or Swansea but a bit further afield.

Just be truthful


INDIA IS THE PROBLEM

[Theodoric]

Originally Posted by chickendippers

Oh yes, I forgot about the newsgroups. If it's not important enough to warrant a phone call then use virginmedia.support as you'll get a reply very quickly: http://www.virginmedia.com/customers...omernewsgroups

I see what you mean; VM Tech Support do seem to reply. Is this new with VM? I never looked much at the ntl newsgroups so I can't really recall what they were like.

Oh, and by the way, my email is now exactly 2 weeks old with no reply yet in sight.

[Mick Fisher]

Why can support be bothered to reply to support issues reported in a news group but can't be arsed to read an email. Could it be that Noobs don't know about newsgroups so the volume is relatively light and the volume of emails is ginormous. If so, then as the news that a newsgroup is now a valid route to some free help, gets more well known, how long will it take before the volume of queries increases to a point when even the newsgroup will be ignored.

[georgepomone]

Hi All,
sounds like "ignore it and it will go away" not good.
George.

what was the query anyway?

[Theodoric]

Originally Posted by darthlinux

what was the query anyway?

It was a question that I had asked earlier on this forum, namely why Virgin Media are unable to provide a Channel Lineup for their own channels on the Virgin Media site, especially as Digital Spy and Wikipedia have no difficulty in doing this.

It's not particularly important to me, I simply wanted to find out why this was happening, so I see no particular reason to chase it up. It has now turned into an exercise in finding out how long Virgin Media take to answer an email. As of tomorrow, it will be exactly 4 weeks since I emailed them and, apart from the initial automated acknowledgement, still no sign of a reply. They really do take the biscuit!

[Theodoric]

I finally received a phone call from Virgin on Saturday. Their reply was that I could get channel lineups via the remote.

So, it took Virgin Media 4 weeks and one day to reply to my email. I'm not sure how typical this is as my question was minor and simple.

[Hugh]

TV listings on Virgin with the channels by package.