Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Lock the door, innit

Here's an excerpt from an email I received from Virgin Media today. Just for the record, my new account set-up, installation, and service so far has been nothing short of smooth, painless and splendid, a vast improvement over the way things were five years ago. My only suggestion for improvement comes after the email excerpt.

Hi James Enck,

Welcome to Virgin Media! It's great to have you with us, and we hope you're already enjoying getting stuck in to your new services.

At Virgin Media, we want to make sure we give you the best customer service out there. That's why we'd really like to find out how things went for you when you joined us.

We've put together a few quick questions about joining us, and we'd really appreciate it if you'd take the time to let us know your thoughts. It shouldn't take longer than around two or three minutes to complete.

By finding out exactly how things went for you, we'll be able to understand the things we're getting right, and if there's anything you'd like us to do better. And we promise to use your feedback to make improvements where we can.


Okay, Virgin Media. I haven't been "getting stuck in to" your services, because that's too much commitment for me, and I don't want to answer your questionnaire, because life's too short. As I said earlier, ordering online, installation, and the service itself have all been perfect, and I have absolutely no complaints, apart from the three week lag time, but I guess you can't help it if you're popular, as you alone can offer an incredibly sexy average download speed in excess of 3Mbps. My one, and only, concern is that the street cabinet right outside my house is open, and has apparently been open since time immemorial, judging from the crude stone implements and charcoal drawings I recently discovered inside. The engineer who did my installation one week ago claimed to have locked it, but it is now open again, flapping in the unseasonably cold wind. Luckily, the locals seem to be too stupid or distracted to concern themselves with the obvious opportunity for vandalism/mischief, but the Theory of Evolution suggests that they may turn their sights to it eventually. The clock is ticking.

5 comments:

Johan van Laerhoven said...

Hi James,
As usual I like your writing.
I was wondering if you already sent this to Virgin Media yourself or whether you're waiting for them to read this too?

Regards Johan van Laerhoven

James Enck said...

"Telco, heal thyself," that's my motto. Maybe this would be a good Google Maps mash-up project for someone with such an inclination. I'm sure the company would appreciate the help.

Alex Brown said...

James

Hi, thanks for the feedback.

The survey is one it would really help us if you did fill in as we use these in order to track how our customer experience is going and to identify initiatives to improve it even further.

On your street cabinet, I'm sure we can get this fixed quickly enough if you've not already reported it?

If you can drop a line through to our Twitter team [http://www.twitter.com/virginmedia if interested - they can be e-mailed on twitter (at) virginmedia.co.uk] with location etc, they'll be able to get someone on the case ASAP.

Thanks



Alex

Alex Brown
Senior Customer Experience Manager
Virgin Media

James Enck said...

With respect, I have stated that the box is directly in front of my house, the address of which is presumably in your database. Virgin Media has a market cap of $5.9bn, why should I hold your hand? And why does the company seem to be unable to conduct an inventory and repair of basic plant like this?

Anonymous said...

Although local councils have absolutely no power or responsibility here, people constantlyreport open cabinets to www.fixmystreet.com, which might be a useful resource.