World Online E-Mail Interview

World Online E-Mail Interview
By Zeon : April 18th 2000

1. Will existing customers get Call Divert for free from April 10th - June 30th if they had it before freedom 24?

Yes

2. There seems to be a lot of support for the off-peak deal to come back. Is this possible with enough support? Many people are leaving now as they see the extra £5 as too much because they don't surf during work hours (9-5).

The Reply when people ask about this at customer services is....

"If you decide that this service does not suit you, you can keep the service you are using at the moment, with no current increase in line rental, but you will no longer benefit from free internet access during off-peak hours."

The only offer available is now Freedom 24. It's interesting that you have noticed service level improvements as this is key to the underlying strategy of removing the off-peak offer from the product mix. Off-peak only access alters the behaviour of customers and puts a huge demand on the service from 6.00pm to 9.00pm. This demand is a false distortion due to the availability of unmetered calls. By giving unmetered access 24 hours a day, the loading on the system will be more evenly spread giving a better quality of service for all customers.


3. When I phoned Customer Services recently I was in a queue of 36! Is there any plans to reduce the amount of time it takes to deal with queries?

We have collated the most frequently asked questions and are posting the answers on the web sites. There has been an initial wave of calls due to the announcement of Freedom 24 and customers want to chat about their options, this will reduce significantly over the next few days. Extra operators have been drafted in and a lot of enquiries can be resolved using the automated system, there are for example answers to the frequently asked questions about Freedom 24.

4. The 0800 faults number used to go straight through to the people you wanted to speak to. Now you are forced to wait in a huge queue. Why?

Faults can now be reported on the BT gateway by all members of the customer service team so fault reporting has been brought into the general remit of customer services. There is also information about first line fault fixing available on the automated system.

5. Why was the 0800 faults number taken away? World Online seem to be making a lot of money out of people reporting faults now.

To make the service more widley available it had to be brought under the same telephone number. If any customer has been waiting for more than 5 minutes, they can request a call back to a number they specify. These are currently all being cleared within 24 hours.

6. The first batch of bills went out ok but the next batch seem to be delayed?

The first batch of bills were sent out 'en masse', the second round has been put into four billing cycles per month so customers in the fourth cycle have been 'delayed' compared to others.

7. If people cancel now they will not incur any charges at all because if they don't except the T&C's they can leave for free!
YES/NO

Customers who terminate their telephone service agreement within the first twelve months are asked to pay a contract termination administration fee of £18. This is because when customers transferred to Localtel, a fee was levied on Localtel by BT. This was not passed on to customers. It is therefore reasonable that a proportion of this fee is recovered in the case of early termination. If customers want to transfer within the first twelve months, this charge will be levied.

  If a customer has not been with the service for twelve months but does not want to take up the Freedom 24 offer after the end of June 2000, then they can convert to a telephone service only line for £27.77 a quarter. This will give them access to any other offer they prefer to choose like BT Internet £9.99 for weekends or Freeserve 7.00 for evening (it think these are the correct numbers for the two offers). Why anyone would want to pay more for partial off-peak than for 24/7, however, seems odd!

8. 18.1 in the T&C

"18.1 your entitlement to such free calls will only continue for such time as you remain a registered World Online customer in respect of all of the telephone lines at your property and with a valid payment method (i.e., direct debit or credit card) in place;"

"ALL OF YOUR TELEPHONE LINE AT YOUR PROPERTY" This is very unfair condition?

The purpose of a contract is to be relied on when things go drastically wrong. If a customer were to have two lines and use one World Online line for 'all you can use' internet access and a second with say BT for all their voice traffic wouldn't that be a little unfair (to use your words)? This is about what is reasonable, we feel it is reasonable for customers to route at least some voice traffic through their line. I think the best reassurance for customers is our track record under the Localtel brand - we did not refer to customers as abusers and try to cap internet usage when others did, we did not start to put conditions around voice calls and usage to qualify for free net time like others have done but, if the second line is not even with us then there is no possibility for any voice traffic to be made through it. Plus the line rental of a second line is the same as with BT so what's the problem?

9. There seem to be authentication problems with screaming.net/World Online. Some times it will say verifying username and password then cut out or sometimes it will not get to verifying username and password and give no answer?

This issue is know and is currently being investigated and will be resolved.

10. The WOL site never seems to get updated the only reason everyone knows about the Call Divert/OCM charges is because of Me + Others who published the info?

If you visit worldonline.co.uk and click on WOL Telecom, the info's all there.

11. There is still a problem with reverse DNS. We were told it would be solved soon, but that was ages ago?

Events rather overtook us on this. It is being re-addressed and will be resolved shortly.

Appendix: Some Customers Views from posts on the Scream:

The Scream comments have been noted. It is unfortunate that some customers have reacted against the product. Our experience is that the overwhelming majority of our customers are delighted with the innovation. As you said in your introductory notes, the product does represent the best value among the serious players in the market. The reason we made the offer of the first three months at £9.25 to Localtel customers was to give them time for sober reflection on the offer and make a rational investigation of what else was available to them. We anticipated that the majority would recognise the value of the offer that was being made and choose to stay with it. Some customers may leave as a consequence and this will be very regrettable.

Extra Bit Added 19/04/00

Trading Standards say that if customers want to leave because of the T & C changes you cannot charge them £18?

World Online will speak to Trading Standards and will issue some info on this in the future.

Off-Peak Only for £9.25 with enough support?
World Online are still thinking about it and will issue some info in the future.

0800 faults number problems?
tech Problem meant that 0800 could not be transferred to main CS department. This issue should be solved soon and 0800 will be available to report faults on again soon.

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