The Quasi-government monopoly telephonic service provider, Telkom, has so infuriated me that I felt I should journal my feelings. This is normally my method of gaining perspective and venting. I then considered this and come to the conclusion that to journal is not the solution.
When an inanimate entity can initiate such intense feelings it should be a signal there is something seriously wrong J
Let me tell you why I am so furious.
In April we lost our ADSL line (For those in foreign countries this is the so-called broadband for email and internet connection). Remember we are a high-end HR solution company dealing in legal court matters, arbitration, recruitment, managing payrolls and all other HR based functions. It is essential that we have Internet and email access.
The first loss was for a full week that we were without service. All our attempts to get the fault repaired were met with further supply of reference numbers. Telkom is the only company that believes the issuing of reference numbers corrects the fault! Additional considerations Is that we log a call to our service provider who arrives within minutes simply top charge us for the call out and informs us it is an ADSL problem.
This month we had no service from the 11th to the 13th. Needless to say we were issued with a plethora of reference numbers.
Today I walked into the office at 06h45 and found we have no ADSL connection. After first checking with the service provider at 08h00 we were informed it is once more the ADSL line not working.
I contacted Telkom and spoke to Des who transferred the call to Wakalani who transferred the call to Abdul who true to form provided me with a reference number 179 CTK 170407.
Abdul could not do anything but issue this number so I was transferred to Julian Olsen who advised me the complaint is now being escalated. This only after I had informed him that if this continues we will have to have this discussion at a higher level or through the media.
You can most probably recognise the fact that by now I was furious. It is not because we are once more off and unable to work and loosing thousands of Rand but simply the attitude of the corporation of Telkom.
I then called Telkom again to find out what has been done at 10h10 and spoke to Victor who informed me the complaint had been escalated. Apparently Charlene had handed it over to the Area Manager. Now I can sense you feel the same as I do! Who is Charlene and does that mean that the PROBLEM is being attended to and if so by when can we be back at work as we have the whole office playing patience on the computers!
At 10h33 I was transferred to Geraldine after listening to the piped music for 25 minutes. At 10h34 Geraldine transferred me to more piped music in case the previous dose was not sufficient and at 10h40 I spoke to Lee who informed me that the complaint has been elevated to the “High Level with reference ARF123845 and I am sure this information would immediately get the whole office back to work and doing what we love to do…serve our client base.
Unfortunately this did not happen. At 10h45 my discussions were complete without any response on whether a technician or even a drunk off the street would be attending to my complaint and what about the business we lost…we had just received three new corporate clients in recruitment and cannot source candidates or arrange for interviews or even get the job specification from two of the clients.
New clients are not the ones you should be advising that we cannot serve you as requested and promised because Telkom is not concerned about our issues!
My conclusion, as I sit and write this in Word because I cannot go online, is that my intense response is because of the way we as paying clients are dealt with by monopolies. After all what can I do? Change to Vodacom who is owned by Telkom? Be assured I will be considering my options as I have lost any respect one can have for such a business that can in fact affect your bottom line and if we were a smaller and cash strapped business the effect could be crippling. Fortunately we are a large and well-established successful business. We can carry the loss …but should we?
What are your thoughts on monopolistic behaviours and attitudes of companies?
