10 August 2005: Support

Well, 48 hours passed and no contact from Bulldog concerning either the phone or the broadband service. Who'd have thought? Time to start phoning their support desks again...

Phone support:
"If a ticket is already open, it's not our problem, you need to speak to customer services."

Customer services:
"Extremely high call volume, please try again later." Click.

Broadband support:
"What's the problem exactly? Has someone been through first line support checks with you?"
- Yes.
*Silence*
"Can I put you on hold?"
*Music*
"Your line is only capable of holding 1.5 Mbps. You'll get a five pounds discount per month because of that."
Same price as Pipex for the same speed, then.
- Why weren't we told this before?
"No idea."
- OK, thank you.

Customer services:
"Extremely high call volume, please try again later." Click.

Customer services:
Got through and put on hold at 9.19am.

10.14am a helpful lady answered:
"Support problems are not our department, they shouldn't have put you through. It's just a way for them to get themselves off the hook, because we're not technical people. However, I'll just go and check the tickets... all the tickets have been closed. No broadband either?"
- Only 1Mbps.
"I'll check... yes, that's right, you can only get 1Mbps on your phone line. Now, about the phone: you need to call telephone support again and open a new ticket. I'll leave a note for them saying you've called customer support who were unable to help."
- And what if we want to cancel, given that the broadband is no quicker than Pipex and the phone now doesn't work?
"You need to phone BT and request a 'return to donor'. Then call us or email us and request a cancellation. Do it that way round and you can keep your phone number. Good luck!"

So, back to phone support:
"Can I have your BDOL number? Your name? Can you spell that for me please? And your home phone? And your mobile?"
- Hang on, don't you have this stuff already?
"I don't have access to the system, I'm just writing an escalation email to a senior engineer for you."
- OK.
So he won't see the note from the customer services lady then.
"I'm sorry you've had these problems, we're referring it to a senior engineer as a matter of urgency. As a result of this, someone will get back to you within 48 hours."
- And what if they don't?
"They will get back to you within 48 hours."

Somehow I doubt it. But we've pretty much decided to drop them anyway. If they miraculously pull their fingers out and give us a phone service we might stay with them, simply because so far their 1Mbps service has proved more reliable than Pipex's. But the customer service is so bad, and the initial claim of 8Mbps not even close to being matched, it is probably worth going back to a BT-based service just as a way of voting with our feet.

Lessons learned today?
(1) Bulldog do not do line checks to see what your phone line is capable of holding.
(2) Bulldog engineers (if they exist) do not respond to support problems, they just close the tickets.
(3) Bulldog Customer Services are not technical but are actually more helpful than anyone else.
(4) To re-migrate to BT, you need to ask for a 'return to donor' before cancelling with Bulldog.
(5) Don't plan anything else for the morning if you need to call Bulldog Technical Support.

I somehow feel the need to take a bath.