Orange, are you there? Because soon I’m not going to be with you.
“Orange wants to give you excellent customer service,” says the recorded message.
That’s nice. I’d like to either get a replacement for my not-quite-a-year-old Sony Ericsson K600, on which the backspace and # keys have stopped working (the latter means I can’t pick up voicemail on the phone; the former that I can’t correct any error in a text message or phone number I enter, so have to either start again or continue - in a text - with the error).
Orange. How joined up is it? I call the operator on 100. “Call 152,” he says. I call 152. “This number has been discontinued. Please call 150,” says the recorded voice. Yes, that is slightly typical: left hand, meet right hand.
On 150, there’s the option to compla.. I mean, find out about your mobile or your broadband. Avoiding that latter pit of pain, I poke various numbers until I get through to someone who tells me my contract, nearly a year old, has another 6 months to go.
Curse these 18-month contracts; Orange has joined those companies that are at war with their customers, as Simon Caulkin - for my money the most perceptive writer about how management keeps failing to listen to its own good practice - points out.
The first person I speak to at Orange on 150 says that they’ll need my IMEI number so they can proceed, because they need to know it’s the same phone that’s on the contract (OK, makes sense) and then it can all be worked out. However, getting the IMEI, which unsurprisingly (because it’s the least-useful number in the universe until your phone gets stolen) I don’t know off by heart requires taking the battery out which means that I have to end the call.
OK, that’s slightly annoying, if understandable - just about - from both points of view. The woman tells me how to navigate through the menu to get quickly to the people who’ll do the phone replacement. (It’s 1,3,2,2 if you’re interested.)
So I end the call, dismantle the phone, get the IMEI, phone 150, 1,3,2,2. The person there says that they can give me a fault code, and then I can get in touch with Sony Ericsson and see if they’ll replace it, since it’s inside the year.
Er, no, it’s inside the year, so you can send me a replacement, and you can have the wrangle with Sony Ericsson, I say. Sale of Goods Act.
No, he says, for the first six months it’s our problem, and then it’s between you and the manufacturer. Sale of Goods Act. (I’m paraphrasing.)
Ridiculous, I say. If I bought a DVD from Dixons and it went wrong after 11 months would Dixons be telling me to take it up with Toshiba or whoever? Of course not.
Orange man won’t be swayed. He can give me a fault code number and I can get in touch with Sony Ericsson. Which of course I’m really eager to do. Not.
The trouble is that I don’t at the time I’m having the conversation I’m not utterly certain of the SOGA, but I’m sure I recall plenty of letters in Guardian Money on precisely this sort of topic.
“Look, I’ve been a customer for a long time with you, and this could be a dealbreaker here,” I say. He won’t budge. “I’ll call your contract cancellation people in the morning,” I say. And at the same time, I realise: it doesn’t mean anything to them. They don’t care how long I’ve been with them; that’s all money in the past to them. They’ve spent it. All that matters is whether I’m signed up now.
Loyalty? Doesn’t exist for them. Now, maybe they wouldn’t make back the cost of the phone (about £249 at retail, no doubt a lot less at wholesale) in the next six months. But they could be sure - or have more confidence - that I’d think they did offer excellent customer service, which you’ll recall is where we came in.
Instead, I’m now looking at how costly it’ll be to buy myself out of this contract and get an all-the-net-you-can-eat phone from 3..
Update Weds 2130: done in the interests of full disclosure. Orange’s press office got in touch. Apparently what I was told on the phone was correct; but they are going to send me a replacement phone that they happen to have lying about the office. Well, OK. Gift horses, mouths, that sort of thing. I hate to be playing the journalist card (hmm, I would have linked to a Wikipedia article on it - looks like I’ll have to create it myself). But the comments this piece has attracted indicate that all the companies have some way to go. A long way. For instance, one quick way to endear yourself to customers would be to extend the warranty on contracts to a year - would it cost that much?
But the other thing that’s clear is that loyalty simply doesn’t matter any more (as I’m sure Simon Caulkin wrote in that piece). It’s degraded, pointless, stupid: to be a loyal customer is to be a foolish one in this modern world.
- These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
- Why Orange may have lost this customer (5 May 2005; score: 55.73%)
- Yeah, sure, just send the phone anywhere. Who cares where they say they live? (6 March 2008; score: 45.04%)
- Orange's insecurity, and the immobile face of Paris (Hilton) (14 November 2005; score: 42.36%)
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January 31st, 2007 at 12:18 am
Yeah, I gotta say, flat-rate mobile 3G internet is kinda tempting. Internet. Everywhere. As a laptop-lugger, I could really go for that.
January 31st, 2007 at 1:00 am
I’ve just this very day bought a new phone from O2, on a contract far more expensive than I was originally intending. Why? Because the chap in the shop set out to delight me and win my custom, and did so. When I fretted about the price, instead of saying, as Vodafone had, ‘oh well, we can offer you a much better deal provided you sign up on the spot’ — an offer that had me out the door in double quick time — he suggested I take it away, and check out their online and telephone deals because they were often different. When I concluded that the expensive contract was probably the best option for my admittedly weird set of needs, he suggested various things I could do to cut the cost, he set the phone up for me completely — so that by the time I walked out the door it was getting my new messages from gMail, gave me his card and encouraged me to phone if I had any problems of any kind.
And essentially, I spent ££-a-bit-too-much to bypass all the rubbish. And it is a twelve month contract; my last was an 18 month and my previous phone, also a Sony Ericsson, is buggered beyond belief. Never again.
Then I rang my old company (Virgin) to get the PAC. They gave me no confidence that they’re likely to send it any time soon, to be honest. So for the next however long, I get to carry my work smartphone, my own smartphone, and my own phone. Joy.
January 31st, 2007 at 11:04 am
It seems that with every phone company there is always the same issues with the way they treat existing customers. For new customers you can get a million minutes, the latest phone for free and a pony but when you ring up asking to upgrade your phone having been with them for 4 years they offer you last year’s worst model which barely fits into your suitcase. 3, seem to be the best price plan wise but I’ve heard that there coverage isn’t too great and neither are their phones. I think the mobile phone industry must be the only one that punishes customers for loyalty - it’s ridiculous!
January 31st, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Orange has been pants ever since I signed up on an 18 monther - they are the work of the devil those things. In credit card circles they talk of card tarts who swap balances to continue getting the best deal. That is the way to go for phones too. And a lot more besides….
January 31st, 2007 at 4:05 pm
I complain every time I receive poor customer service, so at least every week. Some companies are genuinely incapable of responding, so you have to give up. However, with mobile companies always escalate to a supervisor and if they don’t make you happy, email the CEO. This means it will eventually reach someone (via his PA or assistant) who has to care.
January 31st, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Don’t get me started. I pay £5 insurance to Orange and thought that would cover me when my phone packed up recently. I took it into the shop to be told that the problem was the phone had got wet. When I went through to insurance claims guys at what I presumed was Orange, but turned out to be HSBC, the lady made the most transparent attempt at putting the blame at my door. “Do you use the phone outside?”, she asked, “Or when it’s raining”, “Or in the bathroom”. She told me that my insurance didn’t cover the claim because they couldn’t prove how the phone had got wet. However, that Orange were prepared to change it - OUT OF GOODWILL.
January 31st, 2007 at 6:39 pm
With Orange, escalating to a supervisor generally nets you a stroppier refusal. The company does seem to have a slightly softer underbelly in the form of the quit-team: if you hit the option for “if you’re thinking of leaving Orange”, you stand a better chance of getting some realistic answers.
The most laughable thing about Orange - other than their pronouncements of customer service in adverts and on-hold chatter - is their security. They ask you for your full password to get through security rather than picking out individual letters. I tried “forgetting” mine one time to see what would happen, and it transpired that the operator had my password on the screen. I don’t know why they don’t just publish users’ passwords for all the good they are doing.
My only concern is that I don’t think any the phone companies are better than any others. They are programmed to live on churn. They think people are mugs for not churning them.
Your recollection of the SOGA is right, however. As the retailer, Orange is responsible for dealing with a dud product - they then take it up with the manufacturer (and they, rest assured, will ship it straight back to them for a refund/replacement whatever happens). Given that the contract lasts for 18 months, I think you’d be in your rights to claim that the phone should last at least that long to be “fit for purpose”.
Although the onus is on the consumer to demonstrate that the product isn’t fit after six months, the length of time that Orange ties you in certainly implies in my mind that the phone should last that long.
I even wonder whether, as Orange, in effect, provides a service that includes a phone for 18 months, whether SOGA’s six month exclusion on the phone shouldn’t really kick in after the initial contract period is up rather than after delivery. If that isn’t the case, and manufacturers are increasingly selling electronic goods as services, is SOGA able to deal with the situation? Can they say: “Although the contract lasts two years, the device upon which this service runs may last only one and we have no responsibility to maintain it?”
February 1st, 2007 at 9:56 am
Hi Charles - warning, don’t go with 3. I won’t bore you with too many details.
In summary:
“I want to change my tariff now my half-price period is up.”
“That’ll cost you £30.”
“You said it would be free! It says so in the small print.”
“We changed the small print.”
“Where does it say you can change the small print?!”
“In the small print.”
“Oh.”
February 1st, 2007 at 6:46 pm
There is one exception to the loyalty-is-a-mug’s-game rule, and that’s airlines. Fly 50,000 miles a year in one frequently flier program and your treatment is *noticeably* better, much of the time. Free airport club. Free fast lines at check-in (and, in some airports, security). Upgrades. I can only guess at life in the 100,000-lane. But I sat next to a million-mile flier on United once, and the cabin crew knew his name and had him plied with his favorite drink within a minute or two of his sitting down.
The mobile phone cos seem to be particularly awful, though - in the US, as well. cf my various rants about AT&T Wireless, now Cingular, soon to be AT&T Wireless again.
wg
February 2nd, 2007 at 5:47 pm
If you were to try to contact Sony Ericsson about the phone you’d fail. They’ve outsourced support/repair to a bunch of incompetents in Wales who are doing their best to destroy whatever reputation for quality Sony has left.