6th May 2017
Today we have an article that once again has sprung from one of our experiences at the shop during the last week. Last Saturday around 4pm while at the Caves Show I was called on our emergency number because a major Rockhampton Super Market had lost their Internet connection which also killed off their EFTPOS capability.
I immediately drove to site but could find nothing wrong with their ADSL router or any of their other networking equipment. I called on the Telstra business faults number and was able to get to level 1 support. Level 1 was obviously nowhere in this country and nowhere in the ballpark of fresh ideas as they wanted to run through their standard list of fault finding.
We had been having trouble with this Internet connection over the last couple of weeks however the store manager had already called Telstra and been told that it was not a Telstra fault. I was not keen to go through the normal list of fault finding for the 4th time so I insisted on talking to either a supervisor or a level 2 technician – I was hung up on!
Another call to another hard to understand tech support person and a similar run around until I was told that – “Yes, it could be a Telstra fault” and assured that level 2 techs were busy however level 1 would email them and I would receive a call back from level 2 within the hour. This ‘hour’ was going to be comprised of a lot more than 60 minutes!
Two hours later and armed with a case number I was sick of waiting and called Telstra business faults again. You would think a case number would save me from “have you tried turning it off and back on again, sir” however it didn’t and level 1 was determined to waste more of my Saturday night. After a second call and wondering if English should still be Australia’s official language I finally got to level 2.
This guy had a good grasp of English and had the tools and knowledge to shed some light on the problem. He could see the connection dropping every 2 minutes or so and was able to put a stability profile on the line. This limits the speed for a more stable connection and can fix a lot of faults. Telstra was going to monitor the connection and call me if any further problems arose. I thanked him and finally said goodnight at 8:30pm.
Sunday afternoon I was called, not by Telstra but by the Super Market as the connection was dropping out again. Further calls to Telstra that night could not get past level 1 – even with a case number. This really was pathetic service and their entire tech support system needs a good shake up. For the public holiday of Monday the Super Market put up with the EFTPOS only being available at random times throughout the day.
Tuesday morning I went onsite with one of my techs to formulate a plan with the store manager. The Internet was working intermittently at the time so we set about escalating the fault with Telstra. By the time I got back to our office to call Telstra the Internet connection had stopped completely so I sent a tech back to see what was now happening.
What he came across on his return to the store was simply astounding and from far left field. So if you think that I am being a little harsh on Telstra then please see my article next Saturday as I am only getting started on them this week.
Future Byte Me topics can be emailed to [email protected] and Bruce is contactable at Kerr Solutions, 205 Musgrave Street or on 49 222 400.
For more advice and assistance from Kerr Solutions, like and follow us on Facebook