O O Ø O O O O
The Bell Tolls
c/o Bell Canada Executive Office of Customer Relations
P.O. Box 593, Station A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1E4
Dear Mr. Sabia,
You don’t know or remember me, but we did meet once in an elevator in Ottawa. You seemed like a nice enough guy, and I have always liked what you have to say about how BCE properties needs to change to survive. I agree that it does need to change, but I have a question for you - when is it going to happen?
I’m quite tired of the grief your company continues to put people like me through. I’ve been a long-time customer, and have always used Bell for all of my voice services. I currently use BCE properties for my voice and television services, and used to use them for my wireless and broadband services. I have dropped the latter two recently, as the trend seems to be “increase the rates for existing services, while lowering or freezing functionality” all the while the level of support for your customers declines.
I do understand you have a problems with little things like your workforce, specifically unions. You are occasionally hampered by your systems, creating billing nightmares for your customers and staff. You have to deal with regulation, which can make discontinuing, changing, or adding services that actually compete with the market a royal pain in the derriere. Your fight against the momentum of being a public utility/monopoly is a daily struggle, and continues to create problems internally and externally. Finally, you’re a public company, which means that the shareholder comes first, your internal matters come second, and the customer comes a distant third. It shows.
You know what? While I understand, I don’t really care. Your companies continue to completely piss off your customers. You are the company we all love to hate. We put up with an inordinate amount of pain, pricing increases, and incredibly inconsistent customer service, and yet we’ve stuck with you. Your brand is incredibly strong, and it has protected you from an awful lot. I think that attitude is changing though, as people realise they do have other options, and are taking them (whether the alternatives are any better or not is a debate for another time).
You’re in trouble with me, and a whole lot of other people. It’s time to clean up your act, or our eighteen-year relationship is over. I’d like to offer some simple suggestions that would restore my faith in the BCE family of companies.
- You’re either Bell or you’re not. Pick one. I am sick and tired of people from Bell Canada, Bell Mobility, Bell Sympatico, and Bell Expressvu not presenting themselves as a cohesive unit. You use the Bell brand to tie everyone together, and the marketing certainly makes us think you’re one big company, but heaven help you if you want to fix an issue with two or more of the services in one phone call.
- Come clean on just how dirty the “pit the CRTC against the competition” game that all the incumbents play is. The marketing folks try and sell us a load by claiming actions taken in this arena are for our benefit, but the reality is you all use the commission to take away competitive advantage from your competitors while maximizing your revenues. How about you bring the commission into the 21st century by letting them spend their time on dealing with the availability new and emerging technologies instead of solving the pissing matches between the incumbents. Educate your customer on the issues you really face, and they may get behind you.
- our “Simple” marketing message. Show me what I’m going to pay up front. I know you are legally obligated to break out the individual line items, but you, the airlines, and the other utilities have taken that and turned it into a marketing exercise that allows you to present one cost and blame the government for all the additional fees and surcharges that makes the total cost considerably higher than your advertising. Tell me what it’ll actually cost to use your service on a monthly basis. That’s the simplicity I crave.
- Give your customer service teams the ability to actually direct my call to the right person or support group. Everyone I know has had multiple occasions where they have been forwarded multiple times in one call, and never to the right person. How hard can it be to implement a single directory that identifies what group supports a specific product?
- Quit spinning, tell the truth. Case in point: the Entourage strike. While Entourage is a supplier, they are also partially (25%) owned by BCE at this time. This puts them in the family, and your corporation is indirectly involved. Your marketing folks tell us that Bell Canada has “implemented contingency plans to offset the disruption at Entourage. Certain Ontario customers may have experienced some short-term delays”, but it’s a total crock. I have had an order in since early April, and have received nary a call. When I inquired about when I might get my line installed, I got a recorded message spewing the exact same non-committal spin that’s on the website. How about just saying “We have no idea when we’ll be able to install your new service.” At least then I’d respect the difficulties you’re having. Sometimes it’s actually preferable to tell your customer the truth.
- Look at your competition. Look at what similar companies in Europe and the United States are offering their customers, as well as their price points. Try offering similar services at similar prices.
- Talk with your customers. I find it amazing that in all the years I’ve been a customer, no one’s ever asked me what I think about the service. How do your companies know what I want, anyways?
That’s all I really have to offer. Incidentally, since you can’t install my new service in something less than ten weeks, I’ve decided to give a competitive service a try. If it works out, I’ll be adding all my voice services to the list of products of yours I’ve moved away from. The satellite service is safe, however, because dealing with your folks is a cakewalk compared to dealing with Rogers.
Good luck with your companies, and it’s up to you if we do business in the future.
Kev Needham
June 7, 2005
OOØOOOODCCVII
June 7th, 2005 at 10:05 pm
I would so not give them the chance.
June 8th, 2005 at 6:16 am
See, the potential is there, as most of the folks I’ve dealt with who work there are equally frustrated. As much as I like VoIP, I see congestion problems as more services intended for broadband are released, and providers make zero commitment to increase available transit, just speed from their co to the home.
We’ll see how Vonage goes, and take it from there :)
June 8th, 2005 at 7:02 am
And, on dealing with Rogers…
June 8th, 2005 at 8:35 am
Same can be said for Telus and Shaw too…..
June 8th, 2005 at 3:12 pm
It reminds me of our unofficial motto at a company I used to work for - “we suck less!”. I think all the incumbents in the telco and cable space suck, it’s a question of who’s going to suck the least at the end of the day.
June 12th, 2005 at 9:54 pm
It should be noted that Bell is now full owner of Entourage now named Bell Subco)
June 13th, 2005 at 4:02 pm
Ah, you’re right. Bell Canada did complete the acquisition on April 30th. They did a good job of burying the release, and I love how for the investors they state “Although Bell Canada has implemented a number of measures seeking to minimize disruptions and ensure that customers continue to receive normal service in Ontario, there is no assurance that service to Bell Canada’s customers will not be adversely affected should the strike in Ontario continue.” That’s just a little different from the customer facing story they’re giving out. It’s now been over 9 weeks since I placed my order with them :)
Thanks for the heads up, I hadn’t realised the deal had been completed as of the writing.
June 14th, 2005 at 12:58 pm
Your Investment is at Risk
On March 24, 2005, two separate events precipitated a “perfect storm” of risk to the financial health of the corporation. On that date, a critical decision was delivered by the Canadian Radio/Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) (2005-17), whereby telephone companies became subjected to huge penalties for failure to meet service standards. Also on that date, a legal strike began by the 1400 technicians who work for Bell Subco, formally Entourage Technology Solutions Inc. Bell has purchased all outstanding shares of Entourage Technology Solutions Inc., Bell Canada’s installation and repair supplier. Bell Subco workers deserve to be treated in an equitable manner as other Bell Canada employees especially as it concerns benefits and pensions.
Since the March 24, 2005 start of the technician’s strike, service levels at Bell have greatly deteriorated. Customers requiring installations or repairs are being given service dates well outside of the CRTC requirements. As a result, the first quarter BCE Shareholder Report estimates that the amount of the CRTC penalty “could be as much as approximately $251 million annually.” (Risks That Could Affect Certain BCE Group Companies).
Two further events in May 2005 completed the perfect storm. On May 11, 2005, Rogers Communications purchased Call-Net (Sprint Canada) and created a formidable competitor to Bell in the phone and VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) markets. The following day, the CRTC delivered decision 2005-28 which forced Bell to continue to face regulation on VOIP but allowed Rogers/Sprint and other carriers to operate regulation free. Together these events put at serious risk Bell’s ability to serve not only traditional phone customers but also to compete in the new internet marketplace.
You have the power to ensure that qualified technicians are back on the job and providing the skilled workforce needed to meet the competition head on.
Protect your investment. Tell Michael Sabia that it’s time to negotiate a fair settlement to the labour dispute.
CEP Ontario Region
June 14th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
Whoah. Unions, and the East. All in one comment. Pint day has changed, over the years…
Heh. Not that’s a funny statement. When were they good, again?
Perhaps service quality would go up if the work force wasn’t unionized.
June 30th, 2005 at 3:16 am
My home telephone line has been down for 1 week. Cannot place or recive calls. They claimed they sent out a tech 2 days ago, I sat at home and no one showed up. They then rebooked me next week. This will now be 3 weeks. I was a BELL Sympatico dial up user but when they offered high speed lite ($19.99 dsl lite) for cheaper then dial up ($22.95) I started to seach for a cheaper dial up ISP. Guess what, it was easy to find one. Sign on to Porchlite internet( www.porchlight.ca )1-866-767-2454 mention chiprazor refered you and recieve a discount. $9.99 a month for one year pre-paid or $14.99 per month. I think that now my land line is down I’ll search for a cheaper phone line service. Bell just lost me as their ISP 3 months a go, and they will lose my longdistance and local line this month, Thank you Bell for making me aware of my mistakes!
July 1st, 2005 at 3:53 pm
Amen, Mr. Needham! I have been waiting 12 weeks for that fabulous Sympatico High Speed Lite - I placed my order less than a week after the Entourage technicians went on strike, yet it wasn’t until two weeks after the SECOND promised service date that someone in customer service “found out” that I was impacted by the strike. Prior to that everyone I spoke to (and there were quite a few!) maintained that our installation was not affected by the strike and “service should be up soon”. Every time I see a Sympatico commercial on TV, my bloor boils!
What galls me the most is that, without exception, all of the CSR’s, supervisors, technicians and managers I have spoken to have one response: “there’s nothing I can do” !!!!???? Having worked as a telecommunications manager for a number of years, I know that escalation procedures DO exist, and while I realize that the big commercial customers have more clout than the lowly residential client, it is appallingly poor customer service to allow ANY client contact person to give such a response. I have stated that to every supervisor I have spoken to (again, quite a few) yet NO ONE has given me a service date. In the last two weeks I have responded very negatively to several of the online surveys I was directed to, and yet did not receive a phone call until this past Wednesday, when I recieved a voice mail promising a July 12 service date. Not sure how they can guarantee this with no Entourage contract in place (BellSubco now, I would guess from looking at the other responses), so I’ll just wait and see. Here is an excerpt from one of my e-mails to Sympatico.
I’m curious - if you’re so “committed to providing our Sympatico customers with excellence in customer service”, how is it that everyone I have spoken to in the last 11 weeks has told me that there’s nothing they can do to escalate the installation of our Sympatico High Speed service. At this point, after 11 weeks of NON-SERVICE I am on the verge of taking ALL my telecommunications business, present and future, to one of your competitors. A paltry 2 months free service and a router just isn’t going to cut it to win me back, but it seems that’s all Bell is capable of offering. I find it hard to believe that your entire organization is populated with people who haven’t got any power to get things done. A very sympathetic CSR said to me this morning that they would be angry in my position, and I’d like to challenge you to get acting, not just angry, and at least tell me when I can expect service. To offer me the standard customer service platitudes and tell me I have to sit and wait for the DSL light to come on is unacceptible.
July 2nd, 2005 at 3:29 am
Thank you Kev for your letter. I am certain that you have struck a chord with Bell, and I hope that they implement many of your suggestions. The launch of Rogers Home Phone in Toronto yesterday seems to have lit a fire under Bell. They have agreed to come back to the bargaining table, and promise “Our priority is to settle this strike in a timely manner and have our employees return back to work as soon as possible.” We restart negotiations on Tuesday. We apologize for the inconvenience but hope that the public realizes that withdrawal of our services is the only effective form of protest we have. We were not that far apart but they refused to negotiate at all, bullying and intimidating. As you have concluded, we will have to go back to the old Bell service that we were famous for not that long ago if the company is to succeed. I believe they know this, but were just trying to make a point by keeping us out. The cost of keeping us out must be many times more than what we were asking for. I hope that we will truly get our act together so that we can retain the customers we have, and win back customers like you with our new level of service. Thanks.
July 6th, 2005 at 8:54 pm
re: The launch of Rogers Home Phone in Toronto yesterday seems to have lit a fire under Bell.
You might just find that Bell/Entourage are still the ones servicing Rogers Home Phone at the end of the day. I have Sprint (now owned by Rogers and I assume is Rogers’ new Home Phone service under the hood) and just moved apartments (in the same building). I’ve been waiting 3 days for my phone to get hooked up again. I was told by Sprint/Rogers that techs have been here twice and no one was here so they left, which was a total lie. When I called them on their B.S. they then gave me the excuse that its Bell’s fault (because of the Entourage strike).
Rogers Home Phone won’t give you better service … it’s just a bit cheaper, that’s all.
Don’t be fooled, telco customer service in Canada sucks period.
July 7th, 2005 at 1:58 pm
Just to clarify Kevin, Sprint (now Rogers Call-Net) rents the lines from Bell, which is why ONLY a Bell employee (or scab nowadays) can bring the line to your apartment/house. Rogers Home Phone is entirely different insofar as the telephone signal is brought to the house via Rogers cable, then split by a modem-type device, and attached to all your jacks. Rogers will eventually move the existing Sprint customers off of the Bell network, but for now Sprint customers are reliant on Bell’s bandaid workforce to bring them service. Those who order through Home Phone will get the new service over cable, and customers like you will be converted over the next year area by area. And I believe that they’re lying about being there twice because in order to avoid fines Bell needs to claim a truck roll within specified times; to show they at least made an attempt. Their scabs are not being penalized for lying, damaging property, stealing, or playing soccer in the park (like the “replacement worker” I saw a couple of weeks ago at 1:30 Saturday afternoon). Bell service will be a COMPLETE turnaround when this strike is over when they start getting back to the glory days that made the Bell brand so strong to begin with.
July 12th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
Please note that anything posted by “DJDoublejack” should be taken with an extra ounce of salt as he is a notoriously militant Entourage tech and extremely bitter former Bell tech…all he has done since the beginning of the strike is search the web for forums such as these so that he may spew as much of the his/the union’s rhetoric as possible.
What I find most amusing about this strike is:
- many of the Entourage techs are former Bell Techs who VOLUNTARILY left Bell FULLY AWARE that they were taking a pay and benefit cut and were giving up a pension; in turn, these techs received a monetary package (which I’m sure that they would be most unwilling to pay back were they to receive parody with Bell Techs’ pensions and benefits) to offset what they were choosing to give up.
These same techs became extremely bitter after they discovered that a) Entourage did not operate like Bell, and b) Bell hired technicians internally after they had made the decision to leave (Bell never said that they were never going to hire techs in-house again).
- Entourage or Subco Techs are paid above industry average currently for the jobs that they do - see HRDC wage studies
- Bell had already planned a “re-branding” exercise for Entourage/Subco, regardless of a strike situation or not, due to the fact that the Entourage name had become synonymous with poor customer service (i.e. they had planned all along to re-paint the ‘yellow submarines’ as customers were calling Repair and telling them to “not send a tech in a yellow truck”)
- the benefits package that Entourage is/was trying to get parody with is no longer offered to Bell employees. A new package started being offered to new hires eff. January 1/05, a full 4 months after Entourage was bought back.
- the Entourage techs in Quebec never went on strike, never supported their counterparts in Ontario, and ratified their contract at the end of April (same contract offer was presented to Ontario)
- a large majority of Bell Techs do not support this strike, despite being members of the same union, as they feel that what Entourage is looking for is utterly ridiculous; consistently, over 90% of Ontario Bell techs have shown their lack of support by working voluntary overtime since the start of the strike, including installations of phone and highspeed internet service (and please do not start going on about this work being Entourage’s - it’s Bell Canada’s work and they are contracting it out to Entourage).
- in this day of competition, outsourcing, contract work, and companies shutting down when employees try to certify a union, do you honestly think that (with all of the afore-mentioned info) this strike was the best course of action (i.e. to irk the p*** out of your only client) for the long-term???
July 12th, 2005 at 8:51 pm
I am not a bitter ex-Bell Craft tech; I am a current and proud Bell Subco tech (formerly Entourage). The “amusing” deceit and unionbusting that created Entourage tricked employees to sign their jobs away for the promise of a lump sum and an easy job at Entourage doing INSIDE work only for more than $9 less an hour in lieu of a layoff with no job and no package. The technicians felt duped when, even before some of them left Bell, they were asked to train new hires how to do the job that they were told they were no longer needed for. Further insult to injury was added when a short time later they were asked to perform the same outside work they had been doing before, for a fraction of the renumeration. There is not a tech that I know that wishes they could take that “decision” back and yes they would give back the blood money in a heartbeat.
The HRDC wage studies you quote are for telecommunications technicians. That is an average of interconnect companies, cable contractors, and data techs most of which do not climb poles and work extensivly on outside plant. The work we do is almost entirely for the Local Exchange Carrier, and you would have to compare us to Telus techs, or Aliant techs for a fair comparison. You would have to go to Mexico to find cheaper paid Telco techs in North America.
The poor service that some customers may have recieved is directly related to the working conditions and renumeration that many of our employees received. Your inference that they were forced to paint trucks is flawed because if Bell could solve their problems by painting trucks then they would’ve done that years ago.
The parity (note for next time not “parody”) that we sought is not what you think. We asked for the contribution pension plan, the inferior one that is offered to all bell employees, not the coveted defined benefit that will no longer be offered as of next year. The benefits package we asked for was the basic one that ALL 49000 other unionized and non-unionized Bell employees are privy to.
You are right about Quebec but if you look at their numbers they were never profitable, efficient, and they were quite happy with their lower cost-of-living.
The Bell Techs do not support our strike by working voluntary overtime, but to say that they think it’s utterly ridiculous is ludicrous because they would be saying that they do not deserve what they get since they do mostly the same job, and in some cases EXACTLY the same job. Their lack of support is only because most of them know their days are numbered with a cheaper workforce in-house, and they want to strike the iron while it’s hot and get the $60+ an hour overtime they rarely see.
At the request of the company, a viable common employer suit for misleading practices (threatening their employees with layoffs, then re-hiring them 10 years later) was abandoned by the union in exchange for concessions. And yes I honestly think it was a bad management decision to offer a substandard contract and irk the p*** out of your only capable workforce for the long term when we asked for the basics that every other employee gets.
July 13th, 2005 at 6:13 am
….regardless of which side of the strike one is on, perhaps we can agree that the CEP needs to do a better job of representing its’ members…
Bell workers fight union-run company
By Lee Parsons
An important battle has erupted between rank-and-file workers at Bell Canada and the union that purports to represent them, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP). The workers are opposing the CEP’s establishment of a low-wage company to perform work contracted out by Bell, Canada’s largest and most profitable telecommunications company.
Last year Bell Canada announced plans to eliminate 10,000 jobs, about a quarter of its total work force. As part of this downsizing drive, Bell said it would contract out the inside wiring portion of its operation. This involves the installation and repair of phone lines in offices and residences. As a result, 3,500 CEP members, or 20 percent of the union’s total membership at Bell, were faced with the loss of their jobs. After pressuring some workers to accept a buyout offer, management announced plans to lay off up to 2,000 CEP members.
$7 to $8 pay cut
At this point CEP leaders, who were then involved in contract negotiations with Bell, approached the company with a proposal that they subsequently described as “making the most of a bad situation.” Without the knowledge of the rank and file or even local union officials, the CEP bargaining committee asked for Bell’s support in setting up a union-owned company. It would absorb the affected workers and supply Bell with qualified labor at $7 to $8 an hour less than the telecommunications giant was paying the existing inside wiring work force.
A deal was quickly struck. The new company set up by the CEP bureaucrats–Entourage–received exclusive guarantees from Bell for $55 million worth of work over five years. From the standpoint of the union bureaucracy and Bell Canada, it was a “win-win” situation. Bell was spared the controversy and expense of mass layoffs. The bureaucracy not only preserved its dues base, but now stands to profit directly from the labor of its own members.
Entourage, which began operations last February, currently employs 800 former Bell Canada workers. It is now submitting bids on other work that Bell is seeking to contract out, thus serving as a weapon in Bell’s campaign to further slash wages and working conditions.
The CEP leadership’s abandonment of its opposition to contracting out and Entourage’s attempt to secure work done by Bell workers has sparked an outcry among the rank and file. Last spring a group of Bell workers went to the Canadian Labour Relations Board and brought a case against the CEP, Entourage and Bell, charging collusion and misrepresentation. At a preliminary hearing in July the company, together with the union and its cheap-labor firm, argued unsuccessfully for the summary dismissal of the workers’ appeal. The workers are now waiting for an arbitrator’s recommendation.
“Its like the Mafia”
One of the opposition leaders is Richard Connolly, a Bell installer for 18 years and a member of CEP Local 25, which represents 1,400 Bell workers in southern Ontario. He explained to the IWB why he decided to challenge the CEP leadership.
“Last year when we asked questions about the contract, the CEP officials acted like they weren’t sure. But it turns out that all along they were planning this. The union representatives intimidated people by saying, ‘If you don’t take this job at Entourage, you won’t have a job. You’re finished. What you know as your life here is over.’ And they’re coming for more. They keep soliciting to do our jobs, to do our testing work and things like that.
“Our fear is that Entourage is being represented by the same union as us. Who are the people at Entourage going to go on strike against? It’s like what the Mafia did at the docks in New York: ‘You pay us a work tax and we’ll keep you working.’
“People from all over, from Quebec and Ontario, have been in contact with us. Considering the derogatory campaign that the union has launched against us, I’m surprised at how wide the support is.”
For decades Canadian workers, like their counterparts in the US, have seen their struggles undermined by the collaboration of the union bureaucracy with corporate management. But over the past 15 years, in response to the sharpening of the class struggle, the bureaucracy has integrated itself ever more closely into management. Whereas once the unions served in a limited way to defend the interests of the workers, they have been transformed into instruments through which big business imposes job and wage cuts.
At contract negotiations the bureaucrats seek to secure their privileges by bargaining away the rights, wages and jobs of the rank and file. At the same time the union bureaucracy has sought to insulate itself from losses in union revenue due to a shrinking membership by developing new sources of income. The CEP’s formation of a profit-making company, whose income is directly drawn from the super-exploitation of union members, illustrates the logic of this process.
A complaint to the labor relations board can help expose the collusion between the CEP bureaucracy and Bell management. However, Bell workers cannot defeat the conspiracy against their jobs and wages through this or any other government agency. Indeed, the CLRB was established in the aftermath of the great unionization struggles of the 1930s and 40s in order to integrate the trade unions into a labor relations system that enshrined the right of the capitalists to own the means of producing wealth and limit workers’ struggles to collective bargaining.
A new perspective needed
The transformation of the old unions into instruments of big business underscores the need for workers to develop a new strategy and new forms of struggle. Workers must not allow the term “union” to blind them from the fact that these organizations in no sense represent their interests. They must organize a rebellion against the trade union bureaucracy and break the grip of its apparatus.
To fight the drive of Bell and other giant companies to contract out work requires not only militant industrial action, but the development of a struggle to unite all workers–the unemployed, union and non- union–in the fight for a shorter workweek with no loss in pay. Likewise, the attempt of the state to promote cheap labor through the slashing of unemployment insurance and welfare benefits must be vigorously opposed.
The working class must become an independent political force, advancing its own program to reorganize economic life so production and employment can be based on human need, not profit.
July 14th, 2005 at 2:33 pm
The fight for a shorter work week with no loss in pay?
You realize there are whole countries full of people who have no fear of working harder and for longer hours in order to get ahead?
July 15th, 2005 at 6:03 am
I agree with you wholeheartedly (see my previous post-last point- re. outsourcing, etc., KJ, please note that I did not write the article about the formation of Entourage).
Although I do feel that unions serve a purpose in protecting the common worker, many unions (especially at the executive level) do not accept the reality of today’s global economy and workforce, and have not accepted accountability for the position in which they find themselves today (for example, demanding higher and higher wages with the same/less productivity, protecting “deficient” union members).
As a result, we are seeing companies closing up shop at the very hint of union certification, jobs going to other countries due to overall cheaper costs, and so on.
Some may not agree but the reality of the current situation is that we should be happy to be employed at all….
July 16th, 2005 at 12:30 pm
I was forced out by Bell last Dec,when they informed Entourage that our services were no longer required.The union did virtually nothing except sit in while 3 of us tried to negotiate a severance package ourselves.Best move I ever made got out after 25 years from a company I hated more every day.Go out look for a new career because this one your fighting for is a dead one that will only get worse
November 9th, 2005 at 10:53 pm
Hi everyone what i believe is that a person who has a knowledge and qualification joins Entourage or Bell tech solutions (new comp. name)just wait there for years to get promotion from a TPT to RPT if he still have a job.I mean it doesn’t really matter how much qualified he is.Over here union system SUCKS.I agree to a point that it safeguards our issues but my friend that is nothing as compare to the losses we suffer.
February 17th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
Bell has proven to be the worst Telco provider in Canada 3 years straight! They are not only loosing their customers left, right and center but trying to blame someone else for their preposterous fiasco. As far as customer service goes, this is an astounding nightmare that most of Bell Canada’s clients are experiencing every single day but very few do something about it. I have switches my mobile and Internet service to Rogers two years ago and I can only say what a great and pleasant difference.
February 26th, 2006 at 8:56 am
Shop around the world, and you will see that Canada just so happens to have the best service for it’s price range.. the UK for instance pays the same as us (though convert that to CDN, its about 2 times more) for service not even close to what we have here. Not one company is any better then the other, and thats why things will never change.
You dont like it, no one is forcing you to keep it.
Babies.
February 26th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Hrmm… MF, perhaps you missed my point. I fully agree I don’t have to keep it if I don’t like it, but I also believe strongly in letting people who run the works know why I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all, and have cancelled three of the four services I used to have with the big B.
Canada used to have the best service for its range, but those days are long gone. Heck, we used to actually develop all the cool new telco services and sell them to everyone else, but the focus on the shareholder has arrested that and handed it over to other areas, too. While the UK may cost more than us for landline services, mayhaps you should look at their mobile offerings, which are light years ahead of ours. For network connectivity (both fixed line and wireless) try comparing us with places like Korea and Japan. We’re not leaders any more.
But hey, I wasn’t comparing us to other countries. I was making a statement on how the service I used to get is not like the service I get now, and it’s considerably more expensive (my bill, for the same services I got ten years ago, has more than doubled - that’s not really keeping within the bounds of inflation). Bell’s been increasing prices because their internal workings are whacking them upside the head (sounds like the automakers :) ). If they want to keep people as customers, they should clean up their act instead of raising fees. That’s all I’m saying, and if wanting comparable value for money is being a baby… well… “wahhhh!!!”
P.S. - And you use who for broadband access?
November 18th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Hello,
While 10 weeks seems like a long process, and competition is always great to switch to, here in Ontario/Quebec, 90% of the area is on the Bell Network, everyone loves to hate Bell, yet what you dont see is every other company sits ontop of the Bell Network. As a matter of fact 94% of all the Internet Traffic in Canada crosses the Bell Network.
10 Weeks to Install a Service seems fair, the proper attention, detail and handling to Provisioning, IP Enabling, and Facility Verification is key in providing you a reliable, secure connectivity solution. Other companies can “rush” these services such as Primus, yet realise this: When provisioning gets overlooked, and those 3rd party carriers hit troubles with Access Routers and Gateways on their side, and can only blame the trouble to Bell, you’ll quickly realise Bell has done their job correctly, the trouble sits to your “loveable” 3rd party provider.
Private Telecom companies are great to have, and are an asset, however lets never forget who feeds them, and has been there for over 100 years, when reliability, and stability are key factors you’ll realise Bell is the perfect choice, maybe not the cheapest, but always remember you get what you pay for.
Bell offers unparallel access to a technical and engineering staff that even competition cannot compete with, when trouble brews, Bell will get you and your company back online quickly, while other companies have to research solutions and find solutions providers.
Bruce