One of my joys in retirement is playing bridge. Being me, I don't just play but help by being a Director of sessions at our club. We have over 260 members, and about 11 Directors. We have a hall that we permanently lease from the local Coouncil. We have an internet service provided by Telstra, FTTN as far as I can tell (no this isn't an NBN rant). Our internet isn't working.
We use the internet to upload results but the WiFi is also used to connect the printer and a TV to the computer. I can of course simply tether the computer to my phone to upload results - as I did today and on Saturday. But then I have to keep swapping WiFi networks for when I want to use the printer and TV.
Today, before the bridge session I went through all the routines of checking the service - including bringing a dock for the laptop so I could check whether the issue was actually the internet or the WiFi. Happy that it is the internet I waited till the end of the session because I knew I'd have to navigate the whole 'wait line' process. (I will note the associated PSTN service was working, but SpeedTest couldn't even get a connection - whether I was connected wirelessly or by ethernet to the modem.)
The individual at the club whose name appears on the account is currently on holiday in the Kimberley. I texted him to see if he was available and he was going to be for a couple of hours. I thought of asking him for his birthday so I could just impersonate him - but thought better of it. He had a birthday only a few weeks ago and hadn't wanted to divulge the year then.
So I gritted my teeth and rang 132200. Of course, just finding a number to ring is a nightmare these days. A long way from when I was working answering calls in customer accounts in 1980 and the fault number 1100 rang the local exchange. Why do websites have to assume that all I want to do is buy another service? And why do you have to scroll right to the bottom of every screen to get anything useful? I know, lots of UX testing goes in and that''s how young people's brains work.
I navigated the process of letting the automated response ask me if I was inquiring about the number I was calling on and successfully punched in the phone number associated with the Internet service (I don't know how that step would have gone without a voice line). When the automated response service asked for my date of birth to confirm it was speaking to the right person I carefully just punched in zero to override that step. I managed to get it to recognise my issue was that my internet wasn't working - which happened to be the second suggestion the voice gave.
I then sat - unbelievably for 2026 - listening to hold tones (I cannot call that stuff music) without any indication of my place in a queue or likely hold time. Hello - Telstra - this is the 21st century.
I finally, after about twenty minutes, got to speak to a nice man. I immediately told him that my bridge club's internet wasn't working but that I wasn't the person associated with the account (which otherwise is in the name of the club, I believe). I told him who the person was and that I wasn't them.
Well, immediately I get the response that he can only speak to the authorised person. Fair enough, that's what the manual says. I was prepared, I asked to talk to a supervisor on the naive belief that there had to be someone in the chain of command empowered to make a decision. But no, after he'd gone away to consult, he came back to tell me that I could only talk to a supervisor if I was the authorised person.
Now before you tell me that the club should have foreseen this circumstance and prearranged alternative authorised people, just remember that the Director could be any one of eleven people. Also note that the first thing Telstra wants is that the person is reporting the issue at the premises and is able to access the equipment.
But most importantly in the process of reporting a fault, of going through any online troubleshooting, the Telstra agent at no time had to share any personal information with me. Nothing I could do in the course of that call could have maliciously disrupted the service. The ONLY thing that could possibly have happened is that our service could have been restored.
In an effort to progress I then asked the agent to ring the authorised person - I gave him the name of the person and their phone number - the details he has on his system. He tried but we were outside of my two hour window (those minutes on the wait line). I remonstrated with the agent about how stupid this situation was and I could hear in his voice that he wanted to agree with me, but couldn't.
Now just reflect on how this interaction has gone. I have spent about three quarters of an hour on the phone. The Telstra agent spent about twenty minutes with me - a cost that is being born by Telstra's customers. The agent did consult his spervisor - a few more staff minutes consumed. All this cost to Telstra was incurred simply to make the customer angry.
My problem is, for the life of me, I cannot figure out WHY? What harm can occur by someone reporting a fault in a service when they are at the premises of the service? If I had been house sitting for the authorised person and they are overseas - do I simply sit without internet service?
Rather than carefully analysing processes to figure out what can and can't be done while preserving privacy and protecting services, Telstra has simply instituted this blanket "I can only talk to the authorised person" policy.
I was a regulatory manager when the Privacy Act first took effect in the private sector, I well remember how we started instituting these blanket policies. A quarter of a century later telcos and most other organisations are applying the principles with no nuance.
Meanwhile, of course, the main consumer advocacy body is still calling for more direct regulation including wanting to make illegal things that are already illegal. The major industry advocacy body rails against red tape because it is costing industry. Add up all the time that is spent in fruitless attempts to communicate with telcos for both consumers AND telco staff.
So now I have to think of how I am going to get our service restored. Do I have to wait till the authorised contact is back from their holiday? Do I try to find a window where he will be available in the right window for me to sit on the wait line again? Or do I just decide that if I ring a different provider and order a service the pair (as it is FTTN) will be churned to the new provider?
Strange thing is, the last of these options looks right now to be the most attractive. Is that really what Telstra wants?
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Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans JWL
Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans JWL
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