Telstra
| Favourite: | 8% say it is one of their favourite businesses. |
| Value: | 0% say they get great value for money here. |
| Service: | 0% say the customer service is something special. |
Reviews
Telstra are a disgrace
I have just spent 55 mins on the phone trying to get my phone reconnected. I was transferred 7 times because I was originally sent to home and it was a business related matter, then I was a "new" account and the person I was speaking to only had access to the "old account" system (wtf?). I was then transferred to credit and paid the bill and then I was sent back to connections. etc etc. Every time I spoke to someone I had to go through my details and the issue again. When I asked to wait a minute while I answered another call they hung up on me (so you have to wait for them but they cannot wait for 30 seconds while you answer another call!) Eventually I was told that it would take 24hours in the system and I had to call back again tomorrow. This is only one frustrating experience - there have been many similar and some worse in the last 3 years. I have had issues like this at least 3 times a year whether it is through my business, my home account or the Foxtel which for some reason is Foxtel by Telstra. We have moved twice and this has been a source of much confusion/double charging etc. I would like to know what my alternative is - I have my mobile with Optus and they are not much better.
If I could choose negative stars, I would.
Beyond frustrating. I'm still fuming and my call to telstra was 48 hours ago.
The first attempt I was transferred to 'international billing', the second i was transferred to foxtel Main Event and played a list of events I could subscribe to. The third attempt I was left on hold for 28 minutes, and even though repeatedly hearing that "your call is very important to us" I got the hint and gave up. I gave it a break, then returned two hours later to try again. The fourth attempt I got through pretty much straight away then after parroting my name address, date of birth and phone number, transferred to foxtel again to upgrade my subscription, then name address, date of birth and phone number later I was sent back to international billing. You get the point. Don't go Telstra. No matter what.
Telstra are afraid of the Underground...
In the last 3 weeks I have wasted 3 hours of my life trying to move all of my business from Optus to Telstra. Ok so it was a price driven decision but nonetheless I agreed to pay them $200/month. That equates to almost $5000/year of gross income my household has to earn in order to pay that amount after tax or put another way, 10% of the average national income. Quite a lot really isn't it? But really, they simply made it impossible to do.
Problem 1: I pick up a voicemail message saying my application had been "rejected by the credit department. " How curious, I think, why would that be? On talking to a very helpful, courteous (yes I know, hard to believe) chap called Julian in Hobart, (Julian can I give you a job when you have had jack of dealing with exasperated people like me working at Telstra?) apparently the 'computer' discriminates against people who are noted as 'unemployed.' Curiouser and curiouser, since there is no category for 'mother building a business and running a not for profit while supporting a high earning spouse and managing a family of 3 children' it seems that'the computer' thinks I am 'unemployed' and am not good credit material for a phone account. The 'computer' apparently overlooks the aggregate household income and balance sheet. Anyway, Julian to his credit (sic), sorts this out for me and ta da! I am now 'creditworthy' according to the complex Telstra credit algorithm. Nggggghhh....
Problem 2: I cannot keep my existing phone number. Funny that, the last two people who were part of the sales process eager to relieve me of $5000/year of my annual gross income told me I could. Less than ideal. I concede, again, and choose a new phone number. Julian at this stage is still unfailingly polite and helpful.
Problem 3. The Deal Breaker. My broadband will be down for 'about 3-4 days' during the changeover. Funny again because the same 2 people told me I could keep running during changeover. Oh dear this is a problem. (I mean how can I support Customer Underground with no broadband)? Seriously, I run 2 businesses from home, how can I have no broadband for up to 4 DAYS??? Had the first and second person told me this in the first 2 hours of my miserable Telstra experience rather than assuring me I would experience no hiatus i could have clawed back at least 1 hour of my life.
So now, having spent over 3 hours on the phone and face to face with Telstra effecting this simple transaction and giving my life story at least 4 times, I remain with my current provider in search of the next deal and vowing never to repeat the Telstra experience again. Siloed companies like this who disaggregate the customer experience.Seriously. Wake up to the customer, you are no longer a national monopoly. Interestingly, when I told Julian that I was about to post a review online with Customer Underground he did ask for more information to 'pass up the line.' It seems Telstra are a little afraid of social media. Go the Underground....
And more from 4 October 2010: Resigned Exasperation
I bought an iPad yesterday - yay! I still have no 3G service from Telstra despite 4 phone calls to Manila to have the same tedious script repeated to me each time, which was, I think, written by a 19year old student of retailing. Boo!
How much lost revenue from slow activation timeframes? I simply can't find anything else to say about this organisation. They are a dinosaur.
They should get out of the customer service business
When I asked them to cancel my account, they didn't
When I was visiting OZ, I signed up for prepaid wireless through Telstra Mobile. Not Telstra Bigpond. Telstra Mobile. I didn't know there was such a thing as Telstra Bigpond. Aparently, Telstra's phone system doesn't know there is anything called Telstra Mobile because I kept getting transferred for hours to try to speak with someone. Then when I finally got a hold of someone and asked them to cancel my account, they didn't cancel it. So I left the country and kept getting bills. Much as we all gripe about our cell phone service in the States, at least all the competition does afford better customer service.
Why, oh why, do you make it so hard to understand your offerings?
Telstra, I want to like you. I want to respect the fact that you come from our native soil. I want to believe that you are on my side. So please enlighten me: why, oh why, do you make it so hard to understand your offerings. I'd like to buy talk time, you speak to me in mobile dollars. I'd like to buy mobile services, you talk to me in gigabytes. It's confusing. It's unduly arduous. Why don't you just make it simple and say what you mean?
Argh!! (Though the people are friendly)
Good coverage, high prices, lots of red tape.While the quality of Telstra's mobile coverage is excellent, and the people at their stores and call centres have been uniformly helpful and friendly to me, the company's delivery on their promises has lagged. For example: I signed up for five services in one go at the George Street Sydney store, with the promise of bundling discounts and a single bill. Yet it took some months before the discounts came through, and I still haven't managed to get the single bill. My sense is that the problem is with the policies & systems of the company: the pricing, plans, etc. seem so complicated that it seems hard for trained employees to make sense of them, and as a consumer, forget it! One other related note: Telstra's plans seem to be more expensive and it is difficult to work out which plan will suit you best (i.e., minimize your costs) - and while I've found staff eager to help, the range & complexity of options seems to baffle even them...giving me a profound lack of confidence that I've made the best decision.In general, I'd recommend Telstra - their coverage is good, and the people friendly, putting them ahead of at least one of their competitors that I have experience with. But really, choosing amongst Telcos seems to be a "which is least worst?" question, rather than one of specific brand loyalty or positive affiliation.
God help us, can Australia please get better at Telcos!
Best of a bad bunch? Good at some things and not others. Supremely frustrating... all of these statements apply to Telstra for me. Throughout the years I have been very fickle with my telecommunication companies. I will happily follow the best deal rather than be loyal to one company.
However, in recent years I have spent far too much time researching, negotiating and inevitably fighting with Telstra. We had for a long time all of our business services, personal services and Foxtel with Telstra. Despite the money spent we receive very little in the way of benefit from them. All in all I find that the call centre staff are poorly trained and there never seems to be anyone with the authority to make a decision. Shop staff (particularly in the overly populated teams at Telstra Life stores) are usually friendly but again with little authority.
My time spent at the technical help counter in Sydney had me on a first named basis with most of the staff, something I would rather have avoided!
I find Telstra's lack of decision makers for members of the public frustrating and this is only heightened by the enormous number of under utilised staff, and expensive fittings in the Telstra Life store. Spend more money on training staff to a level of acceptable knowledge than fancy counters and coffee machines!
Unfortunately for Australians the coverage remains superior to any of the other networks, so here's your choice...better service and plan options and prices, or more extensive coverage all round? No winners really.
Not Happy! Eastgardens Telstra gave me incorrect information on Data usage
I spent hours in the Telstra Eastgardens store being advised on what to buy for the amount of Data I use. They were sooooooo wrong or massively dishonest people!!! What they told me to buy for the whole year has cost me for only a month. Their internet is going to cost me a fortune.
Three years prior I was using another companies dongle and they were spot on but they've been bought by Telstra so I can't even go back to my honest servers because now they belong to the dishonest people or is that just the Eastgardens store in question???
They also sold me a faulty dongle which took over 3 or 4 weeks to repair.
after all these years you have finally convinced me
I was always skeptical of telstra mobile plans, they seemed to be hugely expensive and aimed at my parents generation but then out of the blue one day i got a call from a telstra salesman and low and behold they actually won me over. Having never really dealt with telstra before i only had their reputation to judge them on (shame on me for not making me own call) but they have been suprisingly good. I have stacks better reception everywhere i go, the prices are not as bad as i thought and so despite not having the free virgin to virgin or 3 to 3 thing that most other companies seem to offer, i dont really ever go over my cap. even though the bills were intially incredibely complicated they seem to have done some real re-assessing on this of late and so it's much more simply laid out now. Good stuff from someone i previously loved to hate. Telstra, you have served me up a huge plate of crow. Cudos to you.
Irritating business to deal with
Telstra always seem to be the most expensive and the most inflexible. I don't enjoy speaking to them on the phone and they seem to make everything so hard. Not for me.
High prices but decent coverage
There was a time I vowed never to be a Telstra customer. Having broken this vow, I'm not sure I was wrong to make it. The prices are high, the single bill comes as three bills, and they don't let you pay by credit card. And of course the mobile "plans" are incomprehensible. However the coverage on the "everywhere, man" mobile internet is pretty good. Bottom line: you'll get a better deal elsewhere, but they offend me less than they used to.
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