Well, I had to share these guys stupidity with the world. Now don't get me wrong, people make mistakes which is fine but a company this size should either 1) Have noticed these problems earlier and done something about them or 2) provide a rock solid way of logging the faults so they can be resolved, neither of which are true in this case.
I got an email saying my bill was ready to an old email account so I thought I would update my details and point them to the new email. I clicked on the link in the emai but being a suspicious person, I decided to type o2.co.uk into the address bar and navigate from there. I got to the details page and first thing I noticed was that the mobile they had for me was some number I had about 10 years ago! (despite them sending the bill for my new mobile number to this address!). Anyway i changed them and tried their "find my address link" and got some error which promptly also removed the values I had just typed in (web development 101, always check that fields are retained when an error is displayed). OK, assumed it was not working so I free-typed my address, retyped the other fields and tried again, same error, "You must type in a house number or name". Wonderful, I had - idiots. (WD 101, test that any changes you make have not broken the functionality of the page). OK well most people would have thought, sod it, they have 10 year old information already, they might as well have 15 year old wrong data and waste my subscription money storing it (WD 101 - do not store personal data unless you need it and use it, make sure it is checked for correctness otherwise delete it).
I decided to give some feedback to the team who might, let us assume, already know there are website problems. Could I find a link? Nope. I tried searching for all manner of things and couldn't find it. I tried "asking Lucy" who kept saying she didn't understand the question, obviously they modelled her on a genuine call-centre operator. The contact us page was blank, even when Lucy said, "I don't understand, use these links to contact us" the links didn't do anything. Several of the pages looked like the layout had been broken even a link from google for web site contact went to some funny error page. A bad day for O2 online. Well I could have given up and give O2 the undeserved accolade of having no complaints about its shoddiness but I thought I would go the extra mile. I sent an email to webmaster@o2.co.uk, not sure yet whether that will work and then decided to call O2 and tell them I couldn't use the website. I called the Cust Services number and go something like 1 to change account details and billing, 2 to upgrade or leave 3 for something else and 4 for the iphone. Right, what do I select? I didn't press anything and got the message again. I thought afterwards it might register a problem and say, "please hold for an operator" (like they usually do) but no, I got the message again. Eventually I hung up and found an online form to feedback about the website to O2 which I filled in.
O dear. To fail in one area is understandable, to fail in 2 is sloppy and to fail in all of them is incompetence. O2, I don't care that you are part of Telefonica because your services suck. Sort it out!
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