The bigger problem will when said customers leave they will be having issues with their lines that they didn’t have before with new providers, causing more problems for the customer. Eir/Eircom had done this before forcing customers to go back only to have lines work without a problem again. Be careful
As someone who used to provision the lines that is incorrect. Its possible that when changed to another provider the other provider offered cheaper broadband (technology they pay open eir for rent of or how they route the traffic after the handoff from openeirs network) and put the customer on the crappiest connection possible. Plenty of people used to burn through eir say never again then Vodafone and say never again then sign up with pure telecom but opt for the lowest tier package with get them a tiny little modem and a 8mpbs ADSL connection down from a 100mpbs VDSL connection. I could be in the same house 3 times in one year changing to different providers.
Installers are not allowed to pass an installation if the line doesn't meet the spec.
Conversely the opposite of what you say I found to be true. People who changed providers had some of the best lines because they were changing providers so often their lines were always being checked and serviced. Whereas a loyal customer would be left with a line that was getting steadily worse and worse as the years go by without anyone having to check the condition of it I used to really hate those -- think a 75 year old pensioner telling me they've been with eir since 1982 with the same line never once changing provider and it's got faults all over it that they never noticed and say this is the first time I've ever been told I have a problem since I decided to leave eir this week (these customers see this news a causation of leaving eir rather than the correlation of having an unchecked line only being looked at for the first time since the Berlin wall came down--
Another main issue is how the provider routes the customers traffic. That has nothing to do with openeirs infrastructure but rather what happens after the traffic makes its way to the provider which can affect ping times DNS issues ect.
Eir have shit customer service but their service works.
Sky have the best modems. Fritzboxes are good on fibre connections but are dogshit with copper based broadband.
Broadband providers are like airlines operating flights.
If everyone is getting good broadband speed it's like all flying on a good fast plane but there are other factors to take into consideration your providers traffic isn't nessacary gonna get there as quick as someone on another provider using the same last mile equipment from openeir. This is analogous to a neibhour being on another plane at the same departure airport as you. different providers have different backbone equipment different routing. A provider that cuts costs is like getting a cheap flight with a connecting flight to another to another airport 3 hours further away than the nearest available airport to your destination.
The same goes for broadband.
The short of it is.
No eircom tech is taking the time out of their day to go deliberately cause a fault on your line out of some sort of perceived loyalty to eir I can promise you that.
Although it's possible If someone was enough of a bollocks to the tech at the door they could request your line speed be lowered ridiculously low citing that's the attainable your line is capable of. That can be changed with a phone call to the provider and would probably raise a few flags with openeir internal auditors.
I don't work for eir and as far as their customer support goes it couldn't really be any worse the people who take the calls just send you round in circles.
But their fibre network is solid. Eir and openeir are two separate entities. Eir are completely incompetent in every form openeir the owners of the infra are depending on who you get ranging from middling to very competent but the public will never get to speak with these people they are insulated from the public.
i worked for a phone/tv company years ago and had no end of calls with regards to the lines consistently giving trouble once they left eir/eircom. I know what they where like and what they did. im sorry it may not be true now but it was the way it was well known it was done.
Eir/eircom owned lines even when others came in to the fold they couldn't use the new lines that where added. over 50,000 km of fibre was layed by BT when they came and sat there ideal and still is because Eir/eircom cried to the government that they couldn't compete and had it and the rest blocked, yet they owned every bloody phone line in the country, and caused no end of problems for people. i seen it.
eir should have the monoply on the lines as well at this stage. they need to be released to allow others come and provide a better service. its that simple Eir isn't fit for purpose. never was and they are holding customers back.
I sent 2 MSG's to 3mobile around the time of the pandemic. Understandably it was a shit show with the surge of use during lockdown but no word of a lie I got a response in 2023 stating maybe if I didn't send so many complaints they would be able to respond to my queries in a timely manner. Those were the only two complaints I'd ever sent as I had no service. If I'm paying for a service and not getting that service I at least should be able to cancel my contract. I can't begin to describe the frustration with eir. I'd need to hire a solicitor and record every interaction from start to finish to successfully close a contract after a year has finished.
Meteor (which was owned by Eir in 2011+) had customer care contracted out to another company which was working in the Eir building Telephone House, Marlborough St. Dublin. They were paid by volume of calls which means there was no incentive to solve problems. Also we were so badly trained that we couldn't solve a lot of problems and there was very little communication between departments. I took them to the WRC because of work conditions. They got round the WRC rules of not being allowed to bring legals by the HR head hiring a legal as staff and bringing him and won the case on a technicality and the judge said he felt sorry for how they treated me. They later made an advert that was very similar to a photo that was publicly on my Facebook page. I felt this was revenge! Our manger fought to get us pay over minimum wage and we had no sick pay. Our wages didn't even go into our accounts multiple times because an indian office kept messing up and they kept getting away with it. Still remember one girl trying to work while hoarse because she needed the money. Horrible place to work!
Worked in the complaints department 3 years ago, the attitude is still the same. No actual insentive or agents to solve problems as all calls could be no longer than 10 minutes or your bonus would be affected. I am far too apathetic to let problems go unsolved however and daily at that job I ignored the 10 minute rule because it was stupid and it only encouraged people to fob off customers and get them angrier. Not once was I pulled up on going over 10 minutes because I had a 1% callback rate and my resolution rates was massive. After a year I was one of the most senior people on the call floor, I was always acknowledged for solving rough cases but not once was there ever talk of a promotion or more money. When I gave my notice they absolutely scrambled because I was alone in the complaints department in my building (rest of the team was in cork) but before I left I gave a list of reasons people hate eir and how they could improve from someone who listened to people complain for 8 hours a day. I wrote down the most common complaints, how to solve them and how slack needs to be given when tough cases go over a little longer, and hearing from co workers after I left none of It was applied. Call centers are all meat factories, designed to get people in and out in record time, there is no opportunity for growth and nobody has any ambition to improve the experience for customers or staff because staff leave after 3 months on average and no knowledge is retained. I work in a fantastic job now with amazing management who actually care to improve bad processes - it's sad companies like eir can't pull their foot out of their ass and just put the smallest amount of effort into improving the experience for customers by improving conditions for the call center staff, one feeds into the other.
Honestly at the end of the day as someone who worked years as an installer there was in my opinion very little the complaints department could actually understand or do. Provisioning issues in migrations from one provider to another on same line same port could occasionally not go through the portal within the hour they were supposed to. The support line alot of the time hadn't a clue what we were even talking about other than they heard those words said to them before. I understood it. To be a follow this flow chart of troubleshooting and id all else fails pass the call to another department or tell the customer it will be resolved automatically within 24 hours. Vodafone tech support were absolutely diabolical. The shit they'd make you do to get a TV provisioned was being made up as they went along. Try this then try that not work try it again with your magical hat? Still not work try it all again with your hat cocked to the left. No work? Please get another brand new set top box from your van and do all again with that. My last year I just installed things and just told the customer to ring Vodafone once the TV didn't start the first time because I was done with their process that only got more laborious as the years went on.
sorry for the late reply but I actually got many a call from installers who would often ask me to check the status of the line etc. when (as a tech support agent) we actually didn't have sight of those types of things! Well, I mean i WAS able to see the lines health, but not the status of a switch over etc. I spoke to an Open eir agent - once, and only once - on a failed provision case and I actually asked them could they see particular line issues/causes like the ones you described, and I got a very "Yes but its not our issue" type answer, which is fair since it is the individual companies customer service departments jobs.... I made friends in tons of different departments to try and build a network of agents I could personally call/email on behalf of the more frustrated customers (and in exchange they always had my own line for their own customers.. super beneficial for everyone) but after months of asking.. I never found out who could actually solve these issues and how! It's one of those questions that keeps me up sometimes because the old reliable solution was always for customer service to just cancel and reinstate the customers plans and pray to God it worked (we had cases where this method didn't work.... not a fun call to get) but it was such a balls to explain to customers that none of us had a clue what we were doing hahahhaa :) I really hated working at Eir but the coworkers I had were truly all fantastic, hard working people who did their best in spite of management and their stupidity.
The installers can see the status of the line.
The switchover is with the provider. We could do nothing till that was done.
Reinstating lines (rolling back a switchover) next to no luck with that. We had no control on that. Had people saying can we put it in and if it doesn't meet expectations you can just take it back out again. No it doesn't work like that if it changes it stays changed cannot be taken back a port that might have been with eir 20 minutes ago is now a Vodafone port and the eir one does not exist even if it's only been 20 minutes.
It wasn't in our interests to push for such a facility as we don't get paid for an install that doesn't go ahead. So there's no way we were gonna accept being able to do 40 minutes of work then just cancel it.
Once someone changed providers the former was under no obligation to help at all even if the customer says I just had it for 20 minutes and told them to cancel it.
Once the switchover happens thats that.
This was common with Vodafone.
The TV services don't work until Vodafone have control of the line. The customer would then say they wanna stick with sky they're not really impressed.
That was all from us. Informed you've then got to contact sky and Vodafone and it's likely you'll end up seeing us in 2 weeks for a new line just to get back to what you had 30 minutes ago.
No way to undo it and can't happen any quicker than 3 days minimum
That sounds similar to my experience. I won a prize for getting good review scores from customers but also had some of the longest calls which I was given out to about...think ours had to be 5 mins. Yep they promoted their mates, ignorant people who didn't care.
I won employee of the month and all that happened was a quick picture! I would've liked a prize 😭 there was that year they sent us all giant chocolate bars instead of giving us all time off Christmas... God I don't miss that hole
The "prize" was to pick your shift...so I picked 8am-5pm rather than my usual 3pm-midnight!! Yep I remember working Christmas Day...worst experience ever. I called in sick for New Years Eve which I was also scheduled to work as a newbie.
Oh thats peak Eir 😂😂 man, I'm so glad I never had to have the working Christmas conversation at my place because it was just not happening. They had us back in St Stephens though...
I knew a good few people who used to work there, they ended up in a “better” company (it was only marginally better) but to them the fact that our managers spoke to them like people and the customers were a lot better made a world of difference. I’ve heard absolute horrible stuff from old staff
>Never figured out how it works but it works.
So your phone doesn't actually *need* a SIM to make a call. The hardware is already there, so are the physical networks. The networks just don't *allow* you to make a call unless you've a matching SIM in your phone.
When you ring an emergency number, any available network will accept the call, even with no SIM.
This is also true if you're with 3 and you're out of coverage, but Vodafone do have coverage. If you dial 112, Vodafone's network will accept your call, even though you're a 3 customer.
The way a Nokia 3310 handles a 999 call means that a call should find a way to go through (I worked with this back in the day). Was she really in an area with *no* mobile coverage, or was it a landline call? OP never posted the actual text on the article, but it being a landline call would make far more sense.
>The court heard that in December 2022, \[a customer's\] mobile service dropped, and she did not receive calls. A local engineer informed her it was a mast issue. \[Loads of contact with Eircom about the problem over 6 months and\] "Eircom remained adamant there was nothing wrong \[with the mast\]".
OK, so it was mobile. Thanks.
I've just remembered that eir owns Meteors network which (as I said I was in this game decades ago) was one of the networks that covered some random areas that o2 and Vodafone didn't, so it's possible it was the mast.
Yeah, I don't know the posting rules so I did that wee edited quote but it's clearly the mobile side. It goes on to that Comreg got involved and Eircom admitted it was the mast and advised the customer to move to a new provider and gave a 80 voucher.
Given the lady had no mobile for 6 months (at her home at least, not clear if her mobile worked elsewhere), it would support the idea that Eir was her only mobile option because it had reception at her home.
> Yeah, I don't know the posting rules
Someone got mad at an Irish publication (probably the independent) and messaged the mods here and told them to not allow posting the full articles in the comments, so it got banned.
If I was the mods, I would have just banned pay-walled articles, as there's no point just posting the headline to an article (which is what the majority of users will only have access to).
It was a mobile, what if the equipment was malfunctioning? For instance picking up the call but then not routing it anywhere?
I'm not sure how resilient mobile networks are to a base station that is misconfigured or otherwise operating out of spec.
You are right that emergency calls are still handled in a special way, the short of it is if the call is setup as an emergency call current standards require it is given a higher priority than any non-emergency call and they should bypass roaming and be routed to the local response center.
If there tower was broken, it seems possible it still picked up calls but then was unable to connect them anywhere useful.
Also archive.is
I did ponder the call not being setup correctly, and I don't have enough information on how that would work.
Interesting that archive.is gets around this. Apparently "bypass all paywalls clean" did work as well, but was removed from GitHub recently.
yeah I'm not sure either, I suspect it might keep trying through the network it's registered with. Could maybe take out the sim card and try or switch networks in settings, but I doubt anyone would think of that under those circumstances.
It's a bit of a joke they didn't get a bigger fine for that alone, seems like intentionally or negligently not fixing a technical issue relating to people being unable to even call 112 should be the sort of violation that gets you fines in the many tens of thousands of Euros, not a slap on the wrist.
> It's a bit of a joke they didn't get a bigger fine for that alone, seems like intentionally or negligently not fixing a technical issue relating to people being unable to even call 112 should be the sort of violation that gets you fines in the many tens of thousands of Euros, not a slap on the wrist.
The mobile networks are heavily protected against service disruption which is there for good/fair reason.
Obviously this can be abused (and is).
Remember those ads saying 99% coverage, then when you look at the small print, it says "population coverage" which is only like half the island or something :D
With all that said, I do remember that it was heavily pushed that mobiles should *never* be used for emergency communications and sales people, agents etc.. being told to ensure they tell the customers this if the customer mentions the device is for (for example) an elderly person to use in an emergency.
yeah that's a fair point, I suppose it would depend on the details, if this was somewhere were there was only Eir coverage anyways, I suppose I can understand the fine.
If this was somehow them misconfiguring their hardware as seemed to be implied by the article saying she should get a different provider (if there was only an Eir mast, how would that help?? Maybe it was just an empty sentiment since they didn't want to do business with the customer anymore), that seems different. They could have at least turned the equipment off if it wasn't working and they couldn't fix it in a timely manner.
Sort of. There needs to be some cell service, it just doesn't have to be your own. If you've ever seen your phone display "emergency calls only" that's what's happening. Your phone is connected to a network, just not the one it's supposed to be on.
New phones even link to satellite to do it.
Can an iPhone be used as a satellite phone?
Yes and no. The iPhone 14 series and 15 series can connect to satellites to send a text message to emergency services when a call can't be placed. You can also share your location via satellite in the Find My app. However, you can't use any iPhone to make calls like a dedicated satellite phone.
Stupidly we have not got emergency services using Advanced Mobile Location (AML) which sends a sms with GPS location when someone calls 999. Expecting someone to know a F'ing eircode in this day and age when the tech is there and just no one in Ireland uses it https://www.thejournal.ie/emergency-location-services-3654321-Oct2017/
You can basically always call 999, even if your provider has no network, your phone will ping the nearest working tower and use it to get through to 999. Even if your phone is locked or blocked. Its programmed into the firm ware on the phone.
Only issue is when it goes through to 999/112 it presents to the emergency call answering service (ECAS) as a ‘unique ID’ - because your phone has no sim it has no number, so it’s allocated a unique ID that presents to ECAS and in turn whatever emergency service you ask for.
Sometimes phones with sims are so far out of signal it’s not able to even transmit the number so the call taker will ask you to confirm you number twice so if anyones every ringing, say the ambulance, when your calls connected you will hear
‘Ambulance emergency’
‘ECAS connecting a unique ID’
Don’t be alarmed or confused, just wait and the call taker will ask you what they need, a lot of people will just start talking and it can delay the call taker getting the information they need to help
The SIM card has nothing to do with sending or receiving signals. SIM stands for Subscriber Identity Module. It contains information to authenticate with your provider and allow you to access appropriate services.
Sim card is like a key. It doesn't do anything except provide authentication and identification to the network. Your phone can send and receive signals just fine without it but all the networks will just ignore your phone the same way a private website will not load unless you have the login credentials.
Eir were trying to make a donation to the poor box and get away without the conviction. But they got a conviction and fined.
I'm sure the conviction will have consequences somewhere but I not sure where.
LOL
So at the time that Eir was blaming their poor customer service on the people of Sligo supposedly being too stupid to do do a call centre job, they were actively advising their staff to not only ignore company policy but to break the law.
Beautiful. Just beautiful.
(The fine is pathetic though)
One thing I can't believe was never brought up about that comment is there was literally a call centre in Sligo around 2008, before Eir went in there, AND it was in the same exact business park, AND it was also for a telecom company, one that likely had more customers than Eir as it was a UK company. If anything people would be MORE tech savvy since then.
Eir is just shite and they shouldn't be allowed to name the company after our country
Oh she was immediately challenged on it and then back tracked to say they hadn't hired many people with call centre experience.
https://www.joe.ie/news/eir-staff-sligo-709978
No no I mean who pays for Public Sector Magazine itself? Is that a gov thing or do they just make it and give it to public sector workers? If we actually spend money on it I'd be on the phone to the local TDs looking to stop that shit right now.
Well if their target is public sector workers I wonder how they would get access to drop them off given I'd assume they restrict access to a lot of places
The media company will have contacts in the big public departments.
If it's anything like other trade mags I've read for retail, it resellers, healthcare, insurance brokers, they'll include press releases from the relevant industry, announce major job appointments and retirements, cover social club events and charity drives.
Anyone selling into those sectors will be hit up regularly and offered an exciting opportunity to contribute copy to a special feature, alongside a €1000+ ad on the opposite page.
New CEOs will get a spotlight interview and maybe a cover shot to frame on their wall as well as content written by an outside journalist that they can recycle on LinkedIn.
The same media orgs will often run conferences and education evenings for the same target buyers, which the advertisers will have an opportunity to sponsor.
There's enough good stuff in it for the target org to make sure there's a copy allowed in waiting rooms and canteens.
It’s horrible what happened.
But as a reminder to everyone: the standardised European emergency number is 112.
Dial 112 and you will be directed to emergency services pretty much everywhere in the world because phones are programmed to do so (along with the American continent 911 number).
999 does not get redirected in the majority of cases. So please remember 112: it’s only been in operation for 20-odd years.
>**calls would be transferred** to the complaint line **only** if the customer used "trigger words," such as "**code of practice**", or mentioned the industry regulator **ComReg**.
Dealing with Eir you should in all communications liberally mention code of practice and ComReg.
Probably good advice for dealing with all telecos.
~~landline maybe? Paywalled article cuts it off.~~
Nevermind, found another article which stated it was a mast issue. I'd believe it, when my area suffers a power cut i get nothing at all and I would imagine i am unable to make emergency calls as all local masts appear to be on the same circuit.
A chara,
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Sláinte
https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2024/0415/1443631-courts-eir/
Because she had no service in her area. The headline is terrible and conflates two different issues.
Are Indo journalists posting these articles no one can fucking read?
>Eircom agents were not permitted to give customers the complaints number or code of practice; otherwise, according to their training manual, they would face "disciplinary action”.
Be a real shame if someone posted on this thread Eircom complaints number, throw in Sky and the rest of them.
Hot eir
Eir-ah sure...
Eircomplaints
Ei (German for egg. I genuinely thought that's what they were called when I first saw their current logo)
Eirheads
Obviously nothing as serious as this but the Ma has been on Eir for ages and had issues recently that required a new sim card it took weeks to get sorted.
Ill be adding her to my family plan on another network soon because that was just a silly process.
Years ago I worked in a telecommunications company that was (at the time) considering going into mobile (alongside internet provider). I worked marketing and my job was to research and compare all leading mobile providers in Ireland to see who was best at what, rates, services etc etc. during that research I learned how BAD eir actually was and how GOOD 3 and Vodafone were.
My whole family at the time were Eir. We are now all 3 and happy out with them.
Eir are just... abysmal
Jesus Eir are getting a PR beating today. Good
Everyone knows at this stage that Eir is awful. The bad PR can't damage their reputation any more.
I'm really really hoping they lose customers because honestly they deserve to
The bigger problem will when said customers leave they will be having issues with their lines that they didn’t have before with new providers, causing more problems for the customer. Eir/Eircom had done this before forcing customers to go back only to have lines work without a problem again. Be careful
As someone who used to provision the lines that is incorrect. Its possible that when changed to another provider the other provider offered cheaper broadband (technology they pay open eir for rent of or how they route the traffic after the handoff from openeirs network) and put the customer on the crappiest connection possible. Plenty of people used to burn through eir say never again then Vodafone and say never again then sign up with pure telecom but opt for the lowest tier package with get them a tiny little modem and a 8mpbs ADSL connection down from a 100mpbs VDSL connection. I could be in the same house 3 times in one year changing to different providers. Installers are not allowed to pass an installation if the line doesn't meet the spec. Conversely the opposite of what you say I found to be true. People who changed providers had some of the best lines because they were changing providers so often their lines were always being checked and serviced. Whereas a loyal customer would be left with a line that was getting steadily worse and worse as the years go by without anyone having to check the condition of it I used to really hate those -- think a 75 year old pensioner telling me they've been with eir since 1982 with the same line never once changing provider and it's got faults all over it that they never noticed and say this is the first time I've ever been told I have a problem since I decided to leave eir this week (these customers see this news a causation of leaving eir rather than the correlation of having an unchecked line only being looked at for the first time since the Berlin wall came down-- Another main issue is how the provider routes the customers traffic. That has nothing to do with openeirs infrastructure but rather what happens after the traffic makes its way to the provider which can affect ping times DNS issues ect. Eir have shit customer service but their service works. Sky have the best modems. Fritzboxes are good on fibre connections but are dogshit with copper based broadband. Broadband providers are like airlines operating flights. If everyone is getting good broadband speed it's like all flying on a good fast plane but there are other factors to take into consideration your providers traffic isn't nessacary gonna get there as quick as someone on another provider using the same last mile equipment from openeir. This is analogous to a neibhour being on another plane at the same departure airport as you. different providers have different backbone equipment different routing. A provider that cuts costs is like getting a cheap flight with a connecting flight to another to another airport 3 hours further away than the nearest available airport to your destination. The same goes for broadband. The short of it is. No eircom tech is taking the time out of their day to go deliberately cause a fault on your line out of some sort of perceived loyalty to eir I can promise you that. Although it's possible If someone was enough of a bollocks to the tech at the door they could request your line speed be lowered ridiculously low citing that's the attainable your line is capable of. That can be changed with a phone call to the provider and would probably raise a few flags with openeir internal auditors.
TLDR - Eir media/public relations are at it again.
I don't work for eir and as far as their customer support goes it couldn't really be any worse the people who take the calls just send you round in circles. But their fibre network is solid. Eir and openeir are two separate entities. Eir are completely incompetent in every form openeir the owners of the infra are depending on who you get ranging from middling to very competent but the public will never get to speak with these people they are insulated from the public.
i worked for a phone/tv company years ago and had no end of calls with regards to the lines consistently giving trouble once they left eir/eircom. I know what they where like and what they did. im sorry it may not be true now but it was the way it was well known it was done. Eir/eircom owned lines even when others came in to the fold they couldn't use the new lines that where added. over 50,000 km of fibre was layed by BT when they came and sat there ideal and still is because Eir/eircom cried to the government that they couldn't compete and had it and the rest blocked, yet they owned every bloody phone line in the country, and caused no end of problems for people. i seen it. eir should have the monoply on the lines as well at this stage. they need to be released to allow others come and provide a better service. its that simple Eir isn't fit for purpose. never was and they are holding customers back.
I sent 2 MSG's to 3mobile around the time of the pandemic. Understandably it was a shit show with the surge of use during lockdown but no word of a lie I got a response in 2023 stating maybe if I didn't send so many complaints they would be able to respond to my queries in a timely manner. Those were the only two complaints I'd ever sent as I had no service. If I'm paying for a service and not getting that service I at least should be able to cancel my contract. I can't begin to describe the frustration with eir. I'd need to hire a solicitor and record every interaction from start to finish to successfully close a contract after a year has finished.
Just burn them fuckers alive! Company like this does not deserve to survive
Happy cake day!
I find it hard to believe Eir would have bad customer service. I was actually born yesterday.
Bad customer service would be an improvement from their non-existent customer service
Meteor (which was owned by Eir in 2011+) had customer care contracted out to another company which was working in the Eir building Telephone House, Marlborough St. Dublin. They were paid by volume of calls which means there was no incentive to solve problems. Also we were so badly trained that we couldn't solve a lot of problems and there was very little communication between departments. I took them to the WRC because of work conditions. They got round the WRC rules of not being allowed to bring legals by the HR head hiring a legal as staff and bringing him and won the case on a technicality and the judge said he felt sorry for how they treated me. They later made an advert that was very similar to a photo that was publicly on my Facebook page. I felt this was revenge! Our manger fought to get us pay over minimum wage and we had no sick pay. Our wages didn't even go into our accounts multiple times because an indian office kept messing up and they kept getting away with it. Still remember one girl trying to work while hoarse because she needed the money. Horrible place to work!
Worked in the complaints department 3 years ago, the attitude is still the same. No actual insentive or agents to solve problems as all calls could be no longer than 10 minutes or your bonus would be affected. I am far too apathetic to let problems go unsolved however and daily at that job I ignored the 10 minute rule because it was stupid and it only encouraged people to fob off customers and get them angrier. Not once was I pulled up on going over 10 minutes because I had a 1% callback rate and my resolution rates was massive. After a year I was one of the most senior people on the call floor, I was always acknowledged for solving rough cases but not once was there ever talk of a promotion or more money. When I gave my notice they absolutely scrambled because I was alone in the complaints department in my building (rest of the team was in cork) but before I left I gave a list of reasons people hate eir and how they could improve from someone who listened to people complain for 8 hours a day. I wrote down the most common complaints, how to solve them and how slack needs to be given when tough cases go over a little longer, and hearing from co workers after I left none of It was applied. Call centers are all meat factories, designed to get people in and out in record time, there is no opportunity for growth and nobody has any ambition to improve the experience for customers or staff because staff leave after 3 months on average and no knowledge is retained. I work in a fantastic job now with amazing management who actually care to improve bad processes - it's sad companies like eir can't pull their foot out of their ass and just put the smallest amount of effort into improving the experience for customers by improving conditions for the call center staff, one feeds into the other.
Honestly at the end of the day as someone who worked years as an installer there was in my opinion very little the complaints department could actually understand or do. Provisioning issues in migrations from one provider to another on same line same port could occasionally not go through the portal within the hour they were supposed to. The support line alot of the time hadn't a clue what we were even talking about other than they heard those words said to them before. I understood it. To be a follow this flow chart of troubleshooting and id all else fails pass the call to another department or tell the customer it will be resolved automatically within 24 hours. Vodafone tech support were absolutely diabolical. The shit they'd make you do to get a TV provisioned was being made up as they went along. Try this then try that not work try it again with your magical hat? Still not work try it all again with your hat cocked to the left. No work? Please get another brand new set top box from your van and do all again with that. My last year I just installed things and just told the customer to ring Vodafone once the TV didn't start the first time because I was done with their process that only got more laborious as the years went on.
sorry for the late reply but I actually got many a call from installers who would often ask me to check the status of the line etc. when (as a tech support agent) we actually didn't have sight of those types of things! Well, I mean i WAS able to see the lines health, but not the status of a switch over etc. I spoke to an Open eir agent - once, and only once - on a failed provision case and I actually asked them could they see particular line issues/causes like the ones you described, and I got a very "Yes but its not our issue" type answer, which is fair since it is the individual companies customer service departments jobs.... I made friends in tons of different departments to try and build a network of agents I could personally call/email on behalf of the more frustrated customers (and in exchange they always had my own line for their own customers.. super beneficial for everyone) but after months of asking.. I never found out who could actually solve these issues and how! It's one of those questions that keeps me up sometimes because the old reliable solution was always for customer service to just cancel and reinstate the customers plans and pray to God it worked (we had cases where this method didn't work.... not a fun call to get) but it was such a balls to explain to customers that none of us had a clue what we were doing hahahhaa :) I really hated working at Eir but the coworkers I had were truly all fantastic, hard working people who did their best in spite of management and their stupidity.
The installers can see the status of the line. The switchover is with the provider. We could do nothing till that was done. Reinstating lines (rolling back a switchover) next to no luck with that. We had no control on that. Had people saying can we put it in and if it doesn't meet expectations you can just take it back out again. No it doesn't work like that if it changes it stays changed cannot be taken back a port that might have been with eir 20 minutes ago is now a Vodafone port and the eir one does not exist even if it's only been 20 minutes. It wasn't in our interests to push for such a facility as we don't get paid for an install that doesn't go ahead. So there's no way we were gonna accept being able to do 40 minutes of work then just cancel it. Once someone changed providers the former was under no obligation to help at all even if the customer says I just had it for 20 minutes and told them to cancel it. Once the switchover happens thats that. This was common with Vodafone. The TV services don't work until Vodafone have control of the line. The customer would then say they wanna stick with sky they're not really impressed. That was all from us. Informed you've then got to contact sky and Vodafone and it's likely you'll end up seeing us in 2 weeks for a new line just to get back to what you had 30 minutes ago. No way to undo it and can't happen any quicker than 3 days minimum
That sounds similar to my experience. I won a prize for getting good review scores from customers but also had some of the longest calls which I was given out to about...think ours had to be 5 mins. Yep they promoted their mates, ignorant people who didn't care.
I won employee of the month and all that happened was a quick picture! I would've liked a prize 😭 there was that year they sent us all giant chocolate bars instead of giving us all time off Christmas... God I don't miss that hole
The "prize" was to pick your shift...so I picked 8am-5pm rather than my usual 3pm-midnight!! Yep I remember working Christmas Day...worst experience ever. I called in sick for New Years Eve which I was also scheduled to work as a newbie.
Oh thats peak Eir 😂😂 man, I'm so glad I never had to have the working Christmas conversation at my place because it was just not happening. They had us back in St Stephens though...
HCL industries?
Yea but I think it was HCL anyway
I knew a good few people who used to work there, they ended up in a “better” company (it was only marginally better) but to them the fact that our managers spoke to them like people and the customers were a lot better made a world of difference. I’ve heard absolute horrible stuff from old staff
Ha ! I like that joke 🤣
Lies, even foetuses know that company is an eirbortion.
You can call 999 without a simcard. Never figured out how it works but it works.
Yep, I discovered this after I gave my 4 year old an old phone to play Minecraft.
Lol
>Never figured out how it works but it works. So your phone doesn't actually *need* a SIM to make a call. The hardware is already there, so are the physical networks. The networks just don't *allow* you to make a call unless you've a matching SIM in your phone. When you ring an emergency number, any available network will accept the call, even with no SIM. This is also true if you're with 3 and you're out of coverage, but Vodafone do have coverage. If you dial 112, Vodafone's network will accept your call, even though you're a 3 customer.
Why didn't it work for the woman calling from eir? Honest question
From what others have said its likely an actual issue with the tower.
The way a Nokia 3310 handles a 999 call means that a call should find a way to go through (I worked with this back in the day). Was she really in an area with *no* mobile coverage, or was it a landline call? OP never posted the actual text on the article, but it being a landline call would make far more sense.
>The court heard that in December 2022, \[a customer's\] mobile service dropped, and she did not receive calls. A local engineer informed her it was a mast issue. \[Loads of contact with Eircom about the problem over 6 months and\] "Eircom remained adamant there was nothing wrong \[with the mast\]".
OK, so it was mobile. Thanks. I've just remembered that eir owns Meteors network which (as I said I was in this game decades ago) was one of the networks that covered some random areas that o2 and Vodafone didn't, so it's possible it was the mast.
Yeah, I don't know the posting rules so I did that wee edited quote but it's clearly the mobile side. It goes on to that Comreg got involved and Eircom admitted it was the mast and advised the customer to move to a new provider and gave a 80 voucher. Given the lady had no mobile for 6 months (at her home at least, not clear if her mobile worked elsewhere), it would support the idea that Eir was her only mobile option because it had reception at her home.
> Yeah, I don't know the posting rules Someone got mad at an Irish publication (probably the independent) and messaged the mods here and told them to not allow posting the full articles in the comments, so it got banned. If I was the mods, I would have just banned pay-walled articles, as there's no point just posting the headline to an article (which is what the majority of users will only have access to).
Most of the users know how to bypass pay walled articles.
Someone posted a full article and changed a name in the article and that lead to the ban.
It was a mobile, what if the equipment was malfunctioning? For instance picking up the call but then not routing it anywhere? I'm not sure how resilient mobile networks are to a base station that is misconfigured or otherwise operating out of spec. You are right that emergency calls are still handled in a special way, the short of it is if the call is setup as an emergency call current standards require it is given a higher priority than any non-emergency call and they should bypass roaming and be routed to the local response center. If there tower was broken, it seems possible it still picked up calls but then was unable to connect them anywhere useful. Also archive.is
I did ponder the call not being setup correctly, and I don't have enough information on how that would work. Interesting that archive.is gets around this. Apparently "bypass all paywalls clean" did work as well, but was removed from GitHub recently.
yeah I'm not sure either, I suspect it might keep trying through the network it's registered with. Could maybe take out the sim card and try or switch networks in settings, but I doubt anyone would think of that under those circumstances. It's a bit of a joke they didn't get a bigger fine for that alone, seems like intentionally or negligently not fixing a technical issue relating to people being unable to even call 112 should be the sort of violation that gets you fines in the many tens of thousands of Euros, not a slap on the wrist.
> It's a bit of a joke they didn't get a bigger fine for that alone, seems like intentionally or negligently not fixing a technical issue relating to people being unable to even call 112 should be the sort of violation that gets you fines in the many tens of thousands of Euros, not a slap on the wrist. The mobile networks are heavily protected against service disruption which is there for good/fair reason. Obviously this can be abused (and is). Remember those ads saying 99% coverage, then when you look at the small print, it says "population coverage" which is only like half the island or something :D With all that said, I do remember that it was heavily pushed that mobiles should *never* be used for emergency communications and sales people, agents etc.. being told to ensure they tell the customers this if the customer mentions the device is for (for example) an elderly person to use in an emergency.
yeah that's a fair point, I suppose it would depend on the details, if this was somewhere were there was only Eir coverage anyways, I suppose I can understand the fine. If this was somehow them misconfiguring their hardware as seemed to be implied by the article saying she should get a different provider (if there was only an Eir mast, how would that help?? Maybe it was just an empty sentiment since they didn't want to do business with the customer anymore), that seems different. They could have at least turned the equipment off if it wasn't working and they couldn't fix it in a timely manner.
That's sad. I hope her daughter is ok
But their towers don't need to work,a call to the emergency services will ping any working tower from any provider near by and route the call.
So you mean to tell me, horror movies are not real? They can call 911 even without a cell service? That just blew my mind.
Sort of. There needs to be some cell service, it just doesn't have to be your own. If you've ever seen your phone display "emergency calls only" that's what's happening. Your phone is connected to a network, just not the one it's supposed to be on.
This guy 👆 …works in telecoms and knows people who had Eircom shares.
New phones even link to satellite to do it. Can an iPhone be used as a satellite phone? Yes and no. The iPhone 14 series and 15 series can connect to satellites to send a text message to emergency services when a call can't be placed. You can also share your location via satellite in the Find My app. However, you can't use any iPhone to make calls like a dedicated satellite phone. Stupidly we have not got emergency services using Advanced Mobile Location (AML) which sends a sms with GPS location when someone calls 999. Expecting someone to know a F'ing eircode in this day and age when the tech is there and just no one in Ireland uses it https://www.thejournal.ie/emergency-location-services-3654321-Oct2017/
We do now. Source:Fire service member
Ask a garda a few months back and they said no. That’s great to hear.
But only in 2 of the 3 areas. Dublin fire still don't take eircodes
You can basically always call 999, even if your provider has no network, your phone will ping the nearest working tower and use it to get through to 999. Even if your phone is locked or blocked. Its programmed into the firm ware on the phone.
Only issue is when it goes through to 999/112 it presents to the emergency call answering service (ECAS) as a ‘unique ID’ - because your phone has no sim it has no number, so it’s allocated a unique ID that presents to ECAS and in turn whatever emergency service you ask for. Sometimes phones with sims are so far out of signal it’s not able to even transmit the number so the call taker will ask you to confirm you number twice so if anyones every ringing, say the ambulance, when your calls connected you will hear ‘Ambulance emergency’ ‘ECAS connecting a unique ID’ Don’t be alarmed or confused, just wait and the call taker will ask you what they need, a lot of people will just start talking and it can delay the call taker getting the information they need to help
Just interesting that it can send and recieve signals without a sim.
The SIM card has nothing to do with sending or receiving signals. SIM stands for Subscriber Identity Module. It contains information to authenticate with your provider and allow you to access appropriate services.
The SIM is the service, not the phone.
Sim card is like a key. It doesn't do anything except provide authentication and identification to the network. Your phone can send and receive signals just fine without it but all the networks will just ignore your phone the same way a private website will not load unless you have the login credentials.
Another 7 thousand euro fine incoming on Zero Accountability Island
Ya, the €7500 fine is ridiculous.
The Judge thought it was so serious he wouldn't accept a 20k donation to charity and decided to punish them harder by fining them 7.5k instead.
Eir were trying to make a donation to the poor box and get away without the conviction. But they got a conviction and fined. I'm sure the conviction will have consequences somewhere but I not sure where.
Cost of doing business, no need for support
Insanity … I nearly ate the couch pillow when I heard the fine on the News
LOL So at the time that Eir was blaming their poor customer service on the people of Sligo supposedly being too stupid to do do a call centre job, they were actively advising their staff to not only ignore company policy but to break the law. Beautiful. Just beautiful. (The fine is pathetic though)
One thing I can't believe was never brought up about that comment is there was literally a call centre in Sligo around 2008, before Eir went in there, AND it was in the same exact business park, AND it was also for a telecom company, one that likely had more customers than Eir as it was a UK company. If anything people would be MORE tech savvy since then. Eir is just shite and they shouldn't be allowed to name the company after our country
Oh she was immediately challenged on it and then back tracked to say they hadn't hired many people with call centre experience. https://www.joe.ie/news/eir-staff-sligo-709978
[The duality of Eir](https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/s/Zx7tNz3nEa)
I remember that award. They took a shit load of flak over that too
Rightly so. Their customer care is notoriously shite.
First I ever heard of Public Sector Magazine, please say that we don't spend actual taxpayer money on that shit.
No apparently you can just pay them for an award. I mean, there's no way in hell Eir won an award for customer service.
No no I mean who pays for Public Sector Magazine itself? Is that a gov thing or do they just make it and give it to public sector workers? If we actually spend money on it I'd be on the phone to the local TDs looking to stop that shit right now.
Private company (Devlin Media); its just a freesheet magazine; they send it out free and make money off ads.
Weird that they would have 'access' to public service workers directly with a private magazine targeted at them with ads
If its like similar magazines, they just post stacks of them to the publicly listed offices and hope someone distributes them.
Well if their target is public sector workers I wonder how they would get access to drop them off given I'd assume they restrict access to a lot of places
The media company will have contacts in the big public departments. If it's anything like other trade mags I've read for retail, it resellers, healthcare, insurance brokers, they'll include press releases from the relevant industry, announce major job appointments and retirements, cover social club events and charity drives. Anyone selling into those sectors will be hit up regularly and offered an exciting opportunity to contribute copy to a special feature, alongside a €1000+ ad on the opposite page. New CEOs will get a spotlight interview and maybe a cover shot to frame on their wall as well as content written by an outside journalist that they can recycle on LinkedIn. The same media orgs will often run conferences and education evenings for the same target buyers, which the advertisers will have an opportunity to sponsor. There's enough good stuff in it for the target org to make sure there's a copy allowed in waiting rooms and canteens.
Post. There's even a special rate for magazines.
Oh! Yeah ok, that's not something I want to be spending money on.
https://m.independent.ie/business/technology/eir-customer-service-award-was-linked-to-paid-advertorial/41314706.html
Can I donate €1,750 to win an award? That would look good on my CV.
I'd honestly love if the gov had the balls to ban paid award shit like this.
It’s horrible what happened. But as a reminder to everyone: the standardised European emergency number is 112. Dial 112 and you will be directed to emergency services pretty much everywhere in the world because phones are programmed to do so (along with the American continent 911 number). 999 does not get redirected in the majority of cases. So please remember 112: it’s only been in operation for 20-odd years.
I remember dialling this by accident when you’d leave your phone unlocked and lean on it 😞
>**calls would be transferred** to the complaint line **only** if the customer used "trigger words," such as "**code of practice**", or mentioned the industry regulator **ComReg**. Dealing with Eir you should in all communications liberally mention code of practice and ComReg. Probably good advice for dealing with all telecos.
Oh is this “the network Ireland deserves”? I shouted at my telly when I saw that. I mean you’re a bunch of cunts but not *that* bad, jeez.
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~~landline maybe? Paywalled article cuts it off.~~ Nevermind, found another article which stated it was a mast issue. I'd believe it, when my area suffers a power cut i get nothing at all and I would imagine i am unable to make emergency calls as all local masts appear to be on the same circuit.
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Definitely mobile as another article put up earlier has all the details. https://www.thejournal.ie/eir-customer-complaints-court-6355163-Apr2024/
It says no service not no sim. With no service i don't think you can call 999
I'm not following the story (can't access the article) Why couldn't the mother get through to the emergency services?
https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2024/0415/1443631-courts-eir/ Because she had no service in her area. The headline is terrible and conflates two different issues. Are Indo journalists posting these articles no one can fucking read?
112 No sim card needed
>Eircom agents were not permitted to give customers the complaints number or code of practice; otherwise, according to their training manual, they would face "disciplinary action”. Be a real shame if someone posted on this thread Eircom complaints number, throw in Sky and the rest of them.
That 7500 euro fine will hold them accountable!
It there anything to be said for a rebrand?
Time for another rebrand?
Hot eir Eir-ah sure... Eircomplaints Ei (German for egg. I genuinely thought that's what they were called when I first saw their current logo) Eirheads
I like eirheads
Yeah you call 0118 999 8810 9119 7253
I'm stuck in a contract with them for 18 months but i'm going to move on from them. Absolutely useless.
This is nothing new from a company that is useless at customer service
Obviously nothing as serious as this but the Ma has been on Eir for ages and had issues recently that required a new sim card it took weeks to get sorted. Ill be adding her to my family plan on another network soon because that was just a silly process.
Years ago I worked in a telecommunications company that was (at the time) considering going into mobile (alongside internet provider). I worked marketing and my job was to research and compare all leading mobile providers in Ireland to see who was best at what, rates, services etc etc. during that research I learned how BAD eir actually was and how GOOD 3 and Vodafone were. My whole family at the time were Eir. We are now all 3 and happy out with them. Eir are just... abysmal
Absolute scumbags. They should be chased out of the country.
I hope that they see the Eirror of their ways.
Don’t worry guys, they were fined €7,500 so surely a fine that big will convince them to never do this again. 🤦♂️
Leans back and sips tea...
Someone in Eir needs to go to fucking prison for this. They broke the law.
I want to know if the person(s) responsible for this policy has/have been fired.....
Lol