The consumer group called “Which? Computing” has recently carried out a survey involving 45 firms in order to find out what kind of telephone numbers the internet service providers use for giving technical support nowadays. It turned out that many of them used premium rate numbers for tech support.
Some possess free phone numbers whereas others only use numbers with high tariff. “Which? Computing” spokeswoman told BBC: “The cost of calls to Tesco broadband technical support is something we've been looking at and listening to customer feedback on. As a result we'll continue to provide a very high quality of technical expertise to all our broadband customers but calls will now be charged at a local rate. We'll be contacting all our customers as soon as possible to let them know about the change in price.” Sarah Kidner, the group’s editor told BBC that: „Some companies are using higher-cost numbers at their customers' expense.” and asked the question: „ If other companies can offer a free phone number, why can't they all?”
The reason for the premium rate number was that these companies would like to cover the costs of the technical support service; they had no intention of profiting from them; the revenues only served cost-covering purposes. The survey could also look into the matter of holding the line until one is connected. It seems this has improved recently as only 12% of the callers were dissatisfied.
No comments:
Post a Comment