Friday, March 29, 2024

FROM THE RIDGE: Bungling service Sparks venting of spleen

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I’m going to vent my spleen. But first, this term deserves some consideration. In European medicine from medieval times until the 19th century it was believed the spleen was the source of anger and, therefore, anger could be expelled by venting the spleen.
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The spleen is a somewhat mysterious organ. It stores fresh blood, it destroys worn-out blood cells, it filters foreign substances and it produces products to fight infection. Yet it can be removed from the body and other organs easily take over its duties.

Venting indicates something physical will be expelled but, in my case, other than steam coming out my ears, nothing else has appeared. Yet.

I’m not one to complain in this column so you may well ask what has brought this on.

One word. Spark.

My early internet connection in the mid 1990s was with a little Wellington outfit called Voyager but a few years later Telecom introduced its internet offering over our copper wires and, like many New Zealanders, we took up the option. The email address below is 20 years old.

It was clunky and slow but all we knew in those days and, as all I did on-line was email, served its purpose. But when it rained the joins in the 45-year-old lines killed the internet and the phone system as well at times.

So, we went to a Telecom wireless option and could just get the service with an aerial on the roof. It was relatively expensive and only a modest improvement.

Then Lachlan, with his excellent little start-up company, Aonet brought decent and well-priced wireless broadband to our valley and has now expanded throughout the province. I grabbed it with both hands four or five years ago.

Of all the technological innovations and improvements in my farming business over the last 35 years, his contribution is one of the best.

Spark, as Telecom is now called, finally realised our internet wasn’t with them after all this time and sent me an email a couple of weeks ago saying I have to pay to maintain my email address.

I had a good look at their email given the large number of spam Spark emails that come through, not to mention all the hundreds of other ones their crap spam filters miss, and it looked genuine.

I had to book a call from one of their reps and sure enough at the designated time, they rang me back and half way through telling them that yes, I’d like to pay to keep my email, they disconnected the call.

I waited for them to ring me back but they didn’t and I then had to book another call, which wasn’t until the following day.

They rang me and this time I had Nigel. I know several people called Nigel and they are fine fellows but I’ve always had difficulties with Nigels in the service industry. But this fellow seemed okay. I agreed to pay the $6 each month and he said he would be able to add it to my Spark cellphone.

Job done, one would think.

Four days ago, my email stopped working. I couldn’t download emails and everyone phoned to tell me what they were sending me was bouncing back.

I rang the number and first opportunity for a call back was six hours later so I made sure I was back at the house.

Sure enough, Mary rang me and I explained nicely that Nigel had not done his job as agreed and could she please sort it. I am trying to run a business and my life in general and need my email back. She found the problem. Nigel had charged the fee to my landline even though I had given him the cellphone number and account number and even though our Spark landline account had not been active for four years as the excellent Lachlan charges me just $10 whereas they used to charge me $100.

Mary swore on her life that she had rectified the error but it would take a few hours to reset and I said that was fine and thanks.

Next day I was still not able to send or receive emails.

I booked a call with Spark and true to their word, 18 hours later they rang me at exactly the time they said they would.

Sebastian was my call centre mate this time. I asked him what country the call centre was based and was somewhat surprised they were indeed in Auckland. I had always had this naive belief in the competence of Kiwis, now shattered.

After another explanation he was able to tell me that although Mary had indeed charged my cellphone account she had neglected to reinstate my email address. One might have thought this was a large part of the discussion I had had with the woman.

He said he would do it promptly. I was reluctant to let him go and made him do his thing then tried to log into my email account without success.

He said it might take a little time but I had heard this before quite recently. I said surely if he had fixed it I should be now able to receive and send emails. He agreed that was a reasonable assumption.

I was still not keen to end the call on the promise that it would start working soon.

To get rid of me, he gave me his cellphone number.

I have since texted him to say it’s not bloody working and to his credit he has replied to say he will investigate it when he is next back at work.

I see Spark chief executive Simon Moutter is paid over $2.5 million and can’t quite figure why.

The possibility of suing Spark for this shambles and costing my business is crossing my mind if they have this much money to burn.

Having vented my spleen and written this, I am now going to create a Gmail account so I can send it to my editor.

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