Over the last few weeks we have been having problems with our internet connection. For some reason, without warning, we’d lose connectivity. Just like that. And it was often as I sat down with a cup of tea after work to catch up on all my blog reading. As you can imagine, I was less than amused.
After re-setting our router hundreds of times as per the limited trouble-shooting options in the accompanying manual, I even unplugged all the telephony filters, blew into them knowingly, re-plugged them but even this piece of advanced technological DIY had no positive effect. Banging the table with a clenched fist didn’t work either.
Things became so bad last week that after much weighing up of the situation, I decided to take action. Now, I deliberated because taking action meant that I would have to telephone our internet provider, BT. (British Telecom) and I’ve been down that unfulfilling path before.
When a company has ‘British’ attached to its title, one is lured into a false sense of security that you’ll be dealt with by a team of dedicated, polite and efficient customer care advisors who really do sympathise with your plight. In the same way as flying BA (British Airways – the world’s favourite airline, according to their advertising), one expects a certain superior level of service but these days this is about as far from reality as me getting to grips with long division using the chunking method.
So I ‘phoned and got through to the automated numbered instruction routine. After keying my telephone number into the keypad as requested about fourteen times I was still no nearer to speaking to a human being. There has to be a quicker way to do this, surely. I was getting madder. Patience with telephone answering systems is not my virtue, especially as one of the messages informed me that I could get help by looking at their website.
NO, I COULDN’T.
In exasperation I slammed the receiver down, tried the internet connection again – unsurprisingly, no change there. I paced the kitchen until a bright idea began to emerge. Why not telephone the BT sales team? I was betting that they would be available to chat about all their wonderful offers right away without all this ‘press one for Bill, press two for Direct Derrick’ (whoever he is) etc. I bet the good old sales team will be right on the money.
I scavenged around in the home file to find an old phone bill and yes, hallelujah, a direct line for the sales department. I was on to something here.
Without too much preamble Sales very helpfully put me straight through to the engineers (there’s a tip for the rest of you BT customers out there …) where I spoke to an actual person. A well-spoken, Queen’s-English-sort-of-a-person, who talked me through a simple procedure involving the unravelling of a wire paperclip and its insertion into my BT Home Hub (router).
Hidden at the back of the home hub is a tiny, barely visible hole, into which I poked said paperclip. This apparently resets something that the engineers can then use to change its frequency.
The reason we were losing connection so frequently was because so many of our neighbours were using the same wavelength at the same time. Not any more, thanks to my trusty paperclip.
Where would technology be without them?
charactersfromthekitchen 
Brilliant, Jenny! I see a furture for you in computer repair. Funny you posted this today. I spent the better part of yesterday on the phone with our internet provider, as well as the computer manufacturer.
Like you, I dread calling the IP company, it’s always a nightmare. Of course yesterday was no exception. I went around and around with this woman, who kept saying, “It appears your modem is working fine.” No joke, she said it at least 12 times! I had already explained to her it was working fine because my laptop had a connection.
My problem was with a new desktop I was trying to set up. After 1 1/2 hours of utter frustration, neither company could fix my problem. I spent another hour messing with it myself and by some miracle I got the new computer to connect. If only I had known, it might have been a simple as a paperclip.
Oooh Jill, you’re brave, setting your computer up yourself. I couldn’t do that. When we did have a family desk top I paid for a technician to come and do it for us. None of the computer jargon makes any sense to me at all. Now we’ve all got our own laptops which were virtually ready to go from the shop, everything seemed much simpler until we had this connection problem. Hopefully it’s all sorted now and I can blog away uninterrupted! 🙂
Amazing! I am so glad you found a way to solve this. What a smart person you are to solve the problem by going the old-fashioned route of calling the engineer at the phone company!! And how amazing, too, they solved it the old-fashioned way of using a paperclip of all “technological” tools!!!
So the moral of this tale is – always keep a paperclip handy. I’m pleased to say that I have a little tin of multi coloured ones – but you would probably have guessed that, Hollis! 😉
Yup, I would have! In my studio now, figuring out how to hook up WiFi…. AND low and behold, two crumpled looking colored paperclips were on my work table and who did I think of?
Me? Was it me? !!! 🙂
A wondrous thing is a paperclip, with a thousand uses as well as clipping paper. I never thought of it as the latest high-tech gizmo though, so that’s 1001.
Maybe we should start a running post noting down how many uses people have actually found for them. That could be quite fun … 😉
Love it! Very typical of BT – I must remember to tell Jan that, next time we move (because it always happens then!)
Thing is, it’s almost a case of ‘better the devil you know’ because I have friends who are with other providers and they are even worse.
I’m sure this experience wasn’t as funny for you as it was for me reading about it. Glad you’re up and running again – where will we be years down the line when we only have virtual paperclips 🙂
Andrea – it doesn’t bear thinking about. Have you seen a 3D printer? It blew my mind – can’t understand it at all, so I don’t think virtual paperclips are very far behind.
Glad I made you laugh though. 🙂
I have seen them – I used to be so computer literate, but now I feel I’m falling further and further behind 🙂
It’s so good to have you back! I’ve been sorely missing the rants. I love your wry observation regarding the limited options trouble shooting options in the manual 🙂
I’ve been without telephone before but the idea of being without internet is inifintely worse.
Isn’t it interesting how reliant we’ve become on something that wasn’t even around twenty odd years ago. I must do a post some time on my life in an office with a typewriter. I feel like an antique! 🙂
I’ve had a run in with BT a few times and I always use the tried and tested “I’d like to speak to your supervisor” whenever I don’t get the answer I’m looking for. Once you’ve been bumped up two or three rungs of the corporate ladder you finally get to people who can make decisions.
If it’s any consolation, BT are a dream compared to Deutsche Telecom in Germany. We always think of Germans and efficient but they are just as inefficient as the rest of us, it’s just all their inefficiency is based in one company. They were terrible. I would much rather deal with BT’s automated system than the shower at Deutsche Telecom.
Well that’s the thing Dylan – talking to others about their internet providers and the horrors they have experienced makes me think I should stick with BT and make sure I never lose the number of their sales department.
I must say I’m very surprised about the Germans – I always thought they were models of efficiency. Maybe that only stretches as far as their cars.
Oh, Jenny, I LOVED this post. If you had replaced “British” with “American” (and removed some of your charming Brit words and expressions I enjoy so much) this could have been an American Tale.
The creation of paper clips is second only to penicillin (okay, and maybe Twinkies and gin and hot toddies, too) for improving quality of life.
I made stunning paper-clip jewelry for my mom for Mother’s Day when I was eight. When I was eleven and wanted to straighten my own front teeth I adjusted a big paper clip to fit snugly over my front four teeth…okay, I chipped one, but I was just learning how to use paper clips correctly.
Oh yes, I’ve done the jewellery thing too – but how much prettier it would look these days with the multi coloured clips on the market now!
I laughed out loud thinking about you creating your own teeth braces.
Funny, I went through a phase at about that age of being envious of kids with braces – I never had to wear them.
Jenny, I feel your pain as a BT customer!!! I absolutely dread having to call them. The last time I was on for almost an hour doing battle because I queried my bill, which had gone up despite being on a contract. Anyway, I won’t go into that but you can just imagine… But the last time I had a router problem was a nightmare. I did what you did though, went through sales (that works every time doesn’t it) and finally got the problem sorted but what a major hassle. Why didn’t I get to use a paperclip, that’s what I want to know? Great to know that you are up and running again – and we all bow down to the simple paperclip! Great post Jenny, missed you last week 🙂
I can understand the dread. I know I am in for a long haul if I have to ring them although I must say, the sales route was effective and once I was actually speaking to an engineer, it didn’t take long for them to tell me what to do and for them to rectify the situation. They were also very pleasant about it. How much better BT would be perceived if it were possible to get through to a competent human straight away. I just don’t understand their rationale with all this automated stuff – it just gets us customers more riled.
Hurrah for paperclips. The most under estimated gadget of them all.
We didn’t have these problems 20 years ago. Oh, yes, we didn’t have the internet 20 years ago, at least not in the guise we have now. Resetting the router is the next best thing after resetting the computer. It’s when that fails you know you’re in trouble. Our connectivity was up and down like a drunken kangaroo last year when we discovered through our neighbour that we probably didn’t have a phone signal either! (Just goes to show how often we use the landline). Eventually we found out that it was due to water getting into an exchange somewhere nearby, and I did log a call via email. Have you noticed how difficult it is to find support email addresses for BT? Goodness knows what effect all the recent flooding has had on peoples’ broadband. Nice to see you back Jenny 🙂
Thanks Jude. I know that we are on the end of a line and BT have apologised in the past because our broadband speed isn’t as quick as it should be – but I can live with that given what I use the internet for. It might be a bit different if I was constantly needing to download or send massive files.
Anyway, we seem to be running reasonably well now, so long may it continue. If not – I have a full tin of paperclips at the ready. 🙂
So many details here ‘ring’ a proverbial ‘bell,’ including the resolution to your difficulty. Things are no different here! My solution to an endless voice menu is to continually push 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 … eventually the system gets frustrated and promises to connect me to a moderately intelligent humanoid! I might add that I absolutely got nuts when the synthesized operator announces, ‘For your convenience …,’ and then proceeds to walk me hrough the seemingly infinite number of menu selections. ARGH! That sort of system IS NOT, in fact, convenient. For the phone company, perhaps, but not for the end user. Thanks for providing validation today. D
Judging by everyone’s comments here it appears that there are potentially millions of us with the same issues! With so many people out of work, wouldn’t it be more sensible to start training some of them to be front line customer service assistants? Not a bad thing for folk to be taught to be polite – something that unfortunately is over looked in the me, me, me society of today. However, when I finally did get to talk to the engineer, they were charming and articulate and solved my problem swiftly.
Thanks for calling in and commenting.
I missed you – glad that you are back! 🙂 Yes, paper clips can be amazingly helpful. A few years back, someone here in Canada parlayed a paper clip into a house by trading on the internet – maybe you heard about this? It was called “One Red Paperclip.” I think this has been copied a lot now but it was quite an idea when it first came out.
It’s ringing vague bells, Lynette – I will ask my son about it – it’s the sort of thing that would appeal to him!
I’m giving thought to 21 favourite things, by the way. Watch this space, as they say 😉
Great! Looking forward to it! 🙂
I would never have thought of phoning the sales team in a million years Jenny, and am in awe of your practicality. ‘Jade-smash-now’ is my favoured solution, but thankfully my Tom has learnt that technology and I do not get on and usually manages to rescue/ fix it. Jx
Haha Jade – it sounds as if you two are a match made in heaven. Try the sales option but don’t get brow-beaten into buying something you don’t want! 🙂
Oh, how I hate (yes a strong word, and yet not nearly strong enough) dealing with utility companies. Here in the USA it is the same as in the UK. There is never a good experience, but one horrific one popped into my head as I read about yours.
Our internet stopped working, and after my husband, who is a computer technician for a living could not restart it, called our internet/phone provider. They informed him a rival internet/phone provider told them to shut off our service, because we were changing to theirs. We said we were not changing and to please restart our service. They said they would. Five hours later, when it did not restart, we called again and were told we did not have the authority to start the internet. Well, pardon me, but we pay for it, so who better to have the authority. They said the alternative provider gave the shut off order, and therefore would need to approve the start up.
How ridiculous can you get. First, it is against the federal regulations for any provider to tell another provider to turn someone’s equipment off, for an obvious good reason. Profit.
Nevertheless, after much back and forth, getting no where, we called the other provider, and of course, they wouldn’t call our provider. Why? Because it is against the law.
Calling our provider back, still yielded no help. Now we are done with it, and them, and so we tell them to shut off the phone service as well, as we will go elsewhere for these services. Are you ready for it? They tell us we are not allowed to turn off our phone service. Our response is, they shall have to collect the future charges from whoever is authorized, since we will not be paying.
We were billed 3 more months, before they finally shut it off, and then put us in collection for the unpaid bills. I sent them a letter, giving them the address for the offending rival company, and told them we would die before ever sending them a penny. When the dun collector called, we told him not to call again, and all future contact should be by mail. And you know where that ended up.
Oh Holly, I can feel your rage building as you are recounting your dreadful experience. That is absolutely shocking.
Here in the UK we have a prime time TV consumer watch programme where people can call in with incidents just like this one you are describing. The company will get hung out to dry, lots of bad publicity and are made to recompense/apologise to the customer.
Did you consider going to the media with this? I think you would have a strong case for coverage, certainly in your local press.
I do hope you re sorted now and with a provider that you can trust. (If indeed there is such a thing).
Thank you for checking in – I’d been thinking about you recently 🙂
Jenny I always read your posts, But do not usually comment. I guess you could see that this one just rang my bell. lol
This is another post I’m sure people around the world can relate to, Jenny. We had a similar problem some months ago, and our telecom company was equally useless (your descriptions are hilarious). Come to think of it, our telecom company is probably more useless than old BT. After I’d called and got nowhere, my husband made the call as well, thinking we might get some results if they talked to a man (and we figured out the trick to speaking with a human is: just keep pressing zero until it frustrates the system). Telecom’s message to us: “We provide you the service, not the WiFi connection. Everything on our end is working fine.” In other words: “Hmm. Well, it sucks to be you. Sorry.” Luckily my husband is clever and handy (great combination), and he was able to purchase a doo-hickey box that that rerouted the WiFi connection or whatever. I wish ours could have been solved by the paper clip. I’m filing this away for future reference. Great, entertaining post 🙂
Thanks Gwen. I’m sorry to hear you’ve had similar experiences – what is wrong with these companies? Why are we, the public, expected to know how this sort of technology works? Why is it so difficult to speak to a person? I see that one of my other commenters favours the pressing of 0 0 0 0 until something happens. I must say, I haven’t thought of that one so I shall keep it in mind for the next time I get onto some automated site.
It’s not as if we all pay peanuts for these wretched services 🙂
My first thought reading this was did you know that although Apple makes everything so incredibly exclusive, down to providing a gadget with which to open your ‘phone, a paper clip does the same trick. They actually tell you that too 😀
Next, you write ‘phone like I do. Age uh? But I also write ‘plane and ‘flu when I don’t write them out in full.
Gibtelecom aren’t bad. ‘Hello madam how can I help you,’ sort of style, they have technicians on during the day and a limited 24 hour service where they can sort basic problems.
Spanish telefonica on the other hand ….. to cut the story short, I decided to close the account. I needed my passport number to close it. Um, in the meantime I’d changed passports. I have kept all my old ones, but I could have got rid of it. Either way it was irrelevant as neither my old nor my new number suited them!!
They kept sending bills and I kept not paying. I think I’m on the bad debtors register in Spain 😀
And if you ring sales in Spain where they speak English, they tell you to ring technical (not put you through) where they don’t speak English. Technical tell you to ring sales about a technical issue because sales speak English. Despite the fact I’m having the conversation with Technical in Spanish (because they don’t speak English). Or they tell you to get a friend to translate. What part of Yo hablo español do they not understand?
Utility companies, don’t you just love them? Do you remember the days when they were called public utilities? hahaha Privatisation is a wonderful thing is it not?
Interesting about the apostrophes. I tend to use them when the word is a verb but not when a noun. Figure that one out.
Gibtelecom sound delightfully old fashioned – long may they continue but I fear it may only be a matter of time …
Maybe it’s your accent. I had a similar experience in northern France where they thought I was from Provence. While this was quite flattering that at least they thought I was a fellow countryman/woman/person I’m wondering if Provencal sounds to the French as a heavy Glaswegian or Scouse accent sounds to the delicate ears of a Southern Englander. (Or even Brummie … 😉 )
Utilities – yes – generally a pain in the rear. I’ll be tackling British Gas soon when I have a spare afternoon and plenty of strength.
It is truly amazing how businesses can continue to operate with such a terrible attitude toward customer service. The face is that many organizations have discovered that putting more attention in that direction not only keeps customers happy, but more importantly for them, tends to boost profitability as it attracts more customers and encourages customers to purchase additional products and features they would not dare try knowing the accompanying support would be so bad.
Do you have any options in your region or are you under the thumb of a monopoly? If you have options you might consider at least finding other customers and finding out if they get better service.
That problem they fixed is a fairly common one. Most routers can broadcast on several “channels” with most defaulting to 6, near the centre of the spectrum. It’s generally a good idea to move away from the popular ones.
Are you an android user? If you are you can download a free app called inssider (yes double s is correct) which can help optimize wireles by showing which channels are the best for you. I used it a few years ago when I experienced similar issues and it’s been quite a help several times since.
Speaking of customer service one of the weekly podcasts I enjoy is called :Under the influence.” It’s generally about marketing and is quite entertaining. Last week’s episode was about…guess what…customer service. If you are interested, here’s the website:
http://www.cbc.ca/undertheinfluence/podcasts/
Back in the day I cut my career teeth working for a company which prided themselves in their customer service. They still do. They secure lifelong customers and even though I haven’t worked for them for nearly a quarter of a century, I won’t hear a word against them. In the recent dark days of the recession they were the only retail chain swimming in the right direction up our nation’s high streets. They have managed to confound all the business analysts by turning in consistent results and their company ethos towards their customers has never wavered. (Can you tell I did PR for them? 🙂 )
There isn’t a monopoly in our areas for internet providers and I have talked to friends and colleagues who are with other suppliers. Unfortunately they report similar if not worse experiences – so the grass isn’t greener. We’ll just stick with it I guess, pay huge amounts each month for the privilege of getting heated trying to contact them once or twice a year.
As far as apps go – I’m a bit of a dinosaur but I’m sure my son will understand and explain to me in words of one or two syllables – we’ll check it out later.
And thanks for the link – I’ll have a look at that later too.
Reminds me of the high-tech piece of kit I have which the advisor told me to re-set with the end of a biro. It worked.
I hope you use a Bic. They are my favourite.
I love your tenacity and thinking outside the box to get through to a real person.Getting stuck in the automated menu drives me nuts, especially when they don’t offer the thing on the menu I need to talk someone about.
You’re so right – those menus are useless! They make usually calm people very stressed indeed!
You’re so witty. What a great essay! And we’re strangely on the same brain-wave circuit again, as my husband and I came up with that “call the sales team” idea just a few weeks ago.
I had a nightmare of a time after my computer crashed in January, but things are flowing quite well now, with my new iMac.
I won’t even mention how many hours I spent on the phone with tech-advisors. I think I could BE one, now, that I’ve learned so many tricks (including the paperclip one!) 😉
I have discovered the most helpful young man in our local mobile phone shop so now if I have a problem or query about my new android, I know where to go. We’re almost on first name terms …
But as for the landline, well – from now on I shall just go straight through to the Sales department!
It really IS all about connecting with the right people… 🙂
Ah Jenny, you’ve described to perfection how we’re at the mercy of these companies….they seem to delight in sending us ring a ring a roses round the phone line extensions, as if we’ve all the time in the world to hang on in there with gritted teeth…. and Internet Connections? We’ve had Dial up (not to be recommended) then Virgin, ( highly irritating) and now Sky Package with ‘Wifi’… which we (touch wood) haven’t had any problems with. (‘cepting a few re-boots of the Sky box as a last resort) …. Paper clips? What a great idea… I have a few ToothPicks handy for the Pinhole technique.. My Tablet (new purchase and still getting to grips) named Norbert, froze last week and I feared the worst, … but on reading the (what I call…’destructions.’) Instructions I found there was a pinhole for factory reset, thank goodness though it also said press the on/off button for ten seconds.. and it ACTUALLY worked. Phew!! I had been pressing every button just for the pleasure of doing anything, BUt I suppose actually 10 seconds is far longer than you think. So, calm thoughts and proceed with caution is the order of modern day I suppose? 🙂 xPenx
I love that you call your tablet Norbert – he should get together with my camera who I christened Damian.
Calm thoughts are definitely the order of the day – and every day, actually – what with all this technology stuff that none of us (well, most) don’t understand 🙂
Jenny I left BT some years ago as I got tired dialing and speaking to machines and little people. I have decided it was not going to be the paper clip that will save me but myself. I have tried other option and never regreted it. I even become a distributor for this company as from many years ago I only followed the recomendation of ‘which’ and this company was on top of their list they still are try my site and check http://www.telecomplus.org.uk/dlsaving
Thanks for the link Doron – very interesting. I will flag it for further consideration. Which? magazine is always a good recommendation – they have been running for years and are to be trusted, I think 🙂
Jenny thank you very much have a great weekend.
It just makes my head spin when the help message suggest you go to the website for more help.
I’ve used up quite a few paperclips in my time – and straightened out wire coat hangers too – less technical but super efficient when dealing with drains and plumbing,
Ah yes, where would we be without those wire coat hangers. I remember driving around in a very old Ford Escort years ago which had a wire coat hanger as a radio antennae. And very efficient it was too.