I decided to get to the bottom of this story which concerns me directly above all to underline the lack of centrality and interest in customers by this company. On social media, other harassed customers have pointed out to me that it is a widespread practice. That is not just about Fastweb. I have no doubt that it is a widespread practice. However, I can only describe the damage and disservice I have experienced and continue to experience.
I am getting past the hundred days of waiting with no credible answer. A few hours after the first letter of protest addressed to the Fastweb Management Board (https://bit.ly/3zRdzrN) I received the first phone call. Excuses identical to the first twenty calls but with a different goal. Find out if anyone in their structure – directly or indirectly – had rowed against the company. The employee wanted to understand from me if there were internal responsibilities that had put the company in a bad light. As if I cared about their internal issues. The discomfort they caused me remained in the background. She sympathized with me but, evidently, that was not their problem. It was mine.
Kind as those who know they are wrong, they tried to reassure me not so much about the timing (which was my goal) but about the fact that the entire company (?) would take charge of the problem. To my simple question: “yes, okay, but when can it be solved?” No reply. A nice reference to another office. As usual. My interlocutor told me that she would be on vacation this week but that her bosses would take over the problem anyway. “So the solution is imminent?” I ventured. “I am not able to assure you that but I will personally monitor the situation and I will keep you updated” she replied.
The call ended with a moderate hope that the solution could be foreseen within a reasonable time. After three months, it seemed like a decent expectation. Pure illusion. The cold shower came yesterday. With a phone call that they intended as “courtesy”, the face of the inefficient company showed itself once again for what it is. All through an assistant who, without any personal fault, communicated to me: “I was instructed to call you to inform you that your request to activate the line in your new residence is blocked due to a technical problem”. To the obvious question of what was that technical problem, considering that I have been waiting three whole months in vain, the answer I got was a farce once again: “I don’t know, I only made this phone call out of courtesy so that you can appreciate our interest in your satisfaction. To make you aware of the state of the art. The rest is not up to me. It depends on the technicians who, however, are unable to formulate a diagnosis or foresee a date”.
We are at the paradox. When asked for a credible date, the employee mechanically repeated the text learned in some company-training course: “you are right, I called you out of “courtesy” and the activation date depends on the technical office which, however, confirms there is a technical problem and therefore is unable to formulate a date”.
This went on for several minutes because every time I asked a question to try to understand what the technical problem was, the answer I got was every time the same: “you are right, I called you out of “courtesy” and the activation date depends on the technical office which, however, confirms there is a technical problem and therefore is unable to formulate a date”.
I ask myself is how it is possible that a normal company is not able to explain the issue and possible solutions of a so-called technical problem that has been blocking a simple line move for three months (during which they pocket the relative tariff). Why they prefer to rely on a group of call center responders who, instead of leading the customer towards a solution path, destabilize them.
An unsolicited advice: close all these useless structures and take lessons from the big web operators. They know how to handle the customer. It is not fair to lash out with those poor people that the company sends to the trenches to face understandable complaints from angry customers. They just follow the orders from numerous bosses and managers who never bother to take responsibilities. They are too busy counting new consumers, because activating a new line has a greater impact on companies’ MBOs, comparing to moving an existing line.
What more can I say? See you at the next episode. Now, after the company’s management board and the reference shareholder, I have to search on the internet for all the managers of the parent company, the stakeholders and the sector media to make them participate in these organizational and managerial inefficiencies.