Telstra call centres in crisis

Using SIEBEL is like trying to win the Undisputed World Heavy Weight Tag Team Championship wrestling belt with Owen Hart on your team!

"I'm an employee at the Australian Taxation Office, and we also use Siebel. It is a mess." Which consulting company implemented the project at ATO? You guessed it... ACCENTURE!

as a Telstra employee working with the new system and reading the above article it doesnt even begin to describe the amount of pressure and amount of money we as employees are loosing due to this new system. and the worst part is they dont care and dont listen. GET RID OF IT!!!

Another bit of rubbish from Andersons/Accenture. If they keep this up they will have to change their name again to hide from past mistakes.

If Siebel was rubbish then 'Oracle' wouldn't have bought the application back in 2005. It's not Siebel, it's the ridiculous dinosaurs in Telstra who persist on wanting new systems to replicate the old mainframe systems. Plus Telstra engaged Accenture, the McDonalds equiviliant of Consulting firms. You get what you paid for Telstra, maybe get some employee's who understand how Siebel works before getting in consultants. If you don't understand how it works, LEARN.

Career limiting move joining the facebook group?? Hardly, there is no movement for your 'career' in Telstra... no promotions unless without a pay increase.. remember those?? Well they're back!

The skills for Siebel should already be bedded down by these consultants. These consultants need to work harder, smarter and faster, and stop blaming their tools for their failure to meet their targets. This is a great system which makes servicing the customer easier. Get back to work and stop complaining.

LOL - and opinion polls say that Australia prefers this company to win the NBN tender???

I'm an employee at the Australian Taxation Office, and we also use Siebel. It is a mess. I sympathise (and I never thought I'd say this) with the Telstra workers.

Why is it that on the one hand it is considered obvious that an Australian mobile would work in Italy and vice versa; when on the other hand it is considered obvious that whilst an Italian software solution would work in Italy it would not in Australia? Is culture (an oft-cited reason) different when applications communicate but not when people communicate? Can anyone give an Austro-Italian or Italo-Australian viewpoint? Where's Umberto Eco when you need him?

Diago Sean once again prove himself to be both an ignoramus and a management sock puppet. This system is an absolute piece of crap. I feel sorry for the (understandably) irritated customers we serve; and for the first time, ashamed to work for Telstra.

So how do I buy share in this IT company. They must be laughing all the way to the bank!!

Pikey, this is kind of bullying attitude is just not limited to Telstra, it is almost in every company in this country. Blame it on our culuture of bullying and look down. About HR issue, I always say HR is pussy, time is gone when people used to be scared of HR. Now a days whosever has power and control can get away with everything. Having said that, I must say you were unfairly dealt with.

As a Telstra customer recently requiring assistance with a lost mobile phone and a bill which included calls made by the finder, I desperately needed a person to barr the phone. All the contacts on the website were interminably logjammed and my frustration rose. I then tried the number provided in the hard copy white pages and got through. The call centre person was very helpful but a little disappointed when (out of contract) I decided to finish doing business with Telstra altogether. There is a moral about customer focus somewhere. The multi million dollar Mr Trujillo should put his money where his mouth is I think.

I spent 2 hours, spoke to 10 or so people and none of them could fix my problem in regards to excess charges on my broadband. Its ridicolous how the government is letting Telstra get away with Theft. Optus needs to bring their A game so customers can move to them.

I have observed my long time friend who has worked for Telstra for over 11 years and never in that time have I seen her stressed the way she is stressed about this new software.She has weathered the multitude of changes over the eleven year period with ease but this new system far from being more efficient or better in any way is the biggest piece of "SH.....!" they have ever had to use.She and the staff around her are constantly being threatened with dismissal for "poor performance" and staff of many years have over the past few years since Sol has taken the helm got up from their seats and simply walked out due to all the "crap" that has been heaped upon them during that time.Far from congratulating Sol with bonuses he should be kicked out and someone with some idea of how to run the business effectively as well as a knowledge of how to treat staff as human beings instead of an automated answering centre shoulod be put in his place.The fact that my friend is among one of the many on stress leave (after only working for Telstra for 11 years)speaks for itself.Wake up Telstra!

I work for telstra's national customer relationship team (complaints department). We are supposedly the department to handle TIO complaints, fix system stuff ups and credit customers for their troubles. Let me tell you, this new system is an absolute joke. Some "priority assist" eldery customers have waited up to 3 months for a landline to be connected purely due to our new system siebel. It is awful to have to speak to angry customers and try and reassure them when there's nothing we can do to help- except wait and keep them updated on delays. Telstra has become such a negative working environment -I've never hated a job so much in my life. Someone employ me PLEASE!!

I rang up the other day trying to upgrade from DSL to cable. After waiting for 45 mins when finally someone pickup from the other end. I told the operator to cancel my connection and I switched to another company. If they are not providing any customer service when I'm trying to upgrade, I can't imagine what happen when I ask for technique support.

Telstra's CEO and upper management have worked out the 90% of the revune comes from 10% of the customers. Siebel is a system to allow them to work out who those 10% are the moment they come thru on the phone, if your a VIP customer your will get VIP service. If you are part of the 90%, then first you will be routed to a automatic computer, that will try to help you with simple tasks, if that fails, your call will go offshore and be answered by a Phillipino who gets paid less than $3 a hour, who isn't even trained about Australian culture, or accents. Call 1258880 option 1 option 1, and see if they can understand you. That is the future. The Call centre staff who are quiting make it easier to offshore more staff. Telstra under its American Leader, is following the American Telco model, right off the cliff, Have you seen the standard of living in America lately. Thats our future too.

Everyone out there that hasn't already, Change service providers! Telstra is a dinosaur. Your quality of life will jump 100%

I feel very bad for the telstra workers, having worked for foxtel during the period of their system change from a wonderful DOS based system (which we were advised would not be asble to handle upcoming develeopments) to a badly performing windows based program, which is apparently 'state of the art' From the time it was launched to the time I left (several months later due to stress), we had 30min to hour wait on a good day - if there was a Mainevent during this time, the event woul be half finished before you got through

To all the *current* Telstra employees who have joined the Facebook group http://tinyurl.com/55u7k4 - nice one guys, good career limiting event there.

Stuck with Telstra anyway. It's hell for us oldies, who receive a Pensioner discount. Please send those Crazy CEO'S back to FUNDA-LAND.

I work at Sensis, and management is much the same here (coincidental that a large chunk of the executive staff are imported from America?) Any form of feedback given to management ends up with you in a room with HR getting a warning. It's intimidating, and has resulted in an adverserial relationship between staff and management. I feel sorry for Telstra staff, but the culture seems to be leaking over to it's subsidiaries.

Having spent most of my working life in a call centre environment, I believe that the last thing an employee needs is a computer system that is slow or non-functioning- especially if there are key performance indictors inplace that has a component of call handling time. If it is true that the CPSU has asked ComCare to investigate the working conditions, then good for them.

this isnt new - this was happening 10 yrs ago when i worked for telstra and they introduced "helpdesk" it crashed all the time and made the job 10 times harder - this is just an update on that issue it seems - plenty of other phone companies out there people and for the people that work there - get out now

Mick of Adelaide, Tech Support and Res faults are open 24/7, everyday of the year

This new system is a joke, twice Telstra lost my work orders for new connections, and on the phone for an hour at a time, plus waiting time is a shocker. Then to ring Telstra for a query, and after pressing all options to be told that they are unavailable to take queries at this time, "ring back at another time" is disgraceful.

I have just recieved a disconnect notice because I haven't paid my bill. I rang and found out that the Credit Card payment that has worked so well over the last 5 years (even with new cards) no longer works in the new billing system. I was no where near the first person to call about this. Oh, and I still have to pay the $10 late payment fee. This and another issue had me onto the TIO yesterday.

I don't know about their CRM software, but the online billing system is a disaster. I end up in page loops, can't log in, can't make a payment or just hangs. I paid my bills for 3 months online as usual only to find that NONE of the payments had actually been made even though payment was confirmed.

Until Recently I worked for a company that was a Telstra Call centre, the stress the the staff are put under is unbelievable with orders constantly goining into error which results in customers connection just not happening then in turn can take weeks to actually get a connection. We are then reprimanded for not upselling to those same customers when they ring back to abuse us. The system goes down at least daily and we told to ask the customer ring back later after they have been on hold for god knows how long is this really adequate customer service ?

diago of melb & jussy of bris - you obviously have no idea what you are talking about. Ive worked for this company for 16 years and customers are no longer loyal and are looking for alternatives (I dont blame them ) - shares have not made any real improvements since Sol's takeover and his new it system is an absolute disgrace, just like the training and the support. Inadequate systems, inadequate training and inadequate support for the implementation of a whole new system. Tell me why do you think that Telstra has not migrated there business customers to the new billing platform - Let me tell you why, the consumer is like a pawn on the chess board the most dispensible piece. Another words is Telstra would not be game to put business on this inadequate system as the revenue loss would be massive. Most of the staff are good at their jobs, like any business with a large work force you will always get those who dont do the right thing. Telstra right now is in damage control, and too busy blaming consultants for the dodgy sytems that they introduced, which is amazing considering that no executives take customer calls nor do they have to work the new system - umm...

as telstra embed teh new system of course there will be teething problems. however, these are more than that. the problenms are astounding, yet the beneifts remain to be seen. they still have to transfer you from person to another to another. you can go from melbourne to manila to brisbane, all during one inquiry. ring back (as requested) a week later to see if your order has gone through. surprise! its hasn't. start all over again. there is a dreadful mess at telstra right now. lets hope they can fix it.

For those who are crowing because they are with optus you better watch out! Optus are implementing a new system too and it's also by assenture and it's already run into lots of problems. The problem is these managers see a sales presentation and sign up for these new systems - trouble is these new systems are nothing more than rehashes of systems already running elsewhere. An integrated system takes years to work it's way into a business and most busineses wrap their procedures around it which causes problems because new systems often are modular, so you end up with lots of components all operating independantly and talking to each others which always takes longer than an integrated system. They trade flexibility for productivity and the customer and workers suffer but management see it as a win because it's cheaper - but is it really cheaper? I don't think so. The money's in the implementation, not in getting it fine tuned - that's why assenture doesn't do production support of their products - just the easy bit. So look out, this is coming to optus too.

Now I have an explanation for the bungle that caused me to be on the phone to Telstra for 3 hours a few days back. 3 of 4 operators said my account was in credit, but could not explain why my phone was cut-off. After asking Telstra to reconnect please reconnect my phone if I was in fact in credit, the last operator was able to resolve that I was in fact in debit - but it took 4 operators to work this out.. Well done Telstra - class act. Oh! and by the way - the new system has done away with passwords. Now your name and date of birth is deemed sufficient for identification purposes....

Ho hum . . . what do you expect when you have an Italian system (software probably written in Italian) and try to adapt it to Australia. Have a look at www.cepuconnects.org for more information on how Telstra treats its staff.

I am now in the queue with Telstra Residential, so far in the queue for 49 mins. I hope I get to speak to someone before they close the call centre at 6pm (AEST). The time now is 5:49pm. Wish me luck !!

The training was not unpaid, it was after already doing a full days work and unfortunately the reporter got it wrong, we had 4 DAYS training but at least 2 of those days the system was down and not usable. When it was working it was akin to a flick and tick and we never got to do an actual order of any description

Petea of QLD..funny you should mention that ""Telstra would have to have one horrific workplace with a shocker of a wage agreement to match""... well we already have a horrific workplace and we have just been offered 12% payrise over 3 years which equates to LESS than CPI(consumer price index) and then telstra tells us that due to the Economic ""uncertainty"" they cant offer us anything better..... Sol gets his $13/$14million bonus tho. Minumum wages for the Front of House staff only is it??

I really do feel sorry for the call centre staff who have to take the calls. They get blasted by customers who are fed up with the screwups, and they get blasted by management who whinges when they dont meet targets. When software is fundamentally broken, as it would seem the software they use is, its no wonder you end up getting people answering the calls who actually try to be helpful, its because they have such a high turnover of staff that they don't get telstraified and actually have some enthusiasm left in doing a good job... They don't end up lasting long enough to become jaded and unhelpful.

ha ! i worked for MBF some time back and they purchased a system called Diamond from the US. The US private health System is nothing like Australias at all and Diamond was more a back of house Accounting programing. Millions of dollars later and untold upset customers later and they still use it. I now work for a health fund that uses Australian software, designed for Australian conditions. I feel sorry for th ecall centre staff at Telstra, they must cop it daily from disgruntled clients

The Telstra phone number for paying one's bill is 1300 369 666. I kid you not. Telstra is like the anti-Christ.

I have never had a problem with telstra or any of the staff at telstra because i am with optus for internet and vodafone for mobile. Telstra should be put down for the good of everyone, its a lame dinosaur trying to survive by smashing up its newer fitter better rivals.

Yes, MOST of Telstra's call centres are in Australia, however, as of November some call centres have moved to the Phillipines. Siebel is the biggest load of junk software any company world-wide has released. There are that many glitches in the system is randomly stuffs peoples accounts up, and so bad that the whole account has to be closed and a new account opened. By putting Tech Support call centres overseas and introducing Siebel, Telstra is going the right way to lose it's business. Seeing as we are a '100% Australian owned' company, maybe they should a hire an Australian to be the CEO..

The call centres are important and if things are not right is it the job of management to ask the people at the coal face what needs to be done. The people who operate this system need to have their say they are not stupid, it is managements job to discuss and improve how things work and what needs to be fixed. As usual it seems that management do not get of their chair and go to call centres and see what is wrong and what has to occur to improve the system. Instead of looking after their fat salaries start looking after the employees who help create these inflated salaries, I am a share holder and have personaly managed a business, happy workers operate far better than stressed out workers. I agree with cynical of NSW , I believe that management want abomb under them and forget about their own greed and taske care of the people under them to see that a good service is supplied .

well, telstra's bigpond call centre is being relocated to the phillipines. many hundreds of jobs in syd & canberra will be lost due to this move. so this is not a suprise really.

It is not at all surprising that computer software that works well in Italy, won't work in Australia. There is no substitute for local systems analysts and programmers who understand their system rewriting it and that is also usually the cheapest solution. Why did Telstra think it would get a better solution by going overseas? This smacks of a management of bean counters who don't understand the system they are supposed to be running.

I feel their pain, but all Call Centres inherently breed bulling and management passing the blame for poor systems, on the Call Centre Staff. I don't want to play down the plight of these Telstra operators, I'm sure it is hell, but you wanna try a Centrelink Call Centre for systems that just don't work, confusing and contradictory rules. It is high time that Call Centre operations were examined very closely, starting with the Government Call Centres, such as Centrelink.

My wife works in the Wagga call centre and has been bitching about this new system for months now. They had it rolled out, then they were reverted back to the old system, and then Siebel was re-rolled out. These Telstra workers, who work contracted to Salmat Salesforce are always under the gun. The amount of Staff Turnover they have which in turn means millions in training new replacement staff is ridiculous. I can't believe Salmat has won awards for employer of the year. It's nuts!

This is a matter for Telstra and staff to deal internally at least Telstra staff are based in Australia and if you call any other telecom providores you are talking to somebody in India or Malaysia and who knows how many hours of training they had? I feel there are external forces in play trying to exaggerate this situation namely the UNIONS

RayVos of Melbourne....the same thing happened to me. After chaning to the new system I was rang up a little while later accused of not paying my account. What actually happened was the new system created a second account under the same number. Telstra staff were hopeless at sorting it out. To the degree where the new system had my account locked for 2 weeks and Telstra physically couldn't take any payments. My phone got cut off as a result, hence I've since cancelled my telstra account.

I have never had a problem with telstra or any of the staff at telstra because i am with optus

Telstra management are not the only large organisaiton that has fallen into the trap of investing in these "off the shelf" products that they are told will fix everything by these so called Integrators. But I bet all the blame will be directed at those who are the poor IT guys told you m ust use this solution and the poor floor staff that have to use the flakey software.

Just called Telstra Business with a product enquiry. After going through all the voice prompts I got a message that "due to a service disruption" they were unable to take calls and to call back the next business day. What a joke!

Having previously worked for Telstra, both in management and in various call centres as the subject matter expert for the previoys systems, my experience is that the training was usually enough for the individual to "do their job" but did not necessarily cater for the more complex situation. This you learnt for yourself or was provided by SME's walking the floor during the implementation phase. But things are different now, as friends who are still there tell me, the management style is imported from America and totally unsuitable for Australian personnel - we are not quite so stupid and generally not as afraid to express our opinions as our US counterparts. This has led to an enormous amount of tension between workers and the morons at the top. The solution is simple - send the Americans packing, and while we are at it how about taking back some of the so called "performance bonuses", scrap the Accenture solution (you are so right IT pro of Brisbane)and do some B***dy research before buying another. With regard to service levels - back off. Try complaining to any other carriers and see how quickly you get fobbed off! They are liberal, to say the least, regarding the truth and generally everything is blamed on Telstra, regardless of the fact that Telstra may have nothing to do with it. You may think that that is a fairly outrageous statement but having had to deal with all of the other carriers, the TIO and memebers of Parliament as part of my job I can only say "Wake up Australia!" they are a hell of a lot better than the rest with regard to service. Lets face it Telstra is so heavily regulated, by comparision to the others,regarding Customer service guarantees and the like it's ridiculous.

They should sack the lot of them. 99% of these useless call centre staff never do what they say they will do anyway. Telstra's issue isn't it's software, it's the idiots that don't listen during training, or are just too stupid to follow simple instructions.

I would like Mahesh Sharma to follow up her article above and address the points made about training. ASAP

It's a classic case of the product taking the blame for a half-baked delivery by the project implementor (Accenture).

I have worked in both Telstra Owned and Licensed stores over the implementation of Siebel. The service itself once you learn how to use it is ok. The fact that it keeps crashing isn't. I received a 4 hour online training session, only management/fulltime staff and one person nominated to be a siebel star were meant to receive the full week training. All the casuals/part-timers got left out in the cold.

It took me five phone calls to connect my phone to Telstra! They kept on saying that I wasn't on the system and that there had been no previous connections to my address, but that was hard to believe since there was two phone connection outlets. And finally on the fifth phone call the operator found my address in less then a minute and I asked her why it had to take me five calls for someone to find my number, it wasn't like my address had changed five times. She just said that it's was the new system and not everyone use it, I could have screamed! Two weeks to get a phone connected to Telstra. Now all they have to fix is the fact that i can't ring anyone or receive any calls......But at least I%u2019m connected with them and paying their monthly connection fee. It just doesn%u2019t seem fair.

I thank god I do not work for Telstra. Telstra would have to have one horrific workplace with a shocker of a wage agreement to match.

Good work Telstra. Great to see that they are paying for all those Accenture gradutates to supply on the job training. Have worked with Accenture on several occasions and they have never once even been close to meeting expectations and deliverables.

And you know what's even worse? If individual staff complain openly they get shafted! I once complained in an email, about a staff incentive offer being cancelled halfway thru a sales Quarter. They put in place an incentive at the start of a Quarter that if you made a certain number of sales you would get extra sales commission etc. Then halfway thru the Quarter they just cancelled it completely! Too bad so sad was their attitude - never mind if you had already worked your butt off trying to reach it. I sent off a polite email complaint right to the very top. A few months later I received an involuntary redundancy and was immediately locked out of the building after nearly 30 years of loyal service. Many months later I got some of my personnel file under the "Freedom of Information" legislation (which is a complete misnomer I can tell you). I discovered that only a few days after I sent off my email complaint, management had gone to Human Resources asking how much it would cost to get rid of me via a redundancy! What an amazing co-incidence. It's a terrible way to treat your employees but that's the culture at the top of the organisation - speak out and we'll get you sooner or later. Even if it's a genuine complaint. A shocker!

You would have thought that Management of Telstra would have learnt by now. How many Siebel Systems have they rolled out that failed miserably??? How much money will they waste on Siebel products that will not be able to fit the bill. Siebel cannot handle the volume of transactions that Telstra generates. Senior management were warned and have now wasted 2 billion . I wonder if their illustrious CEO will get his bonus????

I live in rural Australia and am about to move to another rural area job several hundred km's away. This is my fourth move in eighteen months and I stick with Telstra and Bigpond because of the lack of options. Changing locations...yep, always a disaster in some way (as was last week when the Telstra operator's computer froze when organising disconnections and connections. Took about twenty minutes for that simple process. Lets see what else the phone change brings. As for my Bigpond experiences... well I think I actually hate them more than Telstra!

If this is how telstra treats it's employees what chances have the customers got? I don't use Telstra as I was sick of being over billed and poor customer service once you got past the call centre (the call centre are the only staff who are competent, when dealing with the public), thank god for naked dsl and internode. The Federal Government needs to step up and split this company in 2 one for sales the other for network/infrastructure and then sell the white elephant off. Once it sinks as a private corporation the better off Australia communications will be.

This article has made sense to me of a long running battle I have had with Telstra regarding the transfer of a residential number from one name to another. I have been on the phone to the Telstra contact number at least 5 times, each over an hour long, while the Telstra employee is obviously battling with a system that freezes, is slow and does not have full details. I do not blame the contact centre people for this, it is obviously Telstra's system and processes. Given it is not possible to choose another provider in many instances for residential phone lines, it should be possible for both Telstra employees and customers to escalate issues like these so they get fixed.

Accenture strike again. When are large organisations going to wake up to how dodgy this IT company is?

This is a case of forcing a square peg into a round hole. Just because a system works overseas. does not instantly mean it works here. Accenture must have thought this system was money for jam.. Systems these size need custom built apps

speaking as an ex-Telstra employee: Telstra employs the same modus operandi for all its systems. (1) pick a German or US system which is well out of date (2) and which costs ten times as much as any reasonable system (3) tell everyone how wonderful it is without testing it, (4) fail to train staff properly and ignore any complaints about inadequacies, (5) promote the fools who bought and promoted the system when it clearly fails. One wonders, "qui bono" but realises they are too stupid to be even corrupt.

I too have been on the receiving end of a system that is clearly failing. It's really damaged my belief in Bigpond being the premier internet service. The issue came about when we moved localities and subsequently had to have bigpond tied to a new number. The number bigpond ended up being tied to was in fact incorrect and I now find myself entering my fourth week with no internet. I've been told there is a glitch in the system in terms of retracting orders and correcting them such that they are tied to the correct phone line. Even despite Bigpond's cancellation of relocation fees, the monthly fee we won't use and next month's fee, it's the inconvenience, endless hours on the phone and a faulty system that atleast at present will not improve that will ultimately mean I take my business elsewhere.

this article is not that exaggerated. Staff are stressed, being made to fulfil "unreaslitic" targets and getting little or no support from their Team Leaders in most cases. The reason this system has been dumped on Telstra staff with so many flaws and inconsistencies so quickly is only due to 1 thing/reason.... Sol made a promise to have it rolled out by a certain date and by hook or by crook, it was rolled out becuase of that. doesnt matter that its not ready!!!!! I feel so much for the staff in the Siebel centres and am not looking forward to the day that it is rolled out to Enterprise and Government customers and staff...... we cant even get it right for Residential customers!!

Shouldnt we just recognise that Telstra is updating from old to new thats why Telstra are worldclass.

We were paid and got meals provided as well as a training completion gift. Telstra is not a complete monster, we just didn't get enough training and had to learn on the phones which has caused more problems with the system erroring out.

Since when did they ever provide any services? nothing much has changed with the new systems, still the crappy services and ridiculous bills, only this time they have something to blame and whinge about. Harden up you slackers, and thank goodness for iiNet. now theres a service you can count on :D

The 4 hours training for call cantre employees was a misquote. It was a choice of either four 6 hour days (Saturday or Sunday) or eight 3 hour evenings after shifts during the week - over the period of a month. Most people said they didn't take much in as they never got to actually work in the live system during training. I believe it was Telstra Shops that got only 4 hours training.

I am a Telstra employee and am having first hand expercience in this new system. Whilst it is far from perfect, you people need to be told that this article is a complete excageration, and staff (including me) were given five whole days (with pay) to be trained up. I am not in management.

Well here it comes!!!! I actually USE the Siebel system for another Company but I have also worked in the Call Centre for Telstra, but under a different system. The Siebel system is extremely complex and to have it mastered in 4 hours is an absolute JOKE!!!!! I am currently working the system, and have done for many weeks, and I still have issues with the more complex areas that are associated with the Customers account. As much as it is "instant fix" to rectify Customer related issues it is a longer process than the previous system and does affect AHT, Key Performance Areas and After Call Work. This, in turn, causes pressure from Management to ascertain the requirements of a set time frame, which then bounces to the Staff handling the calls to hasten their speed and maintain the set KPI's. The glitches, the freezing and all that is associated with any program can cause frustration when you have a Customer who is becoming impatient ... and rightfully so. We are the main point of call when dealing with Customers and we are the targets when Customers become annoyed when we are either still trying to get our heads around a particularly horrendous Program, or dealing with issues that are causing us to standstill for a minute or two cos the System is having one of it's hissy fits. When dealing with people a minute or two can feel like an hour or so especially when the Customer is getting irate ... it is not a nice position to be in and I say this from my own experiences. If Customers were sympathetic enough to understand that we are only trying to do our job and not responsible for the systems, decisions or time scale frames set by Management then I think things would be easier to deal with. If Management understood this also then I can guarantee that our jobs would be pleasurable and the breakdowns happening throughout the Call Centres would be minimised dramatically. I know how they feel because it is overbearing, overwhelming, undeniably frustrating and extremely stressful on most days ... so too give us poor Call Centre Humans a break would be a well appreciated one.

Three months age I transferred my mobile account back to the company I work for. Result: New account opened in my name and new company account opened for the same phone number. For three month we have tried to have this fixed. Standard response was "this should not be possible" to have two accounts for the one number. One is on the old system and one is on the new system but staff are not able to see both accounts etc... Three months and still waiting....

I couldn't agree with the staff more. I have been having issues with my Telstra service at home for many weeks now and the 'customer service' is a disgrace. This is not the fault of the staff, it is the fault of senior managers who's bonus is on the line if they don't get something implemented on time, whether it's ready for release or not, and roll out crappy systems! The poor staff on the various help desks are the ones who cop the abuse from irate customers while the out-of-touch managers sit in their offices patting each other on the back for meeting a deadline. Telstra needs a rocket put through its management structure and the way it does business.

Disgusting, they make people give up their own free unpaid time to mandatory learn the new system, and four hours is a joke, much like the rest of telstra.