"Has customer care at eir improved?"

A timely post.

Every other day last week my Eir business fibre broadband crashed intermittently which was disrupting my phone and IT systems. The usual sense of dread and anticipated frustration made its entrance with the firm knowledge that I would have to spend three or four hours over the next three or four days trying to get through to Eir (such as was my experience last year with a similar issue).

However, my experience this time round was actually very positive.

I rang the Eir help number at 2pm on Thursday afternoon last week. I was on hold for about three minutes when a lady named Sakshi answered my call. As I was calling from outside the office (where I needed to be for her to test the line, and was unable to unplug my modem etc) she took my number and made an appointment for 3:30pm that same afternoon where she would call me back so as to allow me to make my way into the office.

So I drove to the office in time for 3:30pm and she rang back at the appointed time. She tested the line, identified the issue and confirmed that the problem was with the outside line and that a technician would be in touch within 2 working days.

At 5pm that evening, a technician rang to confirm he would be working on my issue that evening.

By the following day, all seemed to be well with my broadband. So I guess the job was done.

I am actually quite impressed with the service on this occasion, as I had the complete opposite experience last year.

Long may it last!
 
Eir sent an email in July saying they were increasing their plans by €6 a month but you could cancel without penalty by phoning before 9th Aug.

For many reasons, not just the €6, I decided to go. I phoned the number provided a week in advance and said I was leaving. I was told I would be billed for 10 days in August. My service was cut off on 10th August, no problems so far.

I then got my August bill notification and it was for the full month of August. I phoned 1901 and entered my account number but as my account was closed it said that account did not exist and I could not proceed to get to speak to an agent.

Not wanting to pay and then have many frustrating hours trying to get a refund I cancelled the direct debit and paid the 10 days due in the post office. A few days later I phoned the cancellation number and eventually got through to an agent and explained, he said no problem, that is all sorted now.

Today I got a bill for €245 early cancellation charges plus a €18 unpaid direct debit charge.

Having dealt with Eir previously, on this occasion, I have the name of each agent I spoke to along with the date and time of the calls.

Still plenty of incompetence and disorganisation in Eir.
 
I switched to Virgin. Regarding customer care, in my experience, Virgin are believe it or not, worse than Eir.

Virgin’s broadband is far superior to Eir’s, in my house anyway. But while Eir are difficult to contact if you have a query or issue, Virgin are almost impossible to contact.

Virgins preferred method of contact is Wat’s app, but often you get a auto reply saying they are currently experiencing a high volume of calls and can not reply to Wat’s app at this time, please try messenger or phone.

Trying messenger, a similar auto reply often comes up saying they are also experiencing a high volume of calls and can not currently respond, please phone.

Phoning, I was again usually told of the current high volume of calls and to expect a longer than usual wait time for an agent, 97 minutes on hold one day with the phone on speaker as I did chores around the house, I hung up then for dinner. 117 minutes another day and I just got cut off. For those who can phone at 9 am, that seems best, usually getting to an agent after a mere 20 - 40 minutes.
 
Having small issues with fibre (FTTC) at the moment. I find as long as you ring at 9am, you'll get through quickly to customer service, and in fairness they picked up an issue on their end & it's been checked today by a technician. Ring in the middle of the day forget it!
As above I also got the email about the price increase & almost jumped to Vodafone. Decided to stick with Eir as when it works (fibre) and thats 99% of the time it's good. When there's issues, as long as you ring at 9am, they will sort it for you or a technician will be sent within a few days. Contract up again in December, so we'll see what lower deal I get out of them this year!
 
I tried to switch to EIR from SKY (who rank as the worst for customer service in my view - ever, no exceptions ) earlier this year. It couldn't go ahead for various reasons. Over the course of the experience i had little difficulty contacting EIR, but the level of competence from the agents was a bit dodgy as I was told different things by different people. I switched to Virgin and find them okay, but I've had no real reason to contact them (thankfully). Since my EIR experience, I get " bills" from EIR but for a minus figure which I imagine is a glitch. I could contact them, but it doesn't really affect me and when I go into my EIR account it says it doesn't exist.
 
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