How VUMATEL respond to customer complaints

In my previous review of VUMATEL there were two issues, these being, a network issue and the other the lousy physical network installation. Thankfully, there is one part of VUMATEL that is good. Jamie Holdsworth's technicians quickly arrived to resolve the network issue. So, well done to them.

On the other issue though, VUMATEL yet again proved how lame they are. Their response via Hellopeter was that a private email had been sent to me, and this is the dialog that followed: VUMATEL: Thank you for reaching out to us, may we kindly request you provide us with your Vuma ticket number? Me: As I said in my original message "Now I don't call the ISP I just do the process." So there is no ticket number. VUMATEL: The ticket is vital for us to investigate, it's a process that we can't escalate without.

We ask you to get the ticket logged, attached to it should be the speedtest, In regards to the installation, which you also mentioned to have been satisfactory, traceroutes, and ping test. The speed test should be done by a LAN cable. please attach pictures to the ticket which show the areas you are concerned about.

ME: No ticket is required as the network problem seams to have been fixed (by Jamie Holdsworth and his team). They were excellent.

Regarding your request for pictures of the installation issues, that's a definite NO and you will understand why if you read on.

Despite promises of professionalism from VUMATEL the people that were allocated by them to do the work of installing the network were mostly "off the street labor" who had no clue what they were doing and when told what to do often did not follow instruction. They were shuffled around to other nearby installations and on one unfortunate occasion one "worker" was left at our complex with compactor, which he could not start (I had to show him how) and he did not know how to work. The poor man was left at our complex until late at night with no means of getting food or drink or getting home. We had to feed and give him drink.

Even the network technicians had to have 4 attempts to try and get the network working into my property, but the work done yesterday by Jamie's team showed clearly that they did not get the network configuration settings right, after all those attempts.

We have had to repair underground water pipes because they were damaged during the installation despite the fact that the onsite foreman was informed of where those pipes were, so that he could make sure that his people did not damage them.

Because of the ongoing daily problems, I was constantly calling project managers, managers and others in VUMATEL to get things/issues resolved. These people eventually stopped answering their phones because they were bombarded with complaints, not only from me but other unhappy people. Out of sheer frustration I went to the VUMATEL offices in Randburg and after a long wait eventually got some attention. People were sent to our complex to sort the problems out. But they didn't. We still have driveways with dips and hollows in them, cement and concrete which is a cracked eyesore around junction boxes, none of which are level with the surrounding driveway bricks, which was one of the complaints they were supposed to fix.

So, sorry Sophy, I am not inclined to do any more to assist VUMATEL with it's mess-sups. VUMATEL must just do the right thing and sort out their mess.

There has been no further response from VUMATEL, and as far as I am concerned this dialog shows clearly that VUMATEL are only interested in their staff "Sticking to the rules" and not so much on resolving customer complaints. Consequently the respondent (Sophy) was only interested in the customer "jumping to" and falling in line with VUMATEL's procedures and INSTRUCTING the customer to do speed tests, Traceroutes and Ping tests, (which must be done by LAN cable) rather looking at what needs to be to solve the problems.

Beware prospective VUMATEL customer.

Keith White