shocking customer service portal

as much as I appreciate your prompt reply, why is it that it takes me complaining to Hello Peter to get a response from you or having to phone the sales line to try and log a technical support call? As a businessman I cannot see how that is sustainable

Again...thank you for your response. It is now 14:58. According to your message earlier, this was supposedly flagged to the technical team as urgent at 9:30am, yet no one has contacted me other than your response 15 min ago to say that the urgency has been re-inforced. Just as a matter of comparison, when I was incorrectly told it was a wifi issue, I obtained a new wifi router. When this didn't resolve the issue, I called the wifi manufacturer (yes I actually got to speak to a person within 3 min of placing the call.. In comparison, it took WebAfrica LiveChat (what a joke) 3 hours (!) to respond to a support call this morning. And then they ended the chat after 28 min, as I was in a meeting, and I didn't see the message. No phone call...just a message.

what do I have to do to speak to a human being?

15:14, and still not one has contacted me from technical...what does urgent mean to you?

15:50 still no contact from technical...that is over 6hrs

I have had enough
I want to cancel
but do you think I can!!!!! No. No option to do so on"live chat" the same "live chat" that I had to wait 3 hrs for a response!!!
they should call it dead chat

It is Monday morning and I am still waiting for the technical team to contact me. I have been without fibre since the 29th May, and still no call from a technician

I have had 2 converzations with the sales team (that is the only number you can call) both sales consultants were friendly and logged an urgent call with the tech team. One of them even called me on the weekend (on his day off) to see if the technical team had contacted me yet, but they have not.

Thank you. I have since been contacted 3 times today

I understand that you would like a private reply, but I think it only fair that this plays out publicly...hopefully this incentives WebAfrica to address the serious issues around your customer support.

After receiving a call from a very helpful technical person it was identified that there was in fact an issue with the Open Serve line. A support call was logged with them, and I was given a reference number. I was told that I would likely have a response within 48-72 business hours. This morning i was sent a whatsapp and text message from WebAFrica that the issue had been resolved and that the ticket was now closed. I was further informed that I should use Live Chat (aka Dead Chat) if I had further questions. THE ISSUE IS NOT RESOLVED. I STILL DO NOT HAVE A WORKING FIBRE LINE. To mak matters worse...I have been trying to reach a WebAfrica agent on Dead Chat since 8am this morning. I finally got connected to an agent at 10:19am!!!! They are asking me the same questions I have answered several times before. Why can you just not send out a technician and sort this out

I have spent another 1.5 hours on chat with your help line answering the same questions, sending the same photos...the only difference this time is that I managed to borrow a windows laptop to test the ethernet connection rather than the mac just in case there was an issue with the adaptor...same result. The laptop cannot even see the OpenServe equipment

I cannot belief it...I have received yet another message to say that my ticket has been closed...inspite of the fact that I do not have working Fibre. It looks like the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. I was called last tonight and told that a technician would call me today (after 12 as I was not available in the morning) to come to site to resolve the issue. I then received a message at 12:04 to say that my ticket had been closed. This is absolutely ridiculous...how can you run a business like this?

Please can you confirm that I will be fully refunded for the 2 weeks (and accounting) that I have not had internet

Wow...so you expect me to pay for your terrible customer service process...you really are trying your hardest to generate negative publicity. At least you are good at that!

Not only should you reimburse me for lack of service, but I should investigate a claim against you for loss of revenue for all the hours I have sat trying to connect to someone on WebAfrica Dead Chat; all the hours I have had to redo the same steps each time I am allocated a new agent; all the time I have to catch-up my work when I have to try and rush home to check and reset either the ONT or router; or the money for a new router which I was initially told was the issue, which by the way it turned out it wasn't; or all the time I have to spend checking as to why the ticket has been closed but the problem persists, or all the time I have to spend on hellopeter to get a response because your support platform is abysmal.

The only thing positive I can say is that I have spoken to some pretty enthusiastic people who tried to help, even though they have not been able to. But it took many hours to finally get hold of them in the first place.

I really don't think you do understand, so please stop saying that

still waiting for a call to arrange for a technician to come to my house.

I was told I would be called today after 12pm. It is now 18h24...still no call

It is funny that you say that an attempt was made, as I do not have any missed calls on my phone, so I find that hard to believe. Please provide me the exact time, so I can double check with my mobile supplier

I also find it pathetic that I have to call and email and message for hours on end, and you supposedly make one call and that is the extent of your effort to resolve this. I have no missed WhatsApp calls either

reasonable use of AI in generating an automated response...poor use of customer service.

I checked my phone records again...no evidence of any call being made. No missed calls on telephone or whatsapp. Your technical team appears to be lying to you.

I have finally received a call. I was told the line is working, but it is not. I still have no internet connection. Thankfully they have now agreed to send a technician to me...if only to prove that the line is working. I am grateful that they are at least sending someone.

Finally, someone actually came to site on Saturday the 16th and managed to resolve the issue — a full two weeks after I originally spent an entire day going backwards and forwards with “Live” Chat, or rather, “Dead” Chat.

Openserve were correct in their statement that there was nothing wrong with the line, which explains why they originally closed the ticket without coming to site. The actual problem was that someone had changed the serial number of my ONT box in the backend. As a result, when they were pinging what they believed was my ONT box, they were not getting an error.

They obviously did not physically change the serial number on the box itself, as it is the same ONT box I have had for the last 5–10 years. What had changed was the serial number recorded in their systems, which could only have been done in the backend.

I am sure there will be debates between OpenServe and WebAfrica as to who could have done this and why, but the reality is that it has cost me over 30 hours of wasted time and energy trying to get someone to fully own resolving the problem instead of simply ticking a box.

That said, I am grateful that I am finally reconnected.

I do, however, wonder whether getting a refund is going to be any easier. I also wonder whether Webafrica is actually going to learn from this experience and seriously improve both their customer service and problem-solving processes — moving away from rigid scripts and checklists towards real ownership and accountability.

If they are serious about improving, they should call me. I could probably help save them from losing hundreds, if not thousands, of dissatisfied customers.