You just CANNOT win with Telstra!

They are pigs, apes and monkeys -- or that is the standard of their service.

The first time I learnt that my mobile service had been cut off was when I had arrived at a gated complex and needed to phone the person inside to say that I had arrived. All I got from my phone was a message to say that my service had been "suspended" -- even though I still had plenty of money in my prepaid account. I ended up having to climb over a high fence that night in order to get to my destinmation -- which was not remotely amusing for an old guy like me.

If Telstra were a civilized organization, one might have expected that they would send out (say) a text message advising the customer of a service suspension as soon as the suspension occurred -- but expecting civility of Telstra is pissing into the wind, of course

And it happened again last night. I was delayed in hospital and wanted to advise the person who was to pick me up of that. But all I got was a message saying: "Emergency calls only"! The phone was working again this morning so I rang Telstra to enquire what the hell was going on and was told that they had "routing issues" last night. I have been using phones for around 50 years and had never heard that one before. Service standards have definitely got worse.

Telstra need to recognize that their customers RELY on their phones for many things and build in enough system redundancy to avoid such service failures. I now have my own form of systems redundancy. I have another cellphone from Optus that I can use whenever Telstra let me down. Disgraceful that anybody has to go to such expense, however.

A suggested improvement for BigBlog

Telstra rarely acknowledge that my suggestions to them are good ones but they do eventually seem to heed what I say to a degree. The fact that this site has a fairly high page-ranking may help.

As I have noted before, things that I have suggested are often implemented by them without notice and without acknowledgement to me. The most pleasing of such events is that they recently seem to have cut right back on the waiting time that one experiences when calling their helpline.

So here is another way that Bigpond could enter the 21st century:

When you log on to your BigBlog site, you have to enter your whole email address plus your password. And you have to do so EVERY time. The service has no "memory". With most sites you just enter the first few letters and the rest is done for you.

Telstra take note. You too could offer an intelligent service!