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TÁNAISTE LEO VARADKAR has said he expects Eir customer relations to “improve” after he met with the company and discussed ongoing problems being experienced by customers trying to make contact with the provider.
The Tánaiste and Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications Eamon Ryan met with Eir and Vodafone separately this morning to relay concerns they have been receiving regarding poor customer service.
The issue has been raised by both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael politicians over the last number of weeks.
Fine Gael’s Patrick O’Donovan, Emer Higgins and Michael Creed raised customer complaints at a recent parliamentary party meeting.
While Fianna Fáil’s Robert Troy tweeted a letter he received from elderly constituents about the lack of customer care.
The constituent, in his 70s, wrote to the TD seeking help in getting his service reconnected.
“He and his wife are alone – their children live overseas and they have been trying to get their service back for the past 6 weeks,” said Troy.
This has really upset me. A constituent in his 70s has written seeking my help in getting his @eir service reconnected. He and his wife are alone - their children live overseas and they have been trying to get their service back for the past 6 weeks. pic.twitter.com/E57XdvsiWB
— Robert Troy TD (@RobertTroyTD) November 12, 2020
TDs across all parties acknowledge that it is a huge political issue at constituency level.
Following the meeting, the Tánaiste said:
“This is something which is causing a huge amount of frustration for people. This mornings meetings were useful. It was good to hear first-hand from the companies. Both companies set out their plans to resolve the issues causing problems, so I really hope we see things improving for customers soon.”
Minister Ryan said
“It was important to relay the level of dissatisfaction being experienced by people who are doing their best to work from home. The two companies outlined the solutions they are working on, and we should see improvements in the near future. While we are rolling out the National Broadband Plan, we also need existing services to offer a high standard of service. ”
Both ministers also thanked Eir for their work in supporting the acceleration of the National Broadband Plan and encouraged further engagement to ensure broadband can be brought to every home, farm and business in the country as quickly as possible.
It is understood that the company acknowledged that there is a problem, and that a lot of it was down to increased demand, as well as staff working home during the Level 5 restrictions.
Met with @eir & @VodafoneIreland today with @EamonRyan. Have been hearing a lot about poor customer service from constituents. Causing huge frustration. Useful meeting, really expect things to improve
— Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) November 20, 2020
In a recent statement, the company said resolving care wait times is their number one priority.
Eir said it wishes to “apologise for the delays some customers have experienced. The Covid-19 pandemic has made managing our call centres in Sligo, Limerick and Cork challenging, with more than 400 care agents transitioned to working from home overnight, the closure of our retail stores, and a dramatic increase in call volumes caused by more households working and learning from home”.
“We have been recruiting nationally since restrictions eased during the summer. We are proud to have hired 92 new recruits to our care team, with further team members joining in the weeks ahead. Training does take time but these changes have already led to reductions in call wait times.”
Eir said it has introduced priority care hours in their retail stores for elderly and vulnerable customers and for carers before 11am Monday to Friday.
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Doubt it.
@Ciarán O’ Donoghue: they would drop a call on you after you have been waiting for 1hour. So rude!
@Optimus Prime: would you rather be an eir customer or use a carrier pigeon to send a message.
94% of the poll would rather use carrier pigeon.
@Ciarán O’ Donoghue: hi my name is leo varadkar and just like bertie ahern, i just say what you want to hear not actually do anything!
Not good enough. Shambles of a company, they only apologise after being told to by the government. Their attitude towards their customers is bordering on contempt. Their line about the customer care team working from home overnight is a good one.. That happened almost 8 months ago, you’d think they “a communications company” would have sussed that by now, the schools were teaching children via zoom within weeks. I reported the dropped calls issue weeks ago. Their solution was to call customer care… Yeah how? When at best you’re on hold for an hour…. But my call keeps dropping…. Unbelievable
@James Doherty: shambles is right. Whoever is in charge at Eir needs to be fired very swiftly.
@James Doherty: you actually got an apology??? Lucky you! Don’t bother going to Comreg when you inevitably run into problems with this shambles of a company as they are just as useless.
Eir customer support has always been atrocious even pre Covid. A disaster of a company and one I wouldn’t touch purely based on their customer service.
Never. I spoke with a senior customer services person this week who admitted that Eir only respond to claims that have been made via Comreg. This is a policy at Eir. We pulled ten account from Eir this week. Abominable service and shocking disregard for their customer base which is dwindling. Move to another provider before Eir go whack….
@Shane McGrath: right and correct has to make two complaints to comreg in the last twelve months. Once you supply eir with the reference number they are pretty quick to resolve your issue. It’s a bit like loading a Revolver, clicking the barrel and pulling the hammer back……do you feel lucky …. punk
Eir is by far the worst customer service ever, they are leading the way in how to get customers to leave, would not go back to them even if the service was free, and that’s saying a lot,
@Mick Hannigan: I’m the same Mick. With virgin now and their customer service is top notch
How nieve he is, been like that for decades.
I had been a costomer with Eir for many years before my line developed a fault, that’s what their engineers told me, many, many times. However Eir themselves seemed to have a book of excuses from which to quote from, it beggered belief that a company could demand payment for a service they, almost cheerfully, acknowledged they hadn’t supplied in months. Yet Eir was such a company.
The thing the seemed to forget was that I had been a customer for many years, I wasn’t under contract, and free to tell them where to stuff it. Which I did. I’ve no doubt many others have done the same thing. How they’re still in business baffles me.
@Arch Angel: they repeatedly told me there was no fault on my line, despite the fact that the wire was sitting on the ground outside the front door. Needless to say I’m no longer a customer.
They cannot blame this on COVID! They were appalling before it ever started! Spent 3 weeks and hours holding for customer “care” and eventually had to physically go into local shop twice for help! Not good enough!
this is yet another example of corporations using Covid as cover for poor customer services – and accepting ‘ staff working from home’ as any semblance of an excuse from a telecommunications company that clearly falls into ‘essential service’ category is beyond farcical – Comreg should not be getting a free pass either – what’s the point in us funding or even having ComReg ( a communications regulator ) if they are seemingly so incapable (or equally as incompetent ) of holding the telco operations to account – taxpayers / customers deserve better than this nonsense – we need to show some teeth – if we are going to licence and allow telco to operate in Ireland – an incredibly highly profitable market for to operate – we need to do a bit more than sit back /fund comreg to paper shuffle and faff around like a toothless tiger while the customers are fleeced – did you know we have one of the most expensive and costly countries to access internet – but also one of the most ‘profitable’ for operators to cream off profits and send to corporate HQ – it’s just not good enough – tanaiste needs to follow up with and show some teeth – far too many people being taken for a ride by corporations -especially using Covid as an excuse – we should come down pretty hard on people taking high profits but not providing good customer services – and when are we going to start expecting the quangoes and Comregs of this world to start acting more in customers interests in Ireland
This is not a new thing. It has being going on for a number of years. Try cancelling any contract with them and you will find they keep charging. A nightmare of a company to deal with.
@Tracy Dunbar Evans: I cancelled my service with them 5 years ago as soon as my contract was up.My bills were paid in full via direct debit.I could never get through to them if had an issue yet as soon as I changed network they spent 4 years sending me a letter every month telling me I owed them 13 euro.I went into one of their stores to query it at first and they confirmed I owed nothing and all my bills were paid in full and I changed network just prior to contract ending and still paid that month in full.They gave me a number to call and an email if I wasn’t successful on phone.Couldn’t get through to anyone on phone,when sent email they still insisted I owed it to them,even after I sent proof that I didn’t,they never sent me proof that I did but they spent enough on post over 4 years!
Some chance customer care in general in the telecommunications industry in this country is rubbish not just eir. Constantly paying for services your only half receiving, no refunds or penalties for poor service, more often than not its somebody with a very strong accent on the complaints line the you can’t understand or they can’t understand you and about the only thing their good at is collecting your bill every month.
Poor Customer Support should be made part of customer contracts.Then if they fail to resolve your issue or even acknowledge you exsist the contact you have with them becomes null and void.
@Sean Buckley: There should be no contracts beyond a 1 month rolling contract. It’s been notable the last few years with the companies sneaking up their contract lengths to 18 months or even 2yrs. Though I think Eir may have reduced some of their packages back to 12 month contracts. It’s definitely something Comreg need to look at.
He mustn’t have an account with them
Imagine being so bad at your job that the government have to step in.. and then when you’re anxious about that, it’s Ireland’s most corrupt politician and Ireland’s most sleepiest politician sent in to talk to you. All your worries would subside and it would be business as usual.
Their atrocious customer service, sorry I mean zero customer service has nothing to do with the pandemic. In my infinite wisdom, I tried to move to them from Virgin Media last year. After a month of not having my mobile number ported, I tried to cancel – hours of waiting on the phone before being hung up on, useless chat system that wouldn’t let me cancel in writing – it had to be done verbally over the phone – more waiting and being hung up. I rang Virgin Media – got through to an agent in less than 10 minutes and reestablished my contract, without difficulty. Meanwhile, eir continued to attempt to take my money from my credit union for several months. Thankfully the latter refused to hand it over after I told them not to pay them. Never got any service from them. Never again. If they were the last provider on the planet I wouldn’t go with them.
This company should be taken out of public/government ownership and sold to the private sector who do a far better job running things……Oh wait!
Eir has always been a company that strove to give the most lackadaisical service possible. They should get an award for outstanding success in this.
Honestly, I think the Journal should close this comments section, otherwise the Internet will run out of space on account of the number of valid complaints about Eir!
@Kevin Farrell: Ha ha ha nice one!
I left Eir in October last year. They continued to take money from my account up to January when I noticed it . Took 3 days to get to talk to someone and finally in June I got my money back. So they cant blame covid as they were bad before that.
@Gerry Gleeson: Are you not in control of the money side of things Gerry i.e. if you cancel the DD, then they can’t take the money, right?
Their Gogo customer service is simply non-existent. A disgrace. They allowed 6 unsolicited texts TO my sisters phone at the cost of €7.50 each… €45 extra on 1 bill. She has Down’s syndrome and can’t read or write. When I contacted them they refused to refund the money but agreed to put a block on receiving costly unsolicited texts. Disgusting.
While he’s at it he may pop in and have a word with NightLine regarding Parcel Motel. Absolute disgrace of a company.
@Eric: UPS own Parcel motel
@Dave Byrne: You are both right! Nightline group is owned by UPS.
@Eric: All the parcel companies are having backlog issues at the moment which is fairly understandable, but the customer service at a couple of them is atrocious.
We ordered a phone line and internet for our business – six months later nada – except a bill for 450 euro and a demand before issuing court proceedings- Dealing with eir is a wish to go down the rabbit hole and they want to roll broadband out across the country?
They should have their relevant licences revoked. Horror company. If they are cheapest and the next cheapest is €100 more a year go with the other one. All good with them until you get problems then your fooked. Never go near them or any other company accociated with them like go mo
If that company was a building I’d demolish it. A CEO and staff with intellectual disabilities would do a way better job.
Eir’s customer has been dire during every interaction I have had with them over 4 years. It’s not covid and it’s not unprecedented high demand and if they don’t acknowledge that the issue will never be resolved
theyre a terrible shower of cu.. I mean.. a company
STILL WAITING. THE FOLLOWING IS FROM 11 OCT I have had an issue with what was once a faulty new phone since Summer 2019.
The [hone has stopped working twice and had the mainboard replaced twice but was returned finally with no wifi calling.
I have run myself ragged through the system Eir labels as customer service. From shop to repair (weeks) to me, not working again back to shop to repair (more weeks) No phone for weeks to tech support and customer service and back to shop and repair (months) and promises “give me your number I know who to contact and will ring you” Not one call have I had, NONE!
The last time I left the phone in, was mid-January 2020, and got it back on the 29 of July. YES! Unbelievable!
Since I took possession of the phone in April 2019 I would be stretching it to say that I had the phone in my possession for 6 months. I had no phone at all during the summer of 2019 and was not offered a credit on my bill or a loan of a phone until I complained about the awful service. How is that for a record of customer service? If I try to contact by landline it is an average of 1-hour wait, then you (Not a coincidence)are cut off, contact by messenger is never responded to. Contact in the shop is all smiles and promises to call you. At this stage, a release from the contract would be a blessing because I feel ill at any mention of the company. SICK OF EIR TO MY BACK TEETH.
________________________________________________________________
Just wasted a whole morning. I got a response from eir customer service on messenger. I know. Amazing! Well, my hopes were soon shattered. I was asked to supply my account details so that they could assist with my problem. The attention to the customer is top-notch. Yes, I am being sarcastic. I supplied the info that I was bill pay twice. The bot (I am sure it was not a live person) kept asking for my last top-up amount and method. Now it has informed me that I have to contact customer services and wait for the hour to be cut off or told to go back to the shop, where they smile and apologise and tell me it is above their pay grade and assure me that they will pass on the details take note of my number again and tell me that they will ring me back. So I meet myself back on the merry go round. This is the formula the company is using to avoid customer service. Their new idea of customer service now is to remove posts from their FB page.
@SteoG: To be fair I have had more contact today than in the last number of months. So fingers crossed.
Well, it can hardly get any worse!
Why the fuss now? This has been the state of affairs at Eir for years. My record wait was 2hrs 53 mins while washing the kitchen top to bottom and then they transferred me to another dept. and the call was dropped. A statement of minimum level of service required and bills discounted if standards not maintained. Get off your ass Minister and Comreg. Do what people are crying out for.
@Fergal Murphy: Why now?, deflection I assume, from other current issues facing Gov and in particular FG. Customer service at Eir has been a disgrace for 15 to 20 years but yeah OK Varadkar if you want to fix it go ahead, I look forward to seeing the results of your crusade. I’m sure Eir think so much of you Varadkar and your office that they will have no problem taking millions of profit that they usually pocket and instead diverting it to creating a customer service.
Nothing whatsoever to do with the pandemic. This poor practice has been going on for years. Eir are a shambles
After my phone was cut off on 3 separate occasions when overseas I decided regardless of win or lose I would take action against. 5 moths with the phone disconnected & com reg involved. I got well compensated. Yes it took that long but they now know I’ll go the distance with them. Both them and eflow are easily cured if you square up to them. Disgraceful companies.
@Mjhint: the only times they ever paid any attention to any of my issues was when I mentioned Comreg.
@Frank Carty: to be fair com reg are not great but if you go the distance with these companies you will get a result at the end. It will take months & people are very often too busy to bother but this is what they are counting on.
It’s there any chance the scammers know as IMAGINE would be called out on their false adverts, stealing, and lousy customers service? They are robbing people every month and getting away with it!!
Comreg are paid to control the likes of Eir .There nearly as good as the regulators who looked after the banks from 2000 -08 . Another waste tax payers money.
Back in the day, Meteor had terrible customer service, but some how that managed to get a whole lot worse when it got rebranded to Eir. There is zero chance of me renewing my mobile and broadband contracts with Eir when they expire.
@Frank Carty: same here. My contract is up in April. Never again and I have been a customer for 19 years for phone. I contacted Comreg a few months ago and never got any response. Was trying to contact Eir regarding my TV contract. Eir and Comreg are useless.
Can he now also talk to Sky?
Impossible to talk to them, even for new business
This is a top-down issue, they thought they could solve it by firing everyone last time and rehiring new people, didn’t work obviously. They need to fix their broken processes and use 1 unifying system, instead of 10 different systems for this and that.
I am on hold with Eir at the moment… They say less than 10 minutes but we will see. Last time it was 30+ minutes. A good move that the public are complaining, Eir has had fairly shocking customer service for years. I was disappointed when Meteor was bought by Eir but I have been. too lazy to switch!!
trying to contact them the last 2 weeks, ive emailed, phoned and tried logging the issues and no response. how long will it take to contact me if I dont pay me bill which I wont be as ive no broadband
@Patricia Keating: Go to another provider now, but its a month wait to transfer your fixed line?
EIR don’t know what Costumer Servie is
Worst CC ever. I changed from sky fibre to eir, and they put me on a 20Mb/s line and then said we didn’t have fibre in our area. Took over 2 weeks to fix Eventually cancelled and put through to some guy in cancellations who didn’t want to be there or couldn’t be fired!!
This is how he asked me my security questions:
“Is your name *******?”
Is your address *********?
Is your date of birth *******?
Is you contact number *******?
Never again.
Terrible service from eir, not fit for purpose, need stronger action and escalation by Government
THAT’S BIG OF HIM,BUT IS IT THE TRUTH?????
And Covid will be gone by Christmas
They are terrible, my daughter was with them and changed, couldn’t get through so I stopped the direct debit then they were going to sue me for breach of contract, I said bring it on, heard nothing for months then final demands etc, reported them to coming, not a dicky since 2 years now.
Should be shut down
@PaulOMahoney Irish: *comreg
Eir are an atrocious company to deal with. Left them a few years back now after nearly losing my business because of their terrible network
Well since they are starting from a zero base it should be easy to improve
Pigs will fly…
They sent me an iphone years ago that I never agreed to taking on the call I had with them … free iphone , never paid a bill … best company ever :)
My wife had an issue with eir double billing her every month and then disconnecting her when she refused to pay. It would take weeks to resolve and right after being sorted it serious happen again. She works with a solicitor who told her to get the email address for the CEO of Eir and make a complaint. That day she got a call from his/her assistant apologising for the shambles of a service and a promise to sort it the next day. He rang again the following day having fixed the issue and she’s had no trouble since. Might be worth doing the same thing.
A disgusting company to deal with. Cancelled my contract and deleted my number with no prior notice. All this to get me off a older cheaper tariff I was on for ten years. Will never go near them ever again.
Well done!
Be expecting a while for that.
Anyone who signed up to any package or service with Eir in the past few years deserves whatever they got. The dogs in the street have known they were trouble with a capital T for a decade.
They blame Covid but customer service was appalling before covid
Giving the impression this has happened since covid this has being going on a long time remember CEO on rte last yr declaring connected to call centre in ,90 seconds forgot to tell him that was only to computer golfgate presenter no question just bel8eved her
Lame excuse using the pandemic, this problem has being going on for years!
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