BT Home Broadband Reviews

We've had telephone lines and broadband installed at work. BT are appalling to deal with. The first engineer, a gentleman with a Chinese appearance was very good, staying late into the evening to get lines connected but we needed another line installed into the building which he was not trained to do,. Along comes another engineer who looked at what was needed, decided in 2 minutes he could not do it, walled off and told his boss he was unable to get access to our office suit-a complete lie, the next didn't even knock on the office door, he just said he could not get access. Then we were to have 3 lines going to one phone number but at present 1 line goes to that number so if we are on the phone no one can call us. The salesman now doesn't answer emails or call. So here we are 2 months on still without the correct work and without anyone having a care about it. Any suggestions on how we get BT to do the job they said they could so?

What is wrong with BT Broadband Customer Care?

More appropriately, BT Customer Care ought to be called the BT Customer Barrier. Its primary function is to defend BT from the problems its customers may be having and its fundamental ethos is that the customer is always wrong. They are the masters of the Dismissive Fob-Off.

This is made abundantly clear at the point of initial contact, its internet pages, where the first thing to greet you is the statement that most faults occur within the customer’s own infrastructure. This bizarre assumption is carried right through the extensive faults procedure where each step is directed remorselessly toward persuading the customer to find and fix a fault that without further investigation is undoubtedly on their own premises and of their own making; BT does not admit that faults might occur outside of customer premises or make provision for those who are competent enough to have already carried out these basic checks and want to move on. Neither is there a clear onward step for BT to take ownership of a reported fault after the checking procedure has been completed – again there is an assumption that all faults are the responsibility of the customer. For a persistent customer it leaves the complaints procedure as the only option to progress.

The complaints procedure is another mechanism dominated by the customer-is-always-wrong ethos. The first thing a customer service operator will do is to insist a customer go through the same step by step procedure covered by its internet pages, regardless of whether or not the customer has already done this. Presumably the operator is trained to believe that the customer is incompetent. There is a pre-scripted, condescending and belittling conversation that follows which often involves the customer service operator magically changing from a care representative into a sales representative, offering new packages and various pieces of equipment that he is almost sure will cure the fault. The last resort, if a customer manages to stand firm and turn down all these alluring offers, is for the operator to reassure the customer that everything will be all right if they just be patient and give it a couple of weeks. Then it’s goodbye.

During the lifetime of a fault this procedure will repeat itself several times and each time the customer service operator will behave as if it were the first. BT appears to have no method of gathering useful retrievable information about a specific complaint or sharing it between operators. Eventually frustration and anger from a customer will lead to elevation where the customer is promised a call-back from a BT engineer. Call-backs from BT engineers are not lightly won.

If you are lucky to be promised a call-back you will be given a time slot and an automatic telephoned reminder first thing in the morning while you are still in bed. A pre-recorded voice message from a hugely condescending and suspiciously sceptic female will make sure you are awake and ready for your call, which may not be for several hours. If you are very lucky your call-back will be made, but often they are delayed or forgotten or have not been booked at all. And, of course, it will be your fault.

I know all this because I have been through it on more than one occasion. My latest battering against the BT Customer Barrier began four or five weeks ago after I had meticulously carried out my own checks. For some months I had noticed that BT broadband was either dropping out completely or reducing strength to download speeds that were unusable, sometimes as low as 0.01mbps, but mostly between 1 and 2. This always seemed to coincide with peak times when my BT contract assured me my signal would not fall below 5 or 6. My own checks consisted first of looking closely at my wifi which at the time admittedly was quite weak. I installed a wifi repeater which boosted the signal but did not resolve the problem so I changed my phone filters but this did not resolve the problem either. I tested the line using quiet mode but there was no noise on the line, I changed my router, I repositioned my router, I changed to Ethernet and used only the BT service socket cutting out all intermediate infrastructure in my home, and I tried all of the above whilst turning on and off various devices I thought might affect my broadband signal. Nothing solved the problem.

At this point I fully believed I had covered every possible self-check known to man, but BT felt differently and tried to make me go through them all again. BT then told me it was my router, which I knew it wasn’t, and that I would have to buy a new one, which I already had, so I declined; then they told me that most probably there was work going on in the area that I did not know about, but neither did the operator because when I asked him about it he admitted he did not know if there was work going on in the area or not. I actually admire him for making that bit up; it showed a spark of spirit. Eventually he told me everything would be all right if I was patient and to wait a couple of weeks, and then he said goodbye.

Everything was not all right and after two more weeks, two more emails and two more conversations that had to begin from scratch because BT had forgotten everything I’d said previously, I eventually won my call-back from a BT engineer and an agreed time slot. Only it didn’t happen. I waited for the call but it never came. A call did come, nearly an hour after the allotted time slot, but I was not there having already given up waiting for it. And of course, that was my fault again.

So, what is wrong with BT Customer Care? Well, just about everything to be honest. It is fundamentally flawed from top to bottom. It has a preconceived conviction that the customer is always wrong and does nothing to hide that conviction. From a customer perspective it is like trying to swim up a waterfall. They make you feel so small. BT Customer Care needs dismantling and rebuilding from scratch, it is an appalling, abhorrent and arrogant organisation that ought to be banned from having the name British in its title; I am pro-European and British, and I am ashamed that BT Customer Care can use the same designation, which is less confrontational than it sounds given that it is mostly located in India. It has become the benchmark by which all poor customer service in Britain is measured by, a level of incompetence to avoid. It’s no coincidence that other internet service providers make a major selling point of not having the same customer service setup as BT.
Eventually my call-back came after weeks of trying and BT agreed to monitor my broadband speed to see themselves what was happening – an appropriate course of action I suggested at the outset. No apology because, naturally, I had been wrong to suggest it and it had only become the correct thing to do when they thought of it. They agreed to monitor my broadband speed and to call me back after three days. After only one day I received an email saying that I should monitor my own speed and send them the results. I pointed out that I had already done so, several weeks earlier. I sent them new results. In all the speed test results sent to BT a clear pattern of drop-out and poor signal strength at regular times during the day were obvious. BT then took to calling me back at times when they knew my signal would not be dropping and asking me to run a speed test, thereby proving I was wrong about having a fault on my line.

Fault or no fault, BT Broadband remains unusable for around two hours per day. When this current contract ends I shall be looking for a new provider.

DO NOT USE THIS RUBBISH COMPANY!

Internet speed in evening is so slow. Try to call them to sort it loads if times, always rude, always trying to pretend its due to the wireless connection. Their staff are basically blagging it. If it was wireless it would be all the time. It's clearly some form of throttling.

Bottom line is they just say the speed is fine and are only willing to send an engineer out during the day when the problem isn't then.

They are basically getting £30 a month for nothing as I only really want the internet in the evening. Speeds are often 0.3mbs in evening.

Avoid like the plague. I certainly will even be a customer of theirs again. As I wilL have to pay some hefty price to get out of them and get sky back in. As they have point blank refused to cancel the contract.

I must have been really lucky here, I have had FibreOp on Infinity 2 from BT for almost 18 months now, I had a shaky start getting the order right and getting the engineer here, and experienced a few router reboot in the beginning but once I realised I needed to get shot of the crappy HH3 they supplied and put a decent router on I've never looked back.

Bandwidth has been consistently high, and I have between 4 and 15 devices connected at any one time, uptime is pretty good too, I think I've only been offline 2-3 times in that last 18 months and for 5 minutes at most.

The reason for being offline and the only really annoying thing I have encountered with the connection is that I often work at night and the router reboot itself sometimes, after what looks like an attempted router update or some re-syncing going on. Other than this it has been good as gold and I have to say that around 8-9 of my friends and family are on it too and none of them have had any major problems to report.

The one thing I have experienced however, is the shocking customer service, the fact that everything needs explaining in triplicate and that no-one seems to understand your point and that they are often keen to pass you over to the next person. I find this is the case with quite a few companies who farm out their telephone support though.

Overall I am generally happy with the service and considering the number of folks experiencing troubles, I am feeling lucky that I have not had to spend too much time talking with India.

Our BT broadband experience has been terrible, we've a problem with parental controls meaning we can't even get facebook. The help dept promise help but never deliver, we've had several promises of calls to help none of which materialise. This is our worst ever broadband customer experience - avoid BT! I've given a 1 star review because the zero option wasn't available!

Problems occur with every company but in my experience BT resolve them effectively...I love the new Infinity and the TV from BT which - if you compare it to some alternatives is great value for moeny. Ignore the moaning minnies

While the BTinfinity product is good, I've had terrible customer service issues during a house move. Broken promises, failed calls to arrange engineer visits and nearly 2 weeks without any service whatsoever. And then a wonderful bill comes through the door. Call centre calls don't have the info, they claim they've tried to contact me. Lies and really bloody rude.

Speed and reliability based on my previous address.

We've been with BT phone and broadband for two years. Our package is 10GB broadband and anytime calls. Most of the time, everything has worked fine. Our contract is soon due for renewal, so we've tried to haggle a new deal from BT. We're currently paying £33 a month. They could offer nothing better, even though we quoted what other providers could offer. Having read the dreadful reviews about other providers, we have no idea who to go with now. So many folk seem to have problems.

Can I give minus stars? Because that is what the service deserves. It's terrible. I am studying for an exam and at least 4 or 5 times a day I can't watch my online seminars because the connection or speed has a problem.

Worst broadband ever.

Worst company ever. Avoid at all costs, I switched and am without internet access for 10 dats now because if their incompetence and total lack of customer service and care. I have never encountered such terrible service before and I have lived in seven countries over four continents. Never consider BT, it's a total disaster with lying personnel. I wish I never came across thus rubbish company

I ordered BT Business Broadband in order to ensure a fast reliable serive and a fixed IP address on 21 May 2014. Emails and letters followed with all sorts of login names and passwords to confirm my order, and to tell me that I'll be connected by 29 May 2014, and that I'll get my router the day before. I therefore cancelled my Sky broadband, effictive end of May 2014. Today, on 30 May, I still had not received my promised router and broadband service. I called BT to find out that the Business broadband order line is only open Mon-Fri until 18:00! After several calls and being passed around someone eventually manages to tell me that my order "has been cancelled". They didn't know why, didn't know who had cancelled it, and didn't know why I hadn't been told. Therefore I will be left without a broadband or indeed internet service in about a day's time. No-one in BT has bothered to email me, call me, or send me a letter about this mysterious cancellation. Is this why they are "Britain's favourite broadband"?! This is extremely poor and uncaring service from a company that does not care about its clients as individuals.

that guy who says 'bt offer no cooling off period' yes you do, upon activation you can cancel. what company will let you have the service as a trial then cancel after...haha stupid and bt didnt explain full terms over the phone...grab a chair mate its like a book. they are advisers not story tellers.

I really would not advise bt to anyone, the customer service is awful. They ignore you when you tell then you want to cancel your broadband, then have the cheek to ignore letters and do nothing about it. They still keep sending me bills because they are too lazy to cancel. Worst service i have ever received.

TV crashes alot and is slow to respond to the remote control. My broadband is not working and I have have been told that an engineer will come out in 12days time...12 days without broadband that I need for work/business terrible service. And if they decide its was my fault in anyway they will charge me £129 for the call out..

Worst service ever never sign with bt ... Is the slowest speed ever customer service very bad ... I do not recomended bt to no one ... I have been getting 0.3 download speed for ages phone to complaint and after 10 calls they decided to send me a enginer and then charge me £130 without sort the problem out ... Is ridiculous never again

THE WORST SERVICE EVER. I installed a new line with Infinity Unlimited Weekend calls and calls abroad. It took them nearly 2 months to turn up and install my landline. They charged me nearly £200 in installation, activation fees and first month of rental and sent me a letter that my service is up and running. When I started calling abroad they sent me a bill for another £200 for international calls. I contacted them stating that it should be free of charge but they said that the service had not been activated and it takes up to 5 weeks to get it active, in the meantime I had to pay standard tariff. My brodband speed should have been close to 30Mb but it reached max of 0.9Mb. They blamed line filters, their engineer came and replaced them charging me another £43.80. The speed remained the same, when I phoned them they told me that I probably have a virus (I have Mac) and tried me to sell antivirus for windows, also to install newest updates from Microsoft although it is Apple. At the end I just resigned being charged another £86 for eraly exiting fees and installed a new VirginMedia line. I WILL NEVER EVER GET ANYTHING FROM BT

BT's customer service via its overseas call centre is truly atrocious.
They are completely lacking in empathy or understanding when there is a problem.
That could be partially offset if they could do their job, but they can't diagnose - never mind solve issues.
Worse still their complaint handling at the overseas call centre is laughable.
Not only do they fail to phone back - on the day or time they themselves set - but when they do eventually contact you expect to be merely quoted unhelpful and generic drivel along the lines of "our BT standards say...."
BT stance - via these call centres - even where there is clear evidence of financial loss due directly to their failures, is to weasel out of any responsibility.
The new BT slogan should be "BT broadband - with added choice" ...you pay BT and when its service goes down you get to choose and pay for cellular broadband whilst BT try and sort out their own mess.

Living in a rural location means I can accept slow speed. However, BT's customer service (from their non-UK) call centre - when something goes wrong - is atrocious.
They are unable to diagnose, never mind resolve, issues.
Furthermore, they don't phone back when they've arranged to and refuse to even consider compensation - even where there is documentary evidence of financial loss.
They're abusing historic goodwill and relying on customer apathy.

The product is fine from BT no technical problems over the 12 months, however their sales team and customer service team communications and billing systems are the worst I have ever came across.

I bought a bolton package when I signed up with BT that 12 months later they tried to re sell me the same one and advised I never had the package, there over complex time consuming billing system for BT phone calls and separate bills for Broadband is a joke, no simplicity the sales agents need to attain at least should be recruited with some listening skills, one costly problem led onto another, leave BT go with premier calls I halved my bills over night, BT are an expensive, overpriced

All I want is to receive a basic service and pay the correct amount each month. I have never had an issue with other companies, but BT can't seem to handle it without messing up. I have never, ever been billed correctly.

Getting any sort of assistance is near impossible. After spending half an hour navigating their menu systems and even longer being passed between various departments, you might be lucky to speak to somebody in the right team.

Unfortunately, the staff in their call centres, whether based in the UK or overseas, are the rudest and most obnoxious people that you could ever experience. When an issue gets difficult to resolve, they simply hang up and pretend that the call dropped.

Their complaints team aren't any better either. You are lucky if they offer a meaningless apology. They can't offer any recompense for the time, cost, inconvenience or vexation of having to spend hours and hours on the telephone resolving their mistake. They'll make promises and then retract them within a few hours. Several of the advisors in their Executive Level Complaints team feel that it's appropriate to scream and shout down the phone and then hang up.

As they are such a large corporation, they seem to think they are above the law and don't have to abide with Ofcom's regulations. I have now referred two complaints to the Ombudsman, at BT's expense, and luckily I am in the process of moving suppliers.

Gavin Patterson, you should hang your head in shame. Your company has fundamental issues and it seems to be getting worse.

Never again.