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The CEO of Eir apologized for the “sub-par service” during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking in RTÉ’s prime time, Carolan Lennon said the company was not making excuses for the long delays experienced by customers, but explained that there had been difficulties in retaining customer service personnel.
His comments followed a Prime Time report that found that a Co Tipperary couple went seven weeks without a phone or broadband.
Geraldine and Gerry Shanahan are among the hundreds of Eir clients who have experienced serious issues around connectivity and billing this year. The watchdog that oversees the communications sector, ComReg, has condemned the problems as “completely unacceptable”.
“We have never had fantastic care at Eir and in 2018 we made the decision to bring care back to our facility,” explained Ms. Lennon. “It was a bigger challenge than we thought,” he said.
Call centers in Cork, Limerick and Sligo struggled to retain staff and 80 employees left the company this year.
“It is very difficult to be at home in a bedroom listening to angry customers all day,” the CEO told the show.
Read more: Eir Clients ‘Abandoned’ As Complaints Rise
Eir said it was unable to replace staff between April and July due to hiring and training restrictions and that 120 new employees had now been hired.
Ms. Lennon said 1,000 employees had worked through the pandemic and repaired 200,000 faults.
The company says the average wait time to contact its customer service line is six minutes. However, when asked about a 40 minute wait experienced by Prime Time, Ms. Lennon explained that the service is busier on certain days.
“We get more calls on Mondays for some reason,” he explained.
“We have sub-pair [customer] watch out. We’ll fix it “.
According to ComReg, official complaints about Eir increased from 383 in the first quarter of 2020 to more than 1,000 complaints between July and September.
“The problems with Eir were so deep and so troublesome that customers really were left out, and that’s very unacceptable,” ComReg commissioner Roubert Mourik told Prime Time.
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