Spark Loses Its Spark

David writes:

What is happening to what was a great New Zealand company?  It is just so sad!

Since last Thursday the internet connection to Te Akau Stud was down - it just hasn't been working and only came back on, on Monday.

Let me explain what has happened and allow me to sincerely apologise to you if your emails to us have gone unanswered - our internet only resumed on Monday and of course we had to head to the Te Rapa races.

We also wish to apologise if you have sent us a viber text message and we didn't reply to you - as we didn't receive it until today!!  Of course the other issue was paying our staff - which we do by internet banking!  Luckily we had worked through a plan for that!

Let me give you an example of why I am so upset about this debacle.

Saturday morning was the third day in a row with no internet coverage so yet again we rang to complain - we had rung plenty of times previously but received no information, no knowledge or timelines for reinstatement and certainly no updates on progress.

This is how it went (or words to this effect) ...

"Hello welcome to Spark ..... thank you for you call, all of our operators are busy right now so there will be a delay but please be assured that we will attend to your call as soon as possible."

Twelve minutes later ... a recorded voice message comes on ... "your call is in a queue and we estimate answering your call in approximately one hour" ... 57 minutes later I am connected to an operator in the Philippines.

I found it so difficult to understand the female operator - her English was very hard to comprehend but she told me there was a broken cable and they were having trouble repairing it.  I asked to speak to her manager.  It took almost an hour for him to be located and he finally called me back.

No it wasn't a broken cable at all, in fact they didn't know what the problem was caused by.  This was three days after the first fault was reported.  My staff and I have spent a total of nearly seven hours on the phone in the past four days talking to various - sorry "Spark" - staff and one thing I have established is this is the country's worst run company!  There was only one person - Paul - who attempted any type of service.

Spark - Telecom - you are nothing short of a disgrace and I can't wait to cut all my ties with you - and I will be encouraging my staff to do the same.

For the record I did find it insulting that a formerly New Zealand taxpayer owned company, now listed on the NZX, employs a call centre in the Philippines to handle its complaints.

We have young New Zealanders on the unemployment benefit - surely they can be trained to perform these tasks rather than be funded by the taxpayer to do nothing.

At the end of the day we stand and fall on our service to our customers - racing is no different - this debacle could not have been more poorly handled by Spark.