So if you and Mixture only get called in when there is a customer's issue, and are faced with unbriefed untrained folk, you have my sympathy.
Oh the number of times I've seen that one ! Ranks amongst one of the top 10.
Not only repair engineers either.
The open screech engineers they dispatch to install LLU copper lines also require you to spend 20 minutes explaining to them what exactly they've been sent to do, and then spend 20 minutes comforting them when they go into a nervous breakdown because there's no dial tone on the line because nobody ever told them that might happen under certain configurations during their "training", so you have to tell them how to check they've correctly installed it.
I've also been at large sites where years of BT bodge jobs have left behind messy cabling in the DPs.... so I've been told by the current breed of "engineers" that they never close off jobs for those sites because they run in fear of the auditors coming round and seeing the poor state of the cabling.
His experiences of BT are similar to mine, and would be to yours if you worked for some time in the industry.
Indeed. Most people's interactions with BT are limited to perhaps a single BT phone line and broadband for their home .... maybe combined with a few "pub tales" from their mates.
Those of us who get to see more of BT can easily bore you to death with reams of war stories.
The same goes for solicitors who deal with BT. I recently had lunch with mine and we got chatting about BT.... even little battle-hardened me was astonished by some of his tales about the sales and contract negotiation process !
You have to remember the BT mindset...their priorities are....
1. Sell
2. Why haven't you signed up that customer yet ?
3. Next customer !
4. Post-sales "support" and "customer service" .... if you're lucky
However, i'd still put BT as a 'mediocre' solution, as their product however terrible can't be as bad as the customer service you can receive from TalkTalk.
The TalkTalk network is "OK", the lines are reasonably stable and it is largely LLU (and I'm a firm believer in avoiding BT resellers and going LLU for broadband) .... but yes..... they've lost their way a bit on customer service. I would still put BT at the top of the poor customer service league table, but TalkTalk are a very close second... hopefully TT will be the subject of an acquisition and so might see some positive changes to customer service.... but that may be an optimistic dream !
My choices are .....
If you have to be on a BT based network.... Zen Internet.
LLU .... Easynet (by extension, theoretically Sky should be OK because they run it over the Easynet LLU network.... but I haven't had much direct experience of the Sky setup, so I don't know how the commercials and technicals pan out).
There are other options out there too, particularly for businesses, but I'll keep it simple by just listing two.
P.S. Don't fall for the BT owned Plusnet......once BT have finished milking it as an "independent" brand they'll no doubt be merging it back under the BT Retail brand along with the associated changes to product structure.