Hiya I'm considering joining madasafish as well. Having/not having access to a geographical number would be a deal clincher/ breaker for me too. I've just sent off the following e-mail to madasafish customer services:

Hi. I am considering joining you as an ISP, I'm currently with Wanadoo (Orange) and my broadband contract ends in a weeks time.

I plan on getting my MAC code and migrating across to your MAX package.

I found out about you from my membership to moneysavingexpert.com, a site run by Martin Lewis.

On his website he actively promotes you as having excellent customer service and an excellent value product.

One of the things that makes a real difference to me when looking at an ISP provider, and can be the deal maker,  is having direct or indirect access to Customer Services or Technical Support via a geographical phone number i.e 020 7665 3000 and I note that you only quote 0870 and 0844 numbers on your website, but that you quote an 020 number for contacting you by fax.

There are two reasons that I look for this, the first reason is because when I'm in the UK I have an inclusive number dialling package that only includes geographical numbers at an inclusive rate, ie 01 and 02 numbers and not 0870, 0845, 0844 etc.

The second is that I quite often travel abroad, and have had reason in the past to dial my ISP with questions or technical issues when outside the UK, and when you dial an 0870, 0845 or 0844 number from abroad sometimes the International dialling code system simply doesn't recognise it and you are given an unobtainable code and cut off without connection.

I understand why your company has joined up to an 0844 or 0870 scheme because I have access to one through work myself, it is an active "icing on the cake" money earner because you receive a certain amount of commission generated from these lines back into the business from British Telecom, and extra profit has never harmed anyone. I am also aware that every 0870, 0845 or 0844 number in order to work has to be linked to a geographical number.

However, as I've explained in my circumstances access through your 0844 and 0870 numbers just doesn't work, in which I'm sure I'm not alone, I am therefore wondering if I could put your "Legendary" customer service to the test, could you please provide me with a geographical number for your Customer Service and/or Technical Support helpline, doing so would make the decision definite for me to join you, and I would also give excellent feedback back to Martin Lewis, because as I know you appreciate he is active in singling out a company who go the extra mile for their customers, both old and new.

I thank you for your time in this matter. 


Mr. Christopher Fox


I'll let everyone know how I get on!

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Brightview operates internet service providers freenetname, Totalise, Global Internet, Madasafish, IC24, and Care4free.

There is a thread for requesting geographical numbers for Brightview here.

Foxy wrote on Oct 16^th, 2006 at 4:40pm:

Rubbish. Maybe in the US this exists, but in the UK 'inclusive' packages include calls to any geographical number from anywhere to anywhere (for UK mainland numbers at least). What's more where calls are chargable, the vast majority of people pay the same for local and national calls.

Quote:

The price should be set by telcos, not greedy companies like Brightview. Perhaps you can suggest that Mr Henton looks at getting some 03 numbers when they are made available.

As far as I am aware their first level support is in India - so I am not convinced how much alternate call routing (within the UK) there is.

Their ISP service is pretty good quality, however, (at least in my experience) so hopefully you wouldn't need to call very often.

Since most ISPs are on 087 support numbers I suppose 0844 is better for week-day non-evening issues and worse for evening and week-end issues. I think only more expensive providers will offer a geographic support number.

You can raise support issues by email - but the response times are then poorer.

Hi Chris

Thanks for your email and I'm glad to hear that you're considering moving over to Madasafish. I'm sure you won't regret it.

There are several reasons we use an 0844 number for our support lines. Firstly, as you wrote, we do earn a small slice of call revenue from calls to the support lines, although this amounts to a very small proportion of the costs of running our support centre. Having a non-geographic number means that call costs are fair to everyone. Some phone packages allow customers to make local calls for free and publishing an 020 number could then be argued to be unfair to anyone living outside the London area. At 4p per minute at any time of the day we feel that the rates are fair to everyone who needs to contact us.

However, the main reason for using a non-geographic number is to do with the call routing. Our 0844 number is configured so that in the event of a telco fault, the calls are directed to an alternative telco for delivery to our support centre. This gives us redundancy in the network and provides the high availability of our advisers that you’d expect. It also means that we can change telcos if we’re not happy with the service we’re getting without our customers having to be informed and all our print materials being changed (this has actually happened quite recently). If the 020 termination numbers were made publicly available then these benefits wouldn’t exist. In the event of our changing the termination number, customers would no longer be able to call us. Clearly that’s something we want to avoid and we therefore don’t publicise the 020 termination number.

I hope that this doesn’t change your decision on joining us and I can welcome you to Madasafish Broadband very soon.

Best regards

Matt


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Matthew Henton
Head of Marketing
Madasafish

9-10 Grafton Street

London W1S 4EN

___________________________________________________________________________

Hi Matthew, (Head of Marketing - madasafish)

Following much deliberation I have decided to move to Zen Internet and not madasafish, despite the higher price that Zen charge.

I just wanted you to know that the main reason behind this is because you weren't as a company prepared to offer access to your 020 termination number.

Although you may think that this is a petty reason I am not alone in feeling this way as I am a member of an on-line community website called saynoto0870.com, the subscription to which is huge after having been mentioned in the Daily Mail, the Guardian and BBC News and National Radio etc etc.

I understand your main argument about phone number portability in the event of needing to change providers, or in the event of an emergency, and I am not suggesting for one second that you cancel your 0844 main contact number completely, but simply that you give access to your geographical number as well, and if in the unlikely event it changes due to unforeseen circumstances so what!? Surely you would just let the relevant people know your new geographical number either via your website or putting it on the saynoto0870 website yourself, if the worst comes to the worst people who wanted to could still ring you on your 0844 number.

I also disagree with your statement that some phone packagers allow customers to only make local calls for free as in my experience of shopping around all phone packagers that have all inclusive deals base it solely on geographical phone numbers nationwide, and not just in a limited local area.

What you should realise being in the Customer Service industry is that "one cap really does not fit all"

In addition to this my other argument was that if I'm using my madasafish service wirelessly in another country and I have problems I can't access the technical helpdesk on an 0844 number simply because the international dialling service doesn't provide connection, something I have experienced first hand and having access to your technical services department by email would one, be long winded, and two, only work if I didn't have a technical problem in the first place (which would be my reason for calling!)

My contract to Zen is fortunately only 30 days, so if you decide in the light of my argument to provide me (and the other forum members of saynoto0870.com) access to the geographical number then I will seriously reconsider my decision to move across, and I'm sure I will not be the only person to do so.

You are one of the only internet providers that don't offer their geographical number to their customers so they can make a choice, and in my opinion due to the reasons you have quoted for not doing so you have made this decision purely on a commercial basis, which is fine but commercially you have just lost one potential customer due to your decisions, and I am sure I am not the first.

Thank you for taking the time to read this email, and respond to me in the first place.


Chris Fox.

Perhaps you should take what they say with a pinch of salt.

The Marketing Director says their are 020 termination numbers.

Where as CS spokeslady says the 0844 numbers are terminated in South Africa,and there is not a 020 number.
See: http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=freenetname&Number=27195...