Some of BT’s broadband ISP, phone, TV and mobile customers, specifically a proportion of those who have been or are in the process of being migrated to EE, appear to be experiencing a variety of problems with the process that is causing headaches. Missing services, trouble accessing accounts and general admin errors are just some of the issues being reported.
As most readers will hopefully recall, BT has spent the past couple of years gradually working on a big branding change (here and here) that will – over time – gradually turn EE into their “flagship brand for our consumer customers” (i.e. converged broadband ISP and mobile plans etc.). But history tends to show that such major changes and migrations rarely go as smoothly as providers would like.
Since then there have been a series of gradual moves (e.g. product changes and withdrawals) to help facilitate this transition, such as the decision to withdraw BT Mobile and the offering of special discounts to help encourage BT’s customers to migrate over to an equivalent EE package. The latter has been going on for a little while now, albeit seemingly not without causing some headaches.
Over the past few months we’ve received and seen a steady stream of complaints about BT to EE migrations that have hit difficulties. The complaints vary, but some people say that not all of their bundled services were successfully migrated or that their attempts to migrate have been rejected multiple times, while others found problems with account and device access post-migration (i.e. being unable to manage accounts post-switch, via either EE’s website or the app, seems to be a particularly common complaint).
In the odd other example, EE’s staff have occasionally appeared to setup a broadband or other service order at the same address, creating two accounts for the same customer that has then taken a long time to correctly merge and resolve. Some of these issues have also caused knock-on effects, such as by preventing customers from being able to pair their EE router to the broadband account or to see/manage bills on the My EE App.
After receiving a few complaints about this we went hunting to see if any other gripes could be found and, suffice to say, there are plenty of related issues cropping up on BT and EE’s respective community forums (examples from the EE forum here, here, here, here and here etc.).
Sample Complaint 1
“Don’t know if it’s of interest but EE are having major problems migrating people off BT over to EE when it’s time to renew their contract. Personally I’ve had over 8 hours on numerous phone calls trying to sort out problems which started on Friday 31 May.
Basically someone in EE or BT had set up a broadband order at the same address creating 2 accounts, 1 account I did order and a different account and email address. Sent a new EE router and can’t pair it to the broadband account so cannot see bills on the My EE app.”
Sample Complaint 2
“I switched over from BT start of March and still can’t access my BB account despite multiple calls and confirmations that it would be fixed.”
Sample Complaint 3
“I renewed my contract for Broadband, Mobile and TV – with the understanding that the account would be migrated to EE – back on the 16th of May. Currently my Mobile and Broadband are on the new EE account but the TV order is lost in the system and I haven’t been able to watch Netflix, Now or TNT since the beginning of June plus I can’t see my account on My EE. I have spoke to a multitude of support people in trying to get this resolved but currently without any joy and I’m beginning to get fed up with having to chase EE.”
Sample Complaint 4
“Switched my BT broadband and TV 4 months ago, despite numerous calls to EE I can’t manage broadband or TV on either the website or the app. Have been told it’s a BT to EE migration issue, but no sign of it being fixed. Pretty poor, especially as I can’t manage my TV package – I wonder if it give me grounds to cancel?”
Naturally, we asked EE (BT) if they were aware of these issues and what, if anything, was being done to resolve them. The provider didn’t give us a comment but reiterated that they were committed to keeping their customers connected and providing good customer service.
However, EE did acknowledge that a small proportion of customers had been impacted by the issues we mentioned (the term ‘small’ is often relative when talking about a provider with c.9-10 million customers), and they are currently prioritising resources to provide solutions to these customers as soon as possible.
As we say, large and complex bulk customer migrations – between platforms or providers – can be fraught with difficulties and unexpected complications. But the hope is that BT and EE will be learning from these early problems in order to ensure that the majority of customers get a smoother ride.