HOW TO: get in touch with Telstra
Filed under: Crowdsupport, customer support, Facebook, how to, Telstra 24x7
You’ve probably noticed that things have been changing at Telstra lately. Amongst other activities, we’ve been putting a lot of focus on improving customer service. We’re also aiming to make things easier for you by introducing new initiatives like being able to call us 24×7, but we know that things can sometimes go wrong. When they do, we want to make sure they get fixed.
First of all, while you’re on this page, we may be able to help you with your issue immediately online. It’s a good idea to check our CrowdSupport forum – if another customer has encountered a similar issue, you may find an instant solution. Just click the CrowdSupport on the top right of this page.
Alternatively, you can access our Facebook 24×7 service to chat to a customer consultant right now. If you have a Facebook account, click the Telstra 24×7 icon at the top right of this page and we’ll connect you through to a consultant who will be happy to assist.
Whether it’s a billing or payment issue, unsatisfactory email reply or Telstra phone problems – we want to know and we’ll take your Telstra complaints seriously.
How to contact Telstra with a complaint:
- Complete our online complaints form or call 13 2200 and say “complaint”. You’ll be transferred to a dedicated complaints handling team. You can call us 24×7.
- If you email us, we’ll reply within one day. If you call us, the consultant will aim to resolve your issue on the spot. If we need to investigate further, we’ll aim to resolve it (or tell you what we’re doing to resolve it) within five business days.
- We’ll aim to resolve your complaint within 20 business days maximum if it needs to be investigated further. We’ll continue to update you with our progress while this happens.
If you’re not happy with the outcome of your complaint:
- Let us know. We’ll escalate your complaint to the next level of management, or a case manager in a dedicated area. The manager of your complaint will deal with you personally to discuss your options and make sure you’re happy with the outcome.
- At this stage, if we are unable to resolve the complaint to your satisfaction, you can contact the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO). This is an office of last resort for complaints about telecommunications services. If you contact the TIO, please supply your Telstra complaint reference number.
Other ways to contact us with your complaint:
- Send a letter to Telstra Locked Bag 20026, Melbourne VIC 3001. We will reply within one business day of receipt.
- For complaints relating to disability enquiries, call 1800 068 424 (voice) or 1800 808 981 (TTY).
We are also spending a lot of effort investigating why complaints happened in the first place, to understand where we can improve systems and how we do things. Even after your complaint has been resolved, we’ll work on it to help ensure other customers don’t encounter the same problem.
Related links:
You should get on-board with Google+…
One of the native and unique features of Google+ is the “Hangouts” which as I understand it, is just a fancy name for real-time video conferencing, available on both computers and mobile devices (such as most smartphones).
If you’ve already got someone sitting at a computer 24/7, Google+’s Hangouts will allow you to give a more “human” feel to customer service because your consultants will be dealing with customers face-to-face.
Already Telstra have advocated how important Google+ is to businesses on this very site, and Google+’s Hangouts feature is just one small example of how businesses can utilize the technology to enhance the customer experience…
As far as I’m aware, none of the other Australian service providers have yet considered offering customer service in this manner, how it’s only a matter of time as the ability to offer face-to-face customer service is put simply, the next natural step.
I find it extremely difficult to contact telstra, i bought a T hub some weeks ago, it has been returned, i have another now I cannot get the hand sets working,
I spoke to somebody in the phillipines about the problem, we havent any phone line here,
I have just received a return package to put my T hub in, I only want the handsets to work.
where can I get advice and satisfaction, it’s so frustrating.
At the local Telstra outlet in Gympie they do not want to know.
what have I done to deserve this?
my mobile number is **********
please can I get somebody to fix the problem.
hi im haveing trouble veiwing my bill on line , havent done it for a long time , who do i ring about setting another email address thankyou
my phone number is **********
Hello Esmay, I’ve asked a local team to call you. Brendan
I’m just responding to your comments on improving customer service. My experience over the last 2 months of constantly having to phone Telstra then Bigpond (thought it would be the same) re: no internet access & dropouts & unable to use our home line (so noisy I ask people to call my mobile). Every few days I would phone with the same and I would get the same response, have you checked the cables, the line is fine now, and on and on. It became very wearing that the ‘customer service’ people do NOT look up ALL the recent calls and jobs logged. Therefore, not ask the same questions for the same problem( I estimate at least a dozen times or more). I still have no internet access at night and the phone is still bad at times. I now have a case manager and about to phone yet again. Meanwhile I have paid a bill over $100 for last month and now have another bill for $130! The customer service people are always polite but that alone is not what customer service is about. I phoned complaints and said I could not (at times -not always) understand the cust serv person, especially over the phone… he took this as a racist comment(which it was not intended. I’m sure I am not the only one to comment. Having workers off-shore is cheaper but it cheapens the service to a lesser quality in my opinion. It is exhausting and time consuming having to phone every few days. I guess the next step like you say is the ombudsman, but I am hoping my case manager will be able to fix our problem in the next week or two hopefully.
Hello Leigh,
Please do not see this as email abuse but I can sure tell you that telstra has about the most useless website to get in touch with telstra when a customer is overseas. Many countries phone systems do not recognise the 13xxx number as a correct number or the 1800 number. So please ask the team to place on page one a telephone number to call Australia and be sure it does not go through the voice recognition procedure to transfer to a customer service operator ( time delays in transmission causes all sorts of problems). Secondly get someone to delete the merry go round instructions of Go to Foxtel for information, as they say”We recognise you as a Telstra customer- Please go to Telstra”. If I am a Telstra customer buying the Foxtel service I need to contact Telstra to cancel it and in no place I have seen that Telsta shows where to seek a cancellation of any service. So, in your reply or action list to do would you please send to my email an Australian phone number to speak to a CSO direct to be able to cancel the Foxtel service.
I Thank you for your time.
R. Alexander working in Kabul Afghanistan.
What a joke.
In my experience whatever mechanism you use to contact Telstra you need to be prepared to burn several hundred dollars worth of your own time for ever $100 that Telstra owe you. Unless your service is completely dead its simply not worth trying to contact Telstra.
(And don’t expect an apology either).
Hi Paul. We have dedicated customer support teams and the best way to access that support in an efficient manner is to use the links above and connect with us on Facebook or Crowdsupport. You can also contact our support tesam 24×7 on Twitter @Telstra. Brendan
You’ve gotta admit, that 24/7 customer service on Twitter is pretty good…
Telstra – like most companies – is not without its flaws, but I don’t see too many other companies offering 24/7 customer service, particularly not via a “cutting-edge” medium such as social networking!
These days, I don’t really use Twitter all that much anymore (I prefer Google+), but I keep it active primarily so that I have 24/7 access to Telstra (*cough cough* Australian *cough cough*) customer care… Should the need arise.
See my post from 23 April …No response from anyone on telling me a phone number for direct contact to Telstra in Australia without using the 13 0000 and voice recognition operators (LOL) and how to cancel a Foxtel service.
HI Rodney, my apologies noone got back to you. You know the best way to contact Telstra for a service/product/bill query is to click onto the ‘Ask the Crowd’ or go to our 24/7 Facebook page on the top right hand side of our blog where you’ll be directly linked to one of our online customer support consultants. It’s a new feature we’ve added to make it easier for customers to get directly in touch with a consultant. This is the most efficient way to get someone to look into your account. Danielle
Apologies if I offend, but how stupid is Telstra. I currently have a wi-fi internet contract, which in a word is CRAP. I received notification that my area now had ADSL available – yipee. I put in an order, only to be told there was no free port at the exchange. I asked when one would be available and was told they didn’t know, that i would have to keep ringing up regularly to find out. I rang again several weeks later to inquire if there was any free ports and was told the only way they could check was for me to place an order. My question – why place an order if there is no ports available ? Wouldn’t you check port availability before placing an order ?
Telstra, it is 2012. If you haven’t got a record of available ports at an exchange, and a house in Australia can’t access ADSL internet, what the hell are you doing ? You’re a joke !
I have been tortured by Telstra over the last 2 months after a booking a house/business move with Telstra which was virtually ignored, leaving me without phone or internet service for our company for 6 days. In the course of trying to get that issue straightened out with Telstra, I was put on hold for over 22 hours, and repeatedly asked my name and date of birth every time I was shunted onto the next technical consultant or whomever. I estimate I repeated my name and date of birth over 80 times in the course of trying to resolve the initial problem. Clearly no-one keeps proper customer service notes between departments- staff desks, so each time I was forwarded, I had to repeat the entire story all over again. I continually found Telstra staff aggressive and poorly trained in customer assistance service. Then Telstra cut off my email because it was a dial up service address- although I’ve been on ADSL for years- without any notification to me the customer needless to say. Resolving this issue alone took another 4 days of endlessly being put on hold, then being actively lied to by Telstra staffers who told me in quick succession that my email service would be reconnected in 12 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours and then 72 hours. I have registered my complaint via the Ombusman’s office which now is taking its own course of time to resolve my steadily increasing complaint list. While waiting for Telstra to catch up and make its assessment and re-credit my account, they’ve now cut off my land line this morning. My elderly mother is on Heart Watch which means I as her closest relative, must be in phone contact in case of emergency. In my attempts to resolve this disconnection, I am back onto the complaints/help/technical line and have been waiting on hold now for another 45 minutes. I would like to know how to resolve these issues without being grilled for my personal details every time I’m forwarded and without having to be put on hold all the time, for hours on end. I would like to speak with a grown up in Telstra who is authorised to move between departments, who has a note pad to record my details and
I have made four online complaints …. All I want is a copy of my bills which I never receive and not a response at all. Spent an hour on the phone spoke to five people no resolution. Hit with a massive bill that I cannot accept but they will not provide me a copy of six months bills that I DID NOT recieve
Hi Jodie, I’f you send me your account and contact details using this email exchange.telstra@team.telstra.com, I will have someone investigate. Brendan
Oh I forgot to add they have suspended my email and phone ????? Disgusting customer service
Rang your complaints line to get a small matter resolved re your $15 late fee. (Beware everyone, after 3 days late you get hit.) I also wanted to continue paying my regular phone rental fee per quarter. However, recently I had changed plan to homeline smart after on of those telstra sales calls trying to help me save money. So I changed, and here I am with a prepay of line rental for the next billing month, because I changed a plan within the same billing?
When I first opened my account with telstra I payed the prebill, now again with the change of a plan I pay a prebill. That’s double dipping and I don’t think it’s fair to your users.
I also don’t find your open close method of dealing with complaints not fair and equitable for your customers, as it is a ‘left in limbo’ solution, that doesn’t give the customer an outcome.
Finally your stock answer of that’s company policy, is the perfect method to degrade your customer service. As a regular payer and user of your service I would have expected some service and customer satisfaction, rather than hiding behind company policy, that seems to be created without the customer in mind.
Its is 9.40om and I have been on hold for 2 hours re a bill complaint that overseas could not deal with. This is nothing but a disgrace. What excuse would you have for this? Is Telstra going to pay for my lost time?. I look forward to a reply and not a buck passing response.
Hi Rodney. I’ve asked a local team to get in contact and see that everything is ok will you billing issue. Brendan
I have two long standing outstanding issues with billing and email forwarding. Cal, email, visit the tech bar, write to the PO Box in Melbourne and and the best you get is a false promise to respond in X Business days, the worst is you get nothing. Call, what ‘Whirlpool’ refer to as ‘the Dead’ and, if by some faint chanceyou are understood, you get cut off anyway.
All very very sad.
I am not holding my breath for a response.
If your issue is critical, write to the Chairman. I did once as Sol sorted it for me.
Hi Patrick,
Sorry to hear about the problems you’ve been having getting in contact with us. This is unacceptable – my apologies. Are the billing and/or email forwarding problems fixed yet? If not, I recommend you jump online and chat to one of our customer service team members via 24×7 Live Chat http://tinyurl.com/24×7-service . They’ll be able to look at any account activity and hopefully resolve the issue while you’re online.
No, no contact from Telstra and the two issues persist.
I will try the Live Chat as you suggested, but I really need to speak to a person in Australia who can just get my issues fixed. It cannot be that hard.
The way Telstra support is set up at the moment is that there is no ownership of the problem from The Tesltra side, and no way of tracking it by the end user. Each time you call, you are effectively raising the issue from scratch. Then the Telstra person disappears into the woodwork once more.
No, silence from the complaints team I’m afraid. The problems persist too.
What I would like is to speak to a can-do person. Without a reference, the no-can-do people who received my complaints are doing just that and I have no way of getting hold of them or tracking my issues.
I will try what you suggested.
Patrick
Hi Patrick,
I hear you, its a pity telstra doesn’t. I have given up. As soon as another provider offers services here they are gone and that includes my business phones as well. The spin and crap from telstra staff being sorry is CRAP. The complaints team covered each others back and the best way to talk to telstra is with your feet. Our computer is stuffed sue to their so called anti-virus….pretend follow up..bills stuffed up and no accountability, phone services stuffed and no resolution. Patrick don’t waste your time with these people.. Aussie jobs overseas, 2 hour waiting in phone ques just to be disconnected…the time is coming to front the media and any body who is thinking about it let me know and I am happy to collect evidence and present it. I already know of atleast 6 people wanting to present a large action against telstra and I am too.
Let me continue this ridiculous saga regarding this message below I have been getting for so long and is beyond the capacities of Telstra to fix! Unbelievable!!
“You could not be logged in to Online Billing.
There may be a temporary problem, or part of the system may be unavailable due to regular maintenance. Please try again later.
Alternatively please feel free to contact us.”
28 Feb Anurag finally texted me back at 4.49pm (6 days after I contacted him!).
1 Mar Contacted Anurag and he is making it high priority and it should be fixed today, 4 March.
Surprise surprise nothing has changed!
This bloke is hopeless and I am sick of wasting my time and I demand a new Case Manager.
Obviously after nearly 3 weeks Telstra should have fixed this. A new Case Manager might help.
You want me to pay online and I can’t get there – the inefficiency is unbelievable!
Bob Bird
—– Original Message —–
From: “Bob Bird”
To: “The Telstra Team”
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2013 6:05 PM
Subject: Re: Webform: Residential Complaints 130208-015455 + INT1-1184228340605 + SRI-118632696049
>
> Let me set out how long this complaint has been going on.
>
> 13 Feb 2013 Original complaint 130208-015455.
> 13 Feb John replied but this didn’t fix the problem.
> 15 Feb He asked me to ring Technical mob INT1-1184228340605 which I
> refused to hang on the phone again for ages (why should I?) as I had done
> originally and the advice given (reregister) didn’t change anything.
> 20 Feb Fritzi sends me another number SRI-118632696049
> 21 Feb 12.47pm Text message and message on my answering machine
> from Anurag
> 22 Feb I phoned Anurag as requested on 1800 814 242, not available
> but will get back to me by cob 25 Feb, today, and
> guess what nothing from him yet again!
>
> Surprise surprise the problem still hasn’t been fixed!! The inefficiency is
> hard to believe!!
>
>
>
>
> —– Original Message —–
> From: “The Telstra Team”
> To:
> Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 7:23 PM
> Subject: Webform: Residential Complaint [Customer Reference: 130208-015455]
>
>
>
> Dear Mr Bird,
>
> Thank you for your recent email regarding your complaint (Reference Number
> SR 1-118632696049).
>
> I wish to advise you that your complaint has been assigned to our Customer
> Relations department.
>
> A member of our Customer Relations team will contact you within five
> business days from the date your complaint was registered with Telstra.
>
> If your matter is urgent, please call 13 22 00 and say ‘Complaint’.
>
> Further information about our complaint handling process can be found on
> Telstra.com: http://www.telstra.com.au/help/contact/complaints/
>
> Regards,
>
> Fritzi
> Customer Resolution Group
> Telstra Corporation Limited
>
>
Eek! Thanks Bob, have sent this to the Customer Resolution team and requested a new Case Manager for you. My apologies for giving you the absolute ring-around, I want to get this resolved ASAP.
I want to know why absolutely nobody in this forum is singing Telstra praises. How come NOT ONE complaint is resolved as expected?
My personal experience with Telstra parallels those here – hours on the phone to fix their msitakes, lack of call back, accountability, repeating yourself over and over again.
If the govt forced Telstra to share their mobile towers they would instantly become nothing but a wholesaler.
Yes Craig,
I think we all really know why. I note my last post nobody from Telstra commented or helped. Al issues still unresolved. Don’t excpect anything less. If they did resolve the issues then I would gladly spread a positive word..hard to do when there is little positive to speak of
OK. Here we are today, a few issues STILL UNRESOLVED.
I did not follow Gigi’s previous suggestion, but wrote to and called complaints teams. This immediately got me in touch with two can-do people. Jerry Corbo and Lys Lee? They were going to sort everything out. They did nothing, and after two weeks of calling their colleagues to get these two to call me back, I gave up.
Then, I used the on-line chat, as suggested. This worse than calling the overseas support people. It is not possible to explain a complex issue via a chat box. I ended up raising a complaint about the fact that the two guys above had gone silent. I have the transcript of the call to back this up. Anyway, as I expected, the time in which I was to be contacted by a case manager has been and gone and no one has called me!
Since then, some more can-do people have contacted me. I am now hopeful for the original issues being cleaned up.
Unfortunately, we now have a fault on one line, and we are going round in circles sorting this out.
I don’t thank you can put the finger on any root problem with Telstra, as there are many. I think it is just the sheer size and number of disparate systems and people who do not, will not or cannot communicate as one. Staff raining is definitely a real issue however.
From a customer point of view, there are a number of points to note:
1 – The overseas guys do not always speak good enough English. Be prepared to repeat stuff, even as far as wording what they type in your notes
2 – Support / Billing / Technical / Case managers do not all have access to the same information – be prepared to get names, numbers and different call/issue references
3 – Often, you will get a call out of the blue, when you are not able to take the call, stating that your call/issue has been fixed and the call/issue will be closed. This is outrageous behaviour. When it happens, you have to open that call/issue again at expense to you and Telstra
4 – Don’t be fooled by the text thanking your for your concern, someone will contact you within 5-7 business days. No one will call you
5 – If you have more than one land line/account and multiple issues across both, as I do, you are very much on your own! Calls/texts and account notes either fail to identify the account in all instances or just mix the issues. This adds to the confusion at both ends. Log the communication yourself
6 – If you live in an area of poor mobile reception, and have an issue with a land line, do NOT tell them your mobile number. Even if you tell support NOT to call it, they do so anyway, leaving a message saying that they could not reach you. This is often followed up by some incorrect comment or proposed action
7 – Sometimes issues fix themselves!
So, I am sticking with calling the complaints team and keeping a spreadsheet to log all of my issues (to resolution).
This is how I get in touch with Telstra.
Good luck all.