LIME drops Ericsson to do its own service work
(CNS Business): Local telecommunications operator LIME has cancelled its field service contract with Ericsson and is bringing the maintenance and support work back in-house as part of what it said was its promise “to overhaul and improve its customer service experience”. Cable and Wireless Communications (CWC), the operator of LIME, which is being rebranded to Flow, said it will now directly manage its customer touch points as part of the overhaul in Cayman.
Ericsson had been overseeing LIME’s field services management but Bill McCabe, Chief Executive Officer of LIME Cayman Islands, implied the decision to take the work back was made to improve customer service.
“The decision has been made to make our field services management an in-house operation, so that we can interact more directly with our customers,” he said. “We know we have a world-class network but we are striving to ensure that our customers’ experience is world-class too.” He added that Ericsson would remain a valued business partner and C&W would build on the progress made regarding the networks.
The changes follow the merger of CWC and Columbus Communications, earlier this year and John Reid, President of CWC’s Consumer Group said that the firm plans an “intensive, region-wide investment strategy” that would improve customer service and bring jobs to the region.
“The in-sourcing of service in Cayman follows the recent announcement of an additional Centre of Excellence for Customer Service in the region to provide customers with multiple touch points including warm and friendly service agents, Email, Virtual Chat, Mobile App and other technology-enabled support systems,” he said. “Combined with increased service agent efficiencies, state-of-the-art technology tools will improve call routing and reduce call waiting time, making for an overall superior customer experience.”
At the time of its partnership with Ericsson, LIME claimed that it would improve customer service and help it restructure its operations. Ericsson began managing the network in March 2014, which included installations, repairs and maintenance work.
“This commercial decision is in an effort to improve both the service levels we provide to customers and the efficiency with which we do so,” McCabe said at the time. “When we consider Ericsson’s domain knowledge, economies of scale, network design, optimisation and field maintenance we are confident that we will be well positioned to provide service that is on par with best-in-class operators across the globe.”
However, 18 months later the deal had been cancelled and it is not clear what will happened to local jobs. Around three dozen workers had transitioned from LIME to Ericsson after they had been given a chance to reapply for their jobs. Government had stepped in at the time and insisted that Ericsson hire Caymanians as part of the deal with LIME or it would lose its licence to operate.
Category: ICT, Local Business, Technology, Utilities
Will we now reach Customer Service on island versus Customer Service in El Salvador when calling 611 ?
More shape shifting from (S)LIME. Now their velcro brand is going to be “SLOW” until they next change it again.
The sad part is, despite the constant rebranding, the service has not improved at all. Getting a phone line still takes more than a month.
The problem with LIME customer service wasn’t all about Ericssons. It was about having a field technician never showing up at an onsite appointment, never calling then when they finally answer their phone after 10 attempts, they blamed something or someone (including blaming you) for not being there. The problem with LIME customer service is leaving numerous voice mail to your account rep regarding a problem and never getting a call back, or even respond to emails timely. The problem with LIME customer service is having some of your business numbers and cell numbers cancelled but keep getting a bill for those numbers 9 months later unable to stop the billings no matter who and how many time you call a rep to fix the issue, then having you main line or OTHER cell phones disconnected until the BS bill is paid, unable to speak to anyone on the subject, when you do, they assure you the problem is fixed, until the next month or two when the phone is disconnected again! the problem with LIME customer service is paying for a 6Mbit internet and getting 0.5, then calling support to have a useless run around testing your “computer” until nothing is resolved resulting to wasting your limited time. The problem with LIME customer service is that there isn’t any that’s worth staying at LIME if you depend on your communications, it took us 6 months to port the numbers out of LIME. Even leaving them was a terrible experience. Never again.
This should be amusing.
All the expats who worked for LIME were dropped and the service quality went way down. The customer service was off island and calling for help was very frustrating. I would call daily regardless of the meaningless promises I received. They made promise after promise but there was a disconnect between customer service and technical support.
The problem is LIME. Bring back the ethos, brand, and service of Cable & Wireless and stop trying to be Digicel!
Same old $hit different now under a new name. The $hit will still Flow but are we expected to go with it, not much choice in market is there?
the Government should set the example by hiring caymanians .
The technicians will have the benefitted. They got redundancy from Lime, now they will get redundancy again from Eriksson and they are back where they were a couple of years ago.
An excuse to get rid of Caymanians, that what it is. Government’s strategy was and is totally wrong from the get go with this firm. C&W, LIME, FLow whatever it is now should have been set up like CUC with local shareholders. Caymanians built the company and network and they received the $hxx end of the stick.
I really could not care less whether it is a Caymanian, expat or Martian technician all I want LIME to do is fix my buffering / freezing problem with my TV. For a year a number of technicians have been through my place and none of them have been able to fix the problem although I pay $160 CI a month. This is disgraceful for a company that brags about being modern and being state of the art.
I missed or could not watch at home the last Football World Cup, Super Bowl, and the way my Lime TV is working now the next World Cup. Don’t talk about the frustration of trying to watch “Wicked Tuna” on Sunday night!!! At least two years rebate is due to all Lime TV customers..Please just fix it…Cable and Wireless customer for over 40 years…SAD SAD, SHAME…SHAME