Orange, owned by France Telecom, rebranded the Wanadoo broadband service at the beginning of June this year. At the same time, it launched an offer for customers on a mobile phone contract of 拢30 a month or more, giving them a free broadband connection.
Although the former Wanadoo service centre is still in place and dealing with enquiries, Orange mobile phone subscribers wishing to take up free broadband are dealt with via the mobile phone service centre. Staff at call centres were telling customers that this was leading to the delays in answering.
A spokesman for Orange initially denied that this was causing delays at its call centres. "We have taken on new people, we're not swamped," he said. "I'm not aware of any issues with call centre volumes."
But a week after first being asked about the delays by Brand Republic, Orange eventually admitted there was a problem -- which it had deduced was "due to an increase in the number of calls we are currently receiving".
"Customers are calling for a variety of reasons including to get more information on our Free Orange Broadband and new Unlimited Animal tariffs. Both offers have caused a huge amount of interest among existing and potential customers," it said.
In August, Orange revealed it was closing a call centre in Peterlee but said it planned to offer the 900 staff who work there the chance to move to other call centres in the North East.
Orange said it was bringing in extra staff to deal with the problem.
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