topic Re: Help and Support? in Plusnet Feedback

Help and Support?

oldhag — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:41:24 GMT

I could not access the internet.Tried to phone Help and Support.Hung on the line for quarter of an hour.
Advisors were all busy. Following morning I tried again hung on for half an hour .Advisors were still all busy.
You cannot have enough advisors.
This is a 0845 number so the longer we have to wait the more it is costing.
It should be a 0800 phone number.
Dissatisfied customer.

Re: Help and Support?

orbrey — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:08:28 GMT

Hi there,
It looks like there's a dropping connection there. The best thing to do would be to raise this to us via http://faults.plus.net as this will advise of all tests required, though it's well worth ensuring that the router is plugged into the master socket (the one where the phone line enters the house) without any extension cables, and also that all items plugged into the line including the router are plugged in via a microfilter.
I hope that helps,

Re: Help and Support?

oldhag — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:21:47 GMT

There was nothing wrong with my phone line.
A neighbour finally sorted out the problem for me and got me back on-line.
But what I want to know is.
Why were no advisors available?
All I kept getting was music and then a voice to tell me that all the advisors were busy and they hoped to be able to answer me soon.

Re: Help and Support?

orbrey — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:34:25 GMT

Well it depends when you call and how busy we are, but unfortunately it looks like all were busy when you phoned up I'm afraid - sorry about that. If you need to call up in future there's details of how busy we are on our website at http://csc.plus.net so you can pick your time when we aren't busy - the call queue and average wait time are at the top of the page.
I hope that helps, and sorry your call wasn't picked up.

Re: Help and Support?

mikko — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:28:35 GMT

You didn't answer the bit about having an 0800 number - something i've been wondering about when it comes to British businesses. After all, in the USA it's pretty well standard practice to provide free numbers (1-800) even for existing customers. Even the banks have 1-800 numbers. I have a Chase account and all their numbers are free. It makes sense - do all you can to encourage not only your prospective customers but also your existing ones, it pays off down the line.

Re: Help and Support?

matt_2k34 — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:59:45 GMT

If you call from a plusnet phoneline, the calls to CS are free.

Encouraging customer uptake...

Re: Help and Support?

oldhag — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:48:03 GMT

You tell me details of how busy we are on your website at http://csc.plus.net
This was no good to me as I couldn't get on-line in the first place.
Why can you not say how many are in the line waiting?
oldhag

Re: Help and Support?

James — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 17:00:46 GMT

Hi Oldhag,
Whilst I agree that it would be really handy if we could do this, because we have loads of different "huntgroups" and different priorities for different types of calls, it's not something that we can easily do.
What we do generally do though, is record a message when we're busy, normally something like "waiting times may be in excess of 15 minutes".
I'm sorry that your call wasn't answered in a timely fashion.

Re: Help and Support?

shutter — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 19:53:11 GMT

@ old hag....
If you want to know how things "used to be" on PlusNet phone lines a couple of years ago...... 20 minute waiting time ... on hold.... and 2 days 24 mins to get an answer that your ticket has been received.......
read this... and all the following posts....
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,80676.0.html
and while you`re reading it..... they are still giving out the same excuses......
"we are training more staff, things will improve..........." 2 years on... nothing has changed...............so not much hope is there.

Re: Help and Support?

James — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:18:33 GMT

Hi Shutter
Just to give you some hope, whilst I'm not going to comment on the call waiting times, because these *need* to improve, ticket waiting times *are* improving.
We have a dedicated ticket answering team (which I'm looking after currently) and we've seen improvements in ticket response times throughout the week and I anticipate this to be below 24 hours by the end of today. It's not the 4 hours we aim for, but we're getting closer and I'd like to think that we'll be able to get towards that point within the next few weeks.
Longest wait on our "generic" CSC pool is currently 1 day and 17 hours. Like I say, I expect this to be a day or less by the end of working hours today.

Re: Help and Support?

Oldjim — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:25:12 GMT

<cynic mode on>
James pulled rank and had a lot of call answering staff moved to ticket answering
<cynic mode off>

Re: Help and Support?

Chris — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:01:15 GMT

Not quite Jim, the dedicated ticket ticket was started a couple of weeks ago and James is looking after them as the person normally in charge of that team is on leave this week.

Re: Help and Support?

jelv — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:13:23 GMT

[me=jelv]wonders if the improvement being seen this week reflects on the relative abilities of James and the person normally in charge[/me]

Re: Help and Support?

Oldjim — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:19:27 GMT

* Oldjim wonders if putting Mand in charge with cricket bat in hand would have reduced the time down to minutes rather than hours

Re: Help and Support?

Chris — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:22:00 GMT

The improvement has being ongoing for more than just this week, it's worth noting that a number of other people from around the business have also been helping out with ticket too. I'm very supportive and happy to give credit to James for stepping in while the normal person is off, but they also deserve massive credit for setting up the team, getting the right people into it and pushing them to focus on getting the pools down.

Re: Help and Support?

James — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:26:32 GMT

To confirm, one of our Team Leaders (a guy called Oliver who's role has a number of similarities with my own) normally looks after our ticket team (it's been in place for a couple of weeks now), but he's currently on holiday for the week.
As Chris has mentioned, there's been some other people from round the business helping out with some tickets, but I'm confident that we'll be able to drive further improvement in the future.
I'd personally love http://csc.plus.net to show an average of 4 hours or less!

Re: Help and Support?

matt_2k34 — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 17:56:13 GMT

Quote
I'd personally love http://csc.plus.net to show an average of 4 hours or less!

So would we James. It's nice to see that improvements are being made and that is always welcome. Nice to be kept informed by staff too (often on irc)
Regards

Re: Help and Support?

Kelly — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 19:31:52 GMT

I've been doing some tickets too.... not sure if I've helped though

Re: Help and Support?

opahenk — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 20:28:43 GMT

hi as a new member of just a few hours i regret having to make my first correspondence in the form of a complaint i have become a refugee from talk talk and having checked you out noting your awards and being very impressed with your sales rep. duly signed up for home phone /broadband package .Since then i have spent ,over several occassion a total of probably 90 minutes on the phone waiting for someone to reply while being entertained with a barely audible musical and occassionaly being reminded that i could pose my question on the [thanks to talk talk] non existant internet, this coupled with the automated telephone system which cleverly leads you round in ever decreasing circles but avoids ever taking you where you want to go is a marvel of obstructive science. What you call customer service is not acceptable by any standard i dont know if you require payment for the time i spent waiting mainly in vain but i can assure you that should you attempt to charge me i will see you in court ."High call volumes"=shortage of staff Although Talk Talk dont have any reliability they do at least answer the phoneand take the flack On a more positve note i did have trouble getting on broadband and after the customary delay spoke with a guy called Jean Paul who guided me through he was just great far better than you deserve really Sincerely Henk Duinhoven