topic Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet in Plusnet Feedback

No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

Wendy — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:00:38 GMT

Today was the day I was supposed to be connected to fibre fast speed Internet by my new provider, Plusnet, who are apparently second to none where customer service is concerned. My engineer was due between 8-1 this morning and by 12.30 (having heard nothing) I was starting to wonder if he would turn up. I had taken a day off work specially. Anyhow, an engineer duly arrived around 12.50 to advise me that I had taken a day off work for nothing as he was unable to contact me as there was a problem with the telephone line! This is the same telephone line that was working perfectly yesterday with TalkTalk. I spoke to Plusnet who advised that an engineer is now required to resolve this issue and this will take 24-48 hours! Unbelievable! I asked what compensation I would be offered - I now have no Internet access and cannot use my phone - and was told one month's free broadband! This is the company that would happily charge me £50 if I had failed to keep the appointment. I asked to speak to a supervisor and have just been called and advised one month is the best they can offer and if I want to make a complaint, crack on! I have to say I am really disappointed with the lack of customer service that has been shown so far - no improvement on TalkTalk - and am left wondering why I changed to Plusnet.
Would be interested to hear if anyone else has had a similar experience and, if so, how long it took to resolve.

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

chrispurvey — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:31:42 GMT

Hi Wendy,
Sorry to hear that you have had a bad start with us, I have looked into your account and install and can see that when the engineer went to activate your line a fault was detected. I know that is no good to you but we have to resolve this, there will be a faults engineer attending either tomorrow or Thursday to resolve this.
I would not envisage this being a long process and I am more than happy to monitor it to make sure your services are up and running ASAP.
It's not the start that we would hope for either and our main priority is to get your services working, once this has been resolved then I'll be happy to look at your account for you and the time that you will have been without your services.
Chris

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

chrispurvey — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 17:17:44 GMT

Hi Wendy,
Two appointments have been scheduled for you, a phone fault appointment and the fibre appointment for you to get your services working. Tickets have been created on your account to confirm this.
Let me know how they go.
Chris

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

Wendy — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 20:10:56 GMT

Hi Chris,
Good to see someone at Plusnet knows what is going on! I have an appointment scheduled with a BT phone engineer for tomorrow to check the phone line has now been repaired. However, I had absolutely no idea about the appointment as it wasn't mentioned to me!!
Really disappointing that my appointment tomorrow only came about as a result of ME contacting Plusnet to see if any progress had been made. It would be more reassuring if someone had contacted me regarding the phone line. Living without broadband or a phone is increasingly annoying!

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

Wendy — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 20:13:37 GMT

Sorry I meant to say I had no idea of the app booked for Monday with a fibre engineer as this was never mentioned to me - bizarre. Luckily I will be able to take a 3rd day off work!!!!!!

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

chrispurvey — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 08:51:36 GMT

Hi Wendy,
I'll make sure I give you a call if there is any update regarding anything else, you will also receive a SMS update too.
I was only able to get the fibre appointment after the phone engineer had been booked so that's why you weren't informed at the time.
Chris

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

Wendy — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 09:47:05 GMT

Hi Chris,
Well everything is finally up and running now. I would be grateful if you would have a look at my account and decide what compensation you feel is appropriate given that I was without broadband or a working phone line for a week before being connected by PN. Thanks.

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

orbrey — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 13:13:01 GMT

Hi Wendy,
I've added a ticket to your account with details on it, hope that helps.

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

susan67 — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 10:14:44 GMT

Wendy My sympathies - but at least you got an engineer turn up. I was supposed to have an engineer come 8-1 on Tuesday. I rang at 9 to check if there was a more specific time and was told no and that he would definitely be with me by 1. Was he? Of course not. Plus Net didn't know he hadn't turned up. They kept saying he'd some on Tuesday. He didn't. Then they said they'd get an appointment through on Wednesday but they haven't. Today is Thursday, still no appointment and still no broadband. I left Talk Talk because they were crap and I thought Plusnet were supposed to be good but Plusnet have taken crap to a whole new level.
Susan

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

Strat — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 10:59:08 GMT

And as we know it's Openreach who are the real bad boys with PN stuck in the middle.

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

chrispurvey — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:06:22 GMT

Hi susan67,
Sorry to hear of your installation delays, I can see that this is being dealt with and we'll have an update this afternoon. I'll continue to monitor the progress of this.
Please let me know if I can chase anything up or if you require an update.

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

susan67 — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:09:26 GMT

Chris
thanks for the response. I've been told to expect an install date today, and I'd appreciate an install date which is within a few days (given the first one was missed).
Interestingly, I was told that "BT had found a line fault" - not only was the line working fine on monday, but I'd had TalkTalk send an (OR) engineer out last month to check the line, as I was having regular dropped connections during the day. Engineer said line was fine....
It seems we're all at the mercy of OR... wonder if Infinity customers get a better service? From a retail customer perspective, there was little to choose between the two, and initial impression of PN, rightly or wrongly, is not high at the moment.
yours in hope.
(as I have no proper internet connection at home, I've had to get my husband to post this from work....
@Strat - those of us who simply expect 'stuff to work' and contracts to be adhered to, hadn't trawled through forums to find problems. my initial investigations hadn't flagged PN as any worse than anyone else. The first step to problem resolution is acknowledgement...

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

chrispurvey — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:33:33 GMT

Hi Susan,
We were advised that there was a fault at the exchange, so we have to go off this information our suppliers have given us. We are chasing this up and we've got all the correct people/departments looking into this to get is resolved urgently. We'll be in-touch and keep you up-to-date shortly.
Chris

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

susan67 — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:10:53 GMT

As Plusnet has chosen to chose to sensor the word cr*p - which I wasn't aware was a swear word I thought I should clarify for all potential customers to see. Plus net do not keep their word, they blaim suppliers. My contract is with Plusnet and I've now been without broadband for 3 days and absolutely no idea when it will be installed. It just seems to me they have a book of excuses and don't really care about their customers.

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

susan67 — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:19:49 GMT

It just gets better. The update today is that I'll get an update tomorrow.
Instead of blaming Openreach, focus on supply chain management.

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

Wendy — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 19:04:58 GMT

Hi Susan,
I completely sympathise with you as that's exactly what happened to me. Engineer turned up to connect us to fibre and I was told there was a fault on the telephone line (no fault or any problems before PN arrived to connect me!). It just seems to me that the OR service is very hit and miss. The next engineer that turned up could apparently find no fault whatsoever with my phone line and said everything was in full working order! Luckily, the 3rd engineer managed to get everything connected. However, I still got a phone call at work two days later from an OR engineer who had just randomly turned up on my doorstep believing he had an appointment to sort out the phone line! I had no idea about this so called appointment! Suffice to say, the OR service is very hit and miss and extremely poorly organised. It took a week to get my phone/broadband up and running and, like you, if I had known what was involved I would have thought twice about it for sure. I was also unaware before swapping to PN that you are unable to barr calls from home phones which for me, with three teenagers in the house who have a tendency to call mobiles non stop, is also a nightmare. With the benefit of hindsight........................ Good luck with everything and I hope you get connected soon - its amazing how much you miss broadband when you don't have it!

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

susan67 — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:40:26 GMT

not sure whether it's coincidence, but my first reply failed to post (some 'terminal server' error).
I've now been given a Monday morning install time.... though I'm not optimistic. It'll be nearly a week late, and I've had the full gamut of excuses. I'm not sure the 'honest' part of the advertising claim has filtered through to the installs department.
From a commercial perspective, I don't buy this "its out of our control, its the suppliers" excuse. Many businesses outsource or subcontract, and my contract is with PN. I wonder if senior management are aware of this issue (which appears to be quite common judging by the forum)? and if so, do they care?

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

James — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:53:53 GMT

Hi Susan,
We're aware of the problems that have been experienced by a number of people recently with regards to Openreach attendance and so on.
We do have weekly and monthly service reviews with Openreach and they are going through a restructure currently to ensure that the right people are looking at the problems that have been experienced by service providers.
You are quite right that you are our customer and it is our responsibility to fix, but sadly some things are outside of our control.

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

Townman — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 19:22:35 GMT

@James & @Chris

Quote
I have looked into your account and install and can see that when the engineer went to activate your line a fault was detected. I know that is no good to you but we [Plus Net?] have to resolve this...

The real question is "When a BT engineer turns up to do a job and finds there is a fault, why do they not fully own the problem through to resolution, rather than pass it back to their customer Plus Net?". This forum is full of stories of engineers turning up and not being able to do the job they have been charged with for a wide number of (non) issues, from claimed line faults (which were working the previous day) to not having keys for the cabinet. Thereafter the middle-man has to chase resolution and rearrange new appointments - WHY? This is total incomptence - what are PN doing to fix this unaccpetable behaviour from their supplier? Has any background analysis been undertaken on these failings? For example, what is the cause profile of 'line faults' experienced on installation on what was previously a fully functioning line? For example, was the 'fault' the result of misadministration on terminating the previous supplier? Are the engineers adequately trained? Surely in comparison to BB & Fiber, checking a voice circuit issue is a simple task that all BT engineers should be capable of doing, rather than needing to pass it to another unavailable engineer!
I've worked for 35 years in IT - if I had a customer fault condition caused by or was the responsibility of some other part of my organisation, then it was my job to coordinate resolution within my organisation, not to pass the problem back to the customer. BT Openreach needs to be brought to account for their unprofessional service provision, so that PN can deliver a better service to their end users.

Re: No broadband or phone - poor start to Plusnet

Oldjim — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 19:51:27 GMT

A very good and pertinent question