topic Re: Poor ticket reply times in Plusnet Feedback

Poor ticket reply times

Steevo — Fri, 05 Sep 2014 15:46:37 GMT

Why are PlusNet taking so long to reply to tickets? I had one from a week ago that came off hold and was closed a week later without updating with the engineer's report. Two others have still not been updated after 48hrs.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

grizzly — Fri, 05 Sep 2014 16:36:24 GMT

Have to agree with you here I have had good experience with plusnet up to now responding to issues I have experienced in the past, but 2 days now without broadband and no response to my ticket ?
Not impressed.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

chrcoluk — Fri, 05 Sep 2014 16:45:59 GMT

they seem to put tickets as low priority which is a weird way to work, even with a forum rep looking at mine 2 days ago it never got followed up and I am now on hold for god knows how long.
currently using 3G, I wonder how urgent they act if I withold payment.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

Steevo — Fri, 05 Sep 2014 18:54:43 GMT

To add insult to injury on the website they state the target ticket target closure time as 24 hours. That's CLOSURE not reply. The actual time is "1 day, 13 hours, 7 minutes and 14 seconds".
Anyone would think they were understaffed but it seems the reality may be worse than that.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

Steevo — Sat, 06 Sep 2014 14:38:31 GMT

Question #91076873 was my original support request yet this was automatically closed due to "The broadband fault has been closed by the supplier. Should problems re-occur, please restart the Broadband Fault Checker.". This was further to an engineer's visit after which no action was taken, no report uploaded to ticket or even a courtesy follow-up message.
I therefore started a new BB Fault Checker. This created Question #91076914. Which was escalated to the correct team for review. 48hrs later, no further reply and "The broadband fault has now been closed. Should problems re-occur, please restart the Broadband Fault Checker.". The only message added was "Kind regards" and then the agent who closed it's name.
I'm astounded at such poor (rude!) customer service, not even having the courtesy to explain anything.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

Steevo — Sat, 06 Sep 2014 15:38:11 GMT

Phoned today and spoke to Jamie from Tech Support. What a breath of fresh air!! Honest, upfront, explained everything clearly, understood where I was coming from, tried his hardest to help rather than trying the easy option of fobbing me off like others before. He didn't guarantee it would solve the all of the problems (happy with the honesty!) but said it should help solve some of the problems first. Hats off to him, a true credit to Plusnet!!

Re: Poor ticket reply times

grizzly — Sat, 06 Sep 2014 20:57:12 GMT

Hmmm no response for 3 days now no update to the ticket and still no broadband looks like I will have to ring them too if I want anything done.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

Steevo — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 16:55:27 GMT

Scrap that! Latest speed test had a download speed of 0.09mbps, upload of 0.03mbps and a ping of 3563!
Seems like the line reset has certainly not improved anything. Rang PlusNet a moment ago and was told my line is suffering "loads of disconnections". All they can offer is to send another engineer out! Starting to lose patience after a month of this.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

Acassim — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 10:06:01 GMT

Hi All,
First off, let me offer our apologies for the delays you've seen with the support ticket system. At present we're working to reduce the ticket response times however this year has been a challenging one with regards to nation wide issues as well as the odd outage internally and the increased interest in new technologies such as Fibre which have placed additional stresses on the support ticket system.
As a business we do try to forecast the requirements for support staff bi-annually however some of the nation wide issues have really tested the number of heads we require to keep the response times within 24 hours. We could well have pushed an additional recruitment drive for staff however this can and does end up causing more damage than good.
At present we're working hard to deliver a lot of new automated systems which will allow us to free up resource to answer calls and respond to support tickets so we should start to see these benefits over the latter half of this year. In the meantime. We aren't resting on the delivery of this new automation and have been busy recruiting and training new support staff in both the Sheffield and Leeds call centres along with offering our current staff overtime in order to pull all response times back on target.
With regards to "closure" times, this is a target to have the issue picked up, dealt with an resolved and doesn't link to just having a ticket closed off without resolution.
@Steevo - Your query sounds like one we recently saw on Twitter where the message "The broadband fault has been closed by the supplier. Should problems re-occur, please restart the Broadband Fault Checker." was quoted as the ticket being closed off without reason however this message actually means that we have been notified by BT that they have closed the fault that we have raised with them, the ticket actually remains open in this scenario.
Ideally this wouldn't be closed by BT if the issue is still ongoing however we do see this from time to time and we then have to re-open a fault with them to continue to investigate the problem.
I haven't been able to find your account as I believe you may have switched your account over to a new one with us and I can only find your old account however I would hope that the chap you spoke with on the phone has re-raised this for you if the issue is still ongoing.
@Grizzly - From looking at your account it appears that the ticket was raised and hit some testing errors which were then rectified by the automated system however you added comments each day following this which has halted the faults checker by passing the ticket to the back of the queue each time that additional information is added to it. This is an issue that we're aware of and hoping to get fixed soon so in the meantime, I've given the ticket a nudge forward for you so you should start seeing action on this over the course of today.
Moving forward, if you're able to leave the ticket in the testing phase without adding comments, the faults team will pick this up and come back to you with questions at set intervals.

To summarise over the main query of this thread, we are aware of the delays in updating support tickets and we're working hard to drive these back down below 24 hours. In the meantime, we're very sorry for the delays you're seeing at the moment and we apologise for the inconveniences this has caused.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

AndyH — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 10:22:38 GMT

Is there a priority system for tickets?
Does someone who's lost phone/broadband service have priority in the ticket system over someone who has a general query?

Re: Poor ticket reply times

glloyd — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 10:41:41 GMT

Far to much priority is given to getting new customers than dealing with the ones they already had. The problem with PlusNet is they never seem to learn from past mistakes and loose customers.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

gofaster — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 10:58:19 GMT

Quote from: Adam
We could well have pushed an additional recruitment drive for staff however this can and does end up causing more damage than good.

Quote from: Adam
We have been busy recruiting and training new support staff in both the Sheffield and Leeds call centres

If recruiting new staff causes damage then why are you doing it?
Or are you just talking Bull

Re: Poor ticket reply times

Steevo — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 11:02:40 GMT

Hi Adam,
Thank you for your reply, it is greatly appreciated. My account is now GLSTEVENS. (is my forum username linked to this account?) The ticket is now raised with support (ticket no. 91184633), and I am awaiting a reply. I am surprised by how long it takes for tickets to be replied to. An automated system saying when the next reply should be received would be extremely helpful as it would help customers realise their problems are not being ignored. I have often waited 4-5 days for a reply without receiving one.
I'm glad to hear PlusNet are looking to improve the ticket system as well as the current reply time issues. I have called in several times about the issue and this does help move things along a little. Unfortunately however during my call yesterday I was told that all that can be done is to "keep throwing engineers at it" (despite having two already) to diagnose the problem. Nobody seems too interested in fixing the fault that is causing the limited speeds however. I was informed that a member of the faults team (do they only work Mon-Fri 9-5?) would reply to me today.
Thanks once again for your reply. It's good to know you do care about your customers and don't ignore issues.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

grizzly — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 12:50:27 GMT

Quote
@Grizzly - From looking at your account it appears that the ticket was raised and hit some testing errors which were then rectified by the automated system however you added comments each day following this which has halted the faults checker by passing the ticket to the back of the queue each time that additional information is added to it. This is an issue that we're aware of and hoping to get fixed soon so in the meantime, I've given the ticket a nudge forward for you so you should start seeing action on this over the course of today.
Moving forward, if you're able to leave the ticket in the testing phase without adding comments, the faults team will pick this up and come back to you with questions at set intervals.

Thank you now have someone looking at the issue and we have some resemblance of internet. I thought it would be reasonable to give feedback to any case I raised especially when I deem there to be a lack of response or communication. I have been very happy with plusnet up to now but I must say am really disappointed this time round.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

Anotherone — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 14:30:33 GMT

@Adam C
IMHO, Delays in the ticket system, the number of Support staff etc, are precisely the sort of issues that should be being addressed by Chris Parr and covered in detail on the Community Site Blogs, and you should not have to waste your valuable time on lengthy explanations like this when there are more pressing needs both on this board (for example the two posters whose issues you have been looking at) & others on the Broadband and Routers Board. Just my opinion.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

MattyC — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 16:22:07 GMT

Hi everyone,
I'll say my piece here to anyone whose queried since Adam's post:
@AndyH - There's no priority system. However, certain ticket pools are likely to be picked up quicker than others. E.g. Delayed orders, expedites, anything that puts people out of service etc....These are more likely to be picked up over something like directory entry changes.
@gofaster - I think Adam was hinting that we need to be selective when recruiting, and put them through rigorous training as an alternative to putting them on the front line as quick as possible.
@Steevo - Our faults department are open 9am-9pm Mon-Fri, 9am-5.30pm Sat, Sun. I can see that somebody has responded to your ticket.
@grizzly - Thanks for feeding back, it's why we're here. I can honestly say that the ticket response times are one of the main drivers of complaints at the moment so it really is in our interest to start improving upon them.
@Anotherone - We'll take that on board! I can see where you're coming from, particularly on Mondays like today.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

Steevo — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 19:03:12 GMT

Thank you. I hadn't noticed this as the ticket had been closed as soon as the message posted, meaning I didn't get a notification. It was only because I went looking for it after you mentioned it that I loaded the closed ticket section. Because there is no notification you don't go and check it. I think this is an area PlusNet could improve.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

Anotherone — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 19:11:58 GMT

The whole Ticket processing procedures need improving, we've been moaning about it for some considerable time now.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

Bud — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 20:49:57 GMT

I raised a ticket on my business account and its approaching 5 days with absolutely no response
From someone who was around when the ticket system was introduced and how unpopular it was then it feels like we are back in those early days of the system with long response times.

Re: Poor ticket reply times

Steevo — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 22:45:11 GMT

I personally like the ticket system. But you could with guaranteed replies within 24hrs max, ideally 2-3 for a simple issue.