topic Re: PN & Openreach in Plusnet Feedback

PN & Openreach

gleneagles — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 09:50:09 GMT

It's quite clear from comments on various sections of these forums that many complaints from customers are down to problems caused by Openreach rather than PN but in almost every case PN will be blamed for the fault.
Sky and TT have suggested openreach be split up which may or may not be the answer but I am of the opinion it would be in Plusnet's interest to let customers know on these forums what action if any they recommending to be made to Openreach as the present setup will be costing them customers and in some cases customers who have been with them for sometime.
I Have no idea if the CEO of PN reads these forums, perhaps someone can send him a email link to this post.

Re: PN & Openreach

mlmclaren — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 10:35:35 GMT

Your right! most issues mentioned on this forum are to do with Openreach... thats because they provide everything that the service runs on!
However Plusnet and other ISP's are not so innocent in the matter either!
Actually recently I've seen a lot of bloopers for connecting new customers that have been caused by Plusnet and even then have continued into more and more bad customer service and undelivered promises.
Also other ISP's such as AAISP don't seem to have such problems with Openreach... yet Openreach should have it in there own best interests to see BT Retails and Plusnet as a priority "not that they do" as they are all part of the same BT Group company.

Re: PN & Openreach

AndyH — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 10:46:30 GMT

A lot of blame is placed at Openreach, when in fact a lot of the time the whole story is not made available for people to see all the facts. A fairly common one on here is where someone is waiting for an engineer who doesn't turn up and blames Openreach, when in fact Plusnet didn't place the order correctly or it got rejected and Plusnet failed to tell the customer.
In terms of Openreach's performance, they are performing well at the moment based on their set targets. This doesn't mean though that you're not going to get problems - you always will when you're looking after 10 million+ lines.
I would be interested to know why you think splitting up Openreach from BT would make any difference to their performance? Openreach is essentially run as a separate business anyway.

Re: PN & Openreach

sjrinfroyle — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 10:47:09 GMT

Openreach should be split off and made into a seperate company to BT.

Re: PN & Openreach

mlmclaren — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 10:48:14 GMT

It is a seperate company

Re: PN & Openreach

AndyH — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 10:49:30 GMT

https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/aboutus/equivalence/equivalence.do
I still don't see though how splitting Openreach off would improve performance (if that's what people are looking for)?

Re: PN & Openreach

gleneagles — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 11:19:11 GMT

@AndyH,
Personally I have no idea if splitting up Openreach would improve the service but most users would agree that something needs to be done.
As for errors made by Plusnet that's down to training and supervision. It may also be down to unrealistic targets, if staff have to sign up a minimum number of new customers in a set period it's easy to see how incorrect or misleading information can be given if it's going to get a customer signed up, failure to do so could lead to warnings and in some firms dismissal although I am not suggesting this is Plusnet's policy as I simply do not know what their staff policies are.
Like many companies Plusnet are in competition with others who provide the same service and a check on those forums highlight similar issues to what appears on this forum

Re: PN & Openreach

Strat — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 11:30:01 GMT

Openreach has a virtual monopoly in what it does, therefore no competitors, therefore no incentive to be better than it is.

Re: PN & Openreach

mlmclaren — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 11:34:51 GMT

So the only way of them having a competitor is to have a whole new infrastructure built by another party and made availble for resale by 3rd parties... however this won't happen...
The closest to it possible is if Virgin Media allowed their service to be resold and even then it still not going to compete with Openreach's footprint.

Re: PN & Openreach

jab1 — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 11:37:30 GMT

And thats just it, Strat - they can treat everyone - TT/PN - you name 'em (excluding Virgin) - like they don't count.
Unfortunately for them, many end-users are waking up to where the fault lies, but unfortunately, the official body that is supposed to regulate them is either toothless or downright scared.

Re: PN & Openreach

AndyH — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 15:11:50 GMT

@ jab1 - Do you have specific examples? I think (and some Plusnet staff have said this before) that there is a lot of unjust negativity towards Openreach.

Re: PN & Openreach

jab1 — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 15:47:15 GMT

Andy, I hear what you and PN staff say, and freely admit that all MY OR appointments have been kept (5 in 21 years ) but there are numerous posts on this and other forums rightfully complaining that they have failed to turn up when promised.
What annoys many people, and certainly would me, is that you wait in for them, they don't turn up, you have to contact your ISP, they have to contact OR, and you get 'sorry' - no explanation and 'we'll reschedule' - so you wait in another day.......................
Surely the allocated engineer is (or should be) given the EU's contact details, carries a mobile, and should be able to advise if he is to be late/a no show - my last three visits, all by the same excellent engineer, he rang before arriving, during his endeavours to find the problem, and when he finished on the one time that was after his shift had finished and he was still at our local exchange.

Re: PN & Openreach

AndyH — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 16:07:20 GMT

If an engineer doesn't turn up as scheduled, it's obviously important to understand the reason behind that.
For new fibre installs, OR miss around 2% of appointments - but this number continues to fall each quarter (excluding periods where you have major issues like bad weather etc). About 3x as many appointments are missed from customers who are not present.
I think one of the big issues that needs to be addressed is the communication between Plusnet and the end user. One specific example is FTTC migrations - Openreach made it very clear to ISPs that an engineer will not be sent out to a customer's property for a FTTC migration (it is all done remotely). Plusnet failed to update their ordering systems/generic emails, so customers were expecting an engineer on the date of migration based on what Plusnet had told them. Now this was completely Plusnet's fault, but the end user could easily blame Openreach if they were not aware about the Openreach procedures for FTTC migrations.

Re: PN & Openreach

jafreer — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 16:16:00 GMT

2% of appointments. I wonder how many appointments a week that translates to.

Re: PN & Openreach

AndyH — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 16:25:23 GMT

About 500 a week - but that number will never be zero.

Re: PN & Openreach

gleneagles — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 16:28:55 GMT

Not really a problem..........unless you are one of the five hundred.

Re: PN & Openreach

jab1 — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 16:30:21 GMT

Quote from: AndyH
If an engineer doesn't turn up as scheduled, it's obviously important to understand the reason behind that.

Exactly - so why are customers expecting an engineer - as I am on Tuesday - not advised until they ring PN, who don't know either?

Re: PN & Openreach

AndyH — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 16:39:59 GMT

When you say Plusnet don't know either, what do you mean?
If a customer places an order and gets an install date, then it's up to Plusnet to inform them if there are any changes to that date. One problem has been the communication between Plusnet and the customer if there are changes - there are no excuses if Plusnet are aware of a change and they fail to inform the customer. This being a classic problem - https://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,140361.0.html
There are obviously situations beyond everyone's control that can result in missed appointments - an engineer overruns on previous appointments, an engineer's van breaks down, an engineer becomes sick etc.

Re: PN & Openreach

gleneagles — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 17:52:25 GMT

Van breaks down ? you mean they have no spare vans ?
Engineer is sick ? Well the chap who installed my fibre was on a zero hour contract with openreach so I guess they would have no problems in getting a replacement engineer at short notice.
A company that cannot deal with issues like this has no business to be in business at all, a bit of competition is what's needed.

Re: PN & Openreach

jab1 — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 18:06:34 GMT

Quote from: AndyH
When you say Plusnet don't know either, what do you mean?
If a customer places an order and gets an install date, then it's up to Plusnet to inform them if there are any changes to that date. One problem has been the communication between Plusnet and the customer if there are changes - there are no excuses if Plusnet are aware of a change and they fail to inform the customer. This being a classic problem - https://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,140361.0.html
There are obviously situations beyond everyone's control that can result in missed appointments - an engineer overruns on previous appointments, an engineer's van breaks down, an engineer becomes sick etc.

I mean that if an engineer (in my case tomorrow hopefully an sfi) doesn't turn up, PN are not aware until the customer rings the following day and says 'what happened to my 0800-1300 appointment?'
As I've said, the engineers should have contact details for the EU, and if he is going to miss an appointment for any reason, a quick call to that contact number would enable said EU to get back to PN and say 'look, I know the engineer is not going to turn up, could you reschedule?' Or is that not possible.