topic Re: Call wait time in Plusnet Feedback

Call wait time

dsluk — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 19:56:56 GMT

Today is the first day of the reduced hours, I can only assume that their nightshift staff are now working days - so more bums on seats.
As of now (Mon 20:52)
Residential call stats
Current calls waiting Longest call waiting now Average answer time today
56.44 Currently unavailable 36 minutes and 32 seconds
I'd love to know how you can get .44 of a call
Why is the longest call waiting been unavailable for some time now?
I've currently been waiting for 33 minutes 11 seconds, my ears being blasted off by your very loud queue music......so even with the changes it appears there is no magic solution to your massive queues. I would have used the chat system but that appears to have completely disappeared from the website.

Re: Call wait time

alext05 — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 20:23:17 GMT

Call waiting times is Plusnet's Unique Selling Point (USP). It's all about differentiating yourself from the competition.

Re: Call wait time

dsluk — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 09:48:56 GMT

They used to differentiate on quality service, but now that BT has a hand in it they've fallen apart.
Having recommended a fair few folk to Plusnet over the years, it has now come back to bit me on the bum! I am fascinated by their call stats though, .44 of a call? Can anyone shed any light?

Re: Call wait time

Anotherone — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 10:01:05 GMT

It's an average over the previous 15 minutes as has been mentioned several times in quite a few threads around here

Re: Call wait time

dsluk — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 10:22:04 GMT

Thanks for that, must have missed those!

Re: Call wait time

Empirical — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 10:28:43 GMT

I'm glad I don't work at Plusnet's call centres. non stop calls leading to pressure to be off wrap & stress trying to keep call times low no wonder so many actions get done incorrectly or forgotten about and call backs fail to happen.

Re: Call wait time

dsluk — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 10:42:38 GMT

Plus a lot of hacked off ex nightshift staff who now have to work days!

Re: Call wait time

Anotherone — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 10:45:03 GMT

Not a lot, only 2 or 3, and they will have been doing a number of other tasks on other streams in any event.

Re: Call wait time

dsluk — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 11:00:46 GMT

Only 2 or 3? So who answered the calls overnight then?

Re: Call wait time

dsluk — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 11:09:31 GMT

Back on the phone to Plusnet now, average answer time showing as just over 7 minutes, message on line saying 30 minute queue, 26.60 calls waiting - their phone system no longer recognises my CLI prompting me to enter my number even though they supply my phoneline.
9 minutes! I'm impressed..................not so impressed with the person picking up the phone though, sounds very new, also in Leeds and claims they can only communicate with staff in Sheffield via email as they have no phones! What a joke!
Residential call stats
Current calls waiting Longest call waiting now Average answer time today
26.60 Currently unavailable 7 minutes and 11 seconds
Last updated: July 14, 2015, 12:05 pm

Re: Call wait time

Anotherone — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 11:42:31 GMT

Quote from: dsluk
Only 2 or 3? So who answered the calls overnight then?

They did, they didn't get that many calls overnight!

Re: Call wait time

dsluk — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 11:53:47 GMT

So my immediate question would be why have they reduced the CS hours to provide a better service if only 2 or 3 staff would be coming over to dayshift? I may have completely picked up the wrong end of the stick here but my impression was that by no longer opening at night, more staff were going to be available during the day to help get the queues under control?

Re: Call wait time

Anotherone — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 11:57:08 GMT

That might have been implied, but I don't recall it actually being stated. Have a read of the longish threads on this board about it.

Re: Call wait time

dsluk — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 12:27:53 GMT

@anotherone - I'm in the process of working my way through a few lengthy threads, trying to build up an overall picture. I'm sorry, and glad to see I'm not the only one experiencing their "Award Winning" service.......

Re: Call wait time

hapless — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 13:14:33 GMT

Quote from: Anotherone
That might have been implied, but I don't recall it actually being stated. Have a read of the longish threads on this board about it.

It was stated in the thread "Telephone support hours changing at Plusnet" - here http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,140849.msg1242073.html#msg1242073, quite early on:

Quote from: plusnettony
We are always striving to improve our award winning customer service, and as a result we have been looking at our customer support opening hours. After extensively analysing the times at which our customers call, and how long they have to wait, we are revamping the call centre opening hours. This will allow us to have the majority of our staff working when customer demand is at its peak. From 13th July 2015 our UK customer support lines will be open from 7.30am to 10pm every day.
Our business customer support is open 24/7.

Re: Call wait time

gofaster — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 16:29:31 GMT

Nope - still don't see anywhere in that statement that says there will be *more* staff on the phones during the day.
It just says the "majority of staff" and I am fairly sure that they already had the majority working during the day

Re: Call wait time

Anotherone — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 16:35:52 GMT

@hapless
As noted by gofaster, that does not say they are moving the 2 or 3 staff from the night shifts to daytime. The office still has to be manned for other reasons and as I mentioned there are other tasks that the staff have to deal with on other streams. In any event moving 2 or 3 staff to daytime is not going to have any significant impact on daytime call wait times, in addition to the other tasks they would have been doing suffering at that expense. Whether those tasks are still getting the same number of man hours is undoubtedly something Plusnet are not going to tell us.
There's quite a few of us that post here regularly that believe that the whole charade is nothing more than a cost cutting exercise.