topic Re: a lot to learn in Plusnet Feedback

a lot to learn

mikecarrick — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 17:50:31 GMT

This thread will probably be deleted by the moderators, but I can not understand why Plusnet have won any awards for service, I have had 3 months of lies, mis-information, poor service, no call backs as promised, cancelled appointments etc, I have had personal experience with Virgin, Sky and BT and am new to Plusnet,, I urge anyone considering a new internet service provider NOT to choose Plusnet, Virgin may quote 5 weeks for install, but it really is 5 weeks, and BT and Sky a little longer, 6-8 weeks but it is 6-8 weeks, but Plusnet .... wow 12 WEEKS and counting, was told 3 weeks, then after 3 weeks definitely only another 2 weeks , then another, then another, then another, having taken tomorrow off for my latest appointment (not for the first time) I have now been told my next appointment is rescheduled for 24th September, fine of £50 if I am not in, BUT they have the right at after 5pm on the 23rd to cancel AGAIN and reschedule for ANOTHER 2 weeks..... Plusnet have a 'Strap Line' We'll do you Proud.. I can suggest a new one!!!!!!!!!! Plusnet have 'a lot to learn' in customer service

Re: a lot to learn

dvorak — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 17:58:23 GMT

welcome to the forums
the moderators are not staff and have no agenda and don't censor negative feedback, as long as posts are within the forum rules

Re: a lot to learn

mikecarrick — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 18:04:55 GMT

nice to hear, thank you Dvorak

Re: a lot to learn

Townman — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 23:15:41 GMT

Hi Mike,
A warm welcome to the forums.
The problems you describe might not be entirely of PlusNet's making. BTOR can be particularly bad at keeping iSPs informed - see my experience here https://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,139693.0.html
My case is at the highest level of esclation within BTOR and still they are not giving PlusNET straight answers. Clearly everyone's case is different - your post gives no insight of the facts behind your delays, but I'd bet you a pint or two that your issues are down to BTOR resource availability.
Kevin

Re: a lot to learn

hapless — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 10:54:18 GMT

Hi Townman,
I have to say that your continued defence of Plusnet amazes me!
As everyone here eventually knows, if OpenRetch is causing the problems then we know we have next to no influence over them - that is the way that OFCOM set the market rules by seperating the network from the Customer.
The issue that Mike and loads of others have, is that Plusnet set the expectation.
They are the company that...
...we agree contractual terms with - very one sided, unfair terms with the onus on us, the customer, to do right by Plumnet.
...set the appointments,
...set the prices,
...provide access to the infrastructure as the communications provider - where they source that is irrelevant to us as we have no influence, or as a typical end user, any real knowledge of that part of the network,
...train their staff to provide us as customers with the information we need to make a decision - if there is any failure with anything beyond us giving the correct name, address, phone number, bank details (which they never seem to get wrong?), then as the contracted partner, Plusnet ARE responsible.
Blaming anyone else for a suppliers failure to manage their own commercial contracts and relationships, and failing to keep their Customers accurately informed, is down to no-one else but Plusnet.
Off to the pub now, cheers all.

Re: a lot to learn

jelv — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 11:07:45 GMT

I'll ask a question that I've asked before: what representations have Plusnet made to OFCOM about OpenReach's failings?

Re: a lot to learn

AlaricAdair — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 11:14:48 GMT

I'd say Townman tends to provide realistic balance. PlusNet do some daft things, but their siblings in BT, aka OpenReach are essentially hopeless with residential installs and act (or fail to act) without any sense of responsibility or fear of sanction for individual failed actions. Unfortunately OpenReach are not expected to make direct with the clients. In this case PlusNet take the heat.

Re: a lot to learn

Townman — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 12:30:52 GMT

@Hapless,
Thank you for your comments - it is good to test positions.
I understand your amazement on my apparent defence of PlusNet, however I do not think that I have exactly defended PlusNet, but rather sought to shine light on the reasons that PlusNet are sometimes unable to deliver the reasonable expectations of users. I have particularly used my own direct and recent experience, but also draw up on the many dozes of complaints on these forums and my more distant personal experience with a PlusNet supplied business and residential services. If you have read carefully, I tend not to comment on the reports of issues with billing, residential phone service answering and some of the order system failures (beyond have you still not deployed the new systems) as I do not have the experience of them being bad. For the record those matters are indefensible as were the data leaks and repeated bng failures, both of which I have been highly critical of PlusNet's handing, for those are all within PlusNet's control.
Only through rationally understanding what is going wrong might change be brought about. I have never said that PlusNet are not responsible for managing matters and indeed have been quite critical of Andy Baker's apparent inability to get PlusNet's suppliers to do better. May be I expect too much of PlusNet's CEO, for it appears that even massive fines against BTOR from Ofcom (which an engineer told me yesterday BTOR had received) is not making a difference. BTOR has appeared before a parliamentary committee and still there is no improvement.
I have written three times to the CEO of BTOR and not had a single reply. My case has sat for weeks at the highest possible level of escalation in BTOR going nowhere, the DSO claimed delays awaiting responses for third party utility companies but did not actually DO anything. In the end, I personally managed those third party utilities and got the job done in around two weeks compared to the two months of BTOR failure.
The complaints to BTOR CEO opened escalation routes to PlusNet which would otherwise not exist. Even then PlusNet could not get the information they required. How can PlusNet be BLAMED for that? Yes they are accountable at all times for ensuring that everything possible within their power is done, but if that does not satisfy a user who does not want (indeed need) to know the ins and outs, what do you expect PlusNet to do? If they could perform miracles they'd be in the religion business, for it might take the wrath of God to sort out BTOR, without which neither PlusNet nor any ISP / CP (outside of Virgin Media, 4G or satellite provides) can deliver telephony and broadband service into our homes.
Yes, always, PlusNet remain responsible to the end user, but not (in my opinion) are to blame in all circumstnaces, for blame lays with those responsible for delivery and who do not do so. In which case given that Ofcom are supposed to make BTOR perform, may be the ultimate blame belongs Ofcom?
I am sure that you would feel wronged if you were blamed for the failure of your supplier to a client IF you had done everything within your power to ensure the right things happen. In all of my postings on the matter, no one (with knowledge beyond my experience) has ever identified communication or escalation routes which PlusNet could use but do (choose) not use, other than reporting BTOR to Ofcom. I have seen one suggestion that A&A might have a list of local managers that they contact through dark channels, but that might be seen as encouraging an inequality / impartiality of service.
I'm seeking to provide a focus for improvement and rest assured I will be following up my experience to both Andy Baker and the CEO of BTOR. I can only speak from experience - the service I have received from PlusNet over the years has always been good to excellent (albeit sometimes slow and protracted), whereas that received from BTOR has always been (shall we say) very challenging.

Re: a lot to learn

jelv — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 12:47:14 GMT

I repeat: what representations have Plusnet made to OFCOM about OpenReach's failings?
My belief is absolutely none because they are part of the same group of companies.

Re: a lot to learn

Townman — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 12:59:22 GMT

Quote from: hapless
The issue that Mike and loads of others have, is that Plusnet set the expectation.

On a slightly different spin, that is both fair and unfair in the same breath.
There is indeed an offer, with expectations, which when everything goes "to specification" works, delivers and fulfils expectations. The issue is the end to end process is complex and when it goes wrong, inevitably it goes wrong in a bad way. In such situations is maintaining the same expectation and wanting to assign blame reasonable?
Take my Wednesday activity for example. In the morning I spent an hour or so developing a piece of Excel / Word integration / automation code - only an hour's or so work job done. I took it out to the client's site and then sought to test run it on one of their machines. It failed and I realised that I needed to change some default settings to match my reference system. Not a difficult task ... except that Excel started to throw registry read errors - no information on what or why.
After a lot of internet research I discovered that there was along history of such issues, but nothing gave any clear pointers as to the cause. I happened to stumble upon a reference to a particular registry key not being accessible by the current user (access restrictions) and that allowing the current user full access fixes the issue. I dug into the registry found the key, confirmed that access was restricted and set about changing the permissions through a different user account. Thereafter it worked. The key in question is related to FlashPlayer - I rather asked myself what the hell has that key got to do with Excel and why should access restrictions to that impact Excel's behaviour? That took me over two hours to fix on the client's machine.
Am I to blame that the time to install did not meet with their expectations? For information the other machines on which the technology was installed each took under two minutes, as I had anticipated.

Re: a lot to learn

Townman — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 13:00:34 GMT

Quote from: spoon
I repeat: what representations have Plusnet made to OFCOM about OpenReach's failings?
My belief is absolutely none because they are part of the same group of companies.

Jelv,
As ever a good question - though I did not think you were asking me to answer it. I have also asked it of Andy Baker and will do so again.

Re: a lot to learn

jafreer — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 03:44:54 GMT

Quote from: Townman
Am I to blame that the time to install did not meet with their expectations?

I am not sure that is an accurate analogy because you ran into an issue that you hadn't encountered before, and did your best to resolve it. Openreach has a track record of missed appointments amongst other issues. So there is an argument that Plusnet should be informing the customer of what is a realistic expectation (that Openreach may not arrive on the day). Of course, they would never do that, yet lots of people have to deal with missed Openreach appointments every day, and Plusnet know that.
So whilst Plusnet know the failings of Openreach, Plusnet do not pass any information about these failings onto the customer. That is Plusnet's fault.

Re: a lot to learn

Townman — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 08:32:33 GMT

And that is a more than fair point - may be ISP / CP sales should carry a similar "Past performance is no guarantee of future performance, the value of your investment can fall" type warning as applied to investment products.

Quote
We are completely dependent on the performance of our suppliers for the delivery of your service. If they encounter problems we might not be able to obtain any realistic information on the nature of the problem or the time scales within which they will resolve the problem.

Re: a lot to learn

jelv — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 09:49:03 GMT

That was incomplete:

Quote
We are completely dependent on the performance of our suppliers for the delivery of your service. If they encounter problems we might not be able to obtain any realistic information on the nature of the problem or the time scales within which they will resolve the problem; but even when we are sent an update by our suppliers we may not read it and it's highly unlikely we will pass the information on to you unless you ring us up to ask for a progress report.

Re: a lot to learn

Townman — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 09:53:45 GMT

Between us I rather think that about covers it!

Re: a lot to learn

mikecarrick — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 16:17:37 GMT

sorry for not catching up sooner, have been overseas working, but great to catch up on all the comments, would agree that some of my issues have related to Openreach, but not all and some are totally down to Plusnet, so far about 8 separate failings, by way of example I would confirm one of these:-
my property is a 'new build 5 bedroom house' from Barrett's I booked the broadband and phone 4 weeks before my expected moving date, 24th July, my move was delayed until 4th August, Plusnet had advised of a delay but said it would still be installed by 4th, they had my mobile number, email address and also contact details for Barrett Homes (my house was the last to be sold and occupied), all other houses had already had a successful installation by others, not Plusnet.
I called Plusnet around the 5th to check the situation, they advised that Openreach had attempted to install, but the pipe from the house was blocked and have requested to be un-blocked, I asked when did they speak to the builder and was told they ONLY notify Plusnet, when asked when did Plusnet notify the builder they said they were waiting for ME to notify the builder, when I said I did not know it was blocked, so how could I notify them they said, and I quote, 'Oh, we knew 3 weeks ago and told you, on, on....., oh dear we do not appear to have notified you, oh please could you contact the builder and ask them to un-block and let us know when this has been done' I complained to them that this has now delayed my install by a further 3 weeks because they failed to keep me informed, I mean how long would they have let this drag on if had had not chased them!!!
more lies and errors have happened since, some from Barrett's and some from Plusnet, ..... Openreach have been back today, but I am still waiting!!!!!!!

Re: a lot to learn

Townman — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 09:39:28 GMT

Frankly BTOR should have owned the whole of this problem. Not you, not PlusNET.