topic Re: Very poor service in Plusnet Feedback

Very poor service

apple2 — Sat, 03 Sep 2016 14:50:48 GMT

To you guys who run customer service. For non urgent stuff, there is no way to communicate with plusnet without hanging on to a phone for 30mins plus, or waiting while the queue on the online chat decrements from 40 to 0. Come on guys, all I want to do is ask about my router which I have not received. Not urgent, but i need to give plusnet a reminder without wasting my day waiting on customer service.

Am I reduced to sending the CEO a letter? Will that work?

Re: Very poor service

HarryB — Sat, 03 Sep 2016 14:54:24 GMT

Sorry to see your new router wasn't sent out when you re-contacted recently.

It looks like it was added to the account but not progressed to actually be sent. I've progressed this for you now and although we always have to advise 3-5 working days for delivery, they're sent out 1st class post and usually arrive sooner.

I hope this helps.

Re: Very poor service

apple2 — Sat, 03 Sep 2016 15:05:59 GMT

Hi HarryB

Thanks for your prompt attention to my problem.

Could you take on board the problem customers have in contacting plusnet. I suppose the online chat would be mostly OK but who wants to wait while there is 40 people in front of you. The point is, I want to able to raise a non urgent question with plusnet and get on with something else, not have to resort to sending snail mail.

thanks again

Re: Very poor service

HarryB — Sat, 03 Sep 2016 15:08:51 GMT

I do apologise for the wait times recently.

As for the feedback, I can't make any guarantee of a full return of tickets further than what's already here. But I'll certainly pass on your comments to the relevant people.

Re: Very poor service

Minivanman — Sat, 03 Sep 2016 15:49:27 GMT

Fair enough Harry but there are times (and many of them) when apologising just doesn't cut it and waiting times a recent event? well no not really, and we both know that.

Re: Very poor service

HarryB — Sat, 03 Sep 2016 16:04:54 GMT

@Minivanman wrote:

there are times (and many of them) when apologising just doesn't cut

I'm doing all I can by passing on my apologies and also passing the feedback on the relevant people.

@Minivanman wrote:

waiting times a recent event? well no not really, and we both know that.

Well to be fair, when I've been checking them regularly over the past few weeks, they had made it to what I think was a fairly reasonable place (Regularly around 5 minutes or less)

This week I understand the wait times have been considerably longer, however I can assure you that we are doing all we can and I believe there is another training group in progress at the moment for some new starters.

Re: Very poor service

Minivanman — Sat, 03 Sep 2016 16:15:55 GMT

Well perhaps that is the case Harry but again we both know that these days when you phone organisations waiting times are just about the biggest pain. If plusnet are improving all well and good, but we'll see - or rather your customers will.

(declines to hold breath)

Re: Very poor service

rongtw — Sat, 03 Sep 2016 16:45:45 GMT

For the past few years PN has promised to reduce wait times since they opened the Leeds call center .

Unfortunately has not come to pass also they say they still training extra staff But to no avail support times are no better

Fortunately a lot of good people here on forum are backup unpaid to help PN

Its sad to see experinced staff here under pressure because people upstairs decided to give Free BB without thinking of extra support

Re: Very poor service

apple2 — Sat, 03 Sep 2016 17:38:00 GMT

I did once work in a tech call centre so I know what it's like and I have some sympathy. However, you need to reduce the call volume and one way is to give customers other ways to contact support. If your chat facility is running at queue lengths of 20-40 then that's too long.

Customers with none urgent calls just need to leave a message and get a reply in say 48hrs. That's all they require. I worked on a team that answered emails by the end of the next working day, and I admit it was unrelenting work but it keeps users off the phones. It also allows more urgent calls to be answered quickly.

so, make the chat facility work, queue waiting time < 5 mins or reinstate a message system.

You will improve customer perception, more contented people.

I do rate Plusnet, it just works, hassle free.

But I hope I don't get problems where I need to contact you guys.

cheers.

Re: Very poor service

Minivanman — Sat, 03 Sep 2016 20:59:59 GMT

Ironic that it's difficult at times to communicate with a communications company. There has to be a better way surely?

Re: Very poor service

rongtw — Sat, 03 Sep 2016 21:25:27 GMT

Worst thing is they REMOVED the easiest way ,,,, Tickets

Re: Very poor service

Kimberlin — Sat, 22 Oct 2016 19:13:39 GMT

Well sadly, almost a year of being with Plusnet, I'm experiencing my first proper problem with my internet connection. No landline fibre internet now for almost 3 hours. Have tried phoning, almost an hour wait time, so scrubbed that, online live chat, 30 odd in front of me and after waiting 15 minutes and only dropping 3 in the queue I gave up. What on earth is the problem here? I've just been looking at the downdetector map and if the deep orange colours on the the map indicate issues, then clearly there appear to be fairly huge problems in the London and North Midlands regions. Why doesn't Plusnet post an up to date clarification of what is going on?

Re: Very poor service

Anoush — Sat, 22 Oct 2016 21:27:22 GMT

I'm sorry to hear you are experiencing problems with your phone and broadband.

Have you tried reporting the issue at https://portal.plus.net/my-account/tools/phone-troubleshooter/

Re: Very poor service

Kimberlin — Sat, 22 Oct 2016 22:07:27 GMT

Anoush, thank you for taking the trouble to respond to my post, however, the link you provided states that service is temporarily unavailable. I've had no internet now for almost six hours. The phone line works fine, i.e., I've dialled my own mobile phone and it rings, though there is a constant clicking noise in the background. Before you ask, yes, I have switched off and reset the router. I'm sure this is down to an engineering fault, probably linked to my local exchange and as it's the weekend, nothing will probably get done until Monday. Perhaps Plusnet will refund me for loss of service?

Re: Very poor service

Kimberlin — Sun, 23 Oct 2016 10:08:09 GMT

So to any Plusnet customer service representatives that are monitoring this, here I am, still no landline fibre internet since 17.15 hours yesterday. Managed to connect to the link that Anoush provided to discover exactly what I expected, a line test confirming there is a problem and to phone the free phone number provided. So now I'm stuck on the end of a phone line in a 50 minute queue waiting for someone to talk to me. This is just poor and incredibly disappointing.

Re: Very poor service

Minivanman — Sun, 23 Oct 2016 10:23:36 GMT

At my age, no way would I waste 50 minutes waiting in a telephone queue.

Poor and incredibly disappointing? More like outrageous, avoidable, and totally unacceptable in this day and age..... or maybe 'this day and age' is the problem.

C'mon plusnet, get it sorted.

Re: Very poor service

Kimberlin — Sun, 23 Oct 2016 10:51:38 GMT

Ok, I'm now going to issue a very humble and public apology!

After waiting for almost 45 minutes on the line for a Plusnet rep, spoke to a fantastic guy called Ryan. Explained my issue and he informed me that I had lost my connection because I had changed my password almost two weeks ago!

So, for those of you like me who do an off the cuff password change by email purely for security reasons, remember to change the password in your router straight away. I didn't think about this at all and had no idea that everything would work fine for almost two weeks until something in the pipleline updated itself and then cut me off. Literally, within seconds of updating the password in my BT Hub 5, internet restored!

So again, to Plusnet, apologies for my rant and thanks to Ryan for sorting this out. I do still find it incredibly odd though, that the system allowed itself to work for as long as it did before updating and causing this particular issue. At least I'll know for next time!

Re: Very poor service

Minivanman — Sun, 23 Oct 2016 10:54:05 GMT

Fair point Kimberlin, but a 45 minutes wait?

That's just unacceptable.

Re: Very poor service

Kimberlin — Sun, 23 Oct 2016 11:02:33 GMT

Yes, 45 minutes is a poor wait time, Sunday or not. Last time I had to wait this long, was to speak to HMRC!

Still, I'm back online and happy again.

Re: Very poor service

jelv — Sun, 23 Oct 2016 11:09:37 GMT

Any sensible ISP would have a warning on the change password page that if you do so you may need to update the password in your router.

So what do Plusnet have?