topic Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website in Plusnet Feedback

Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

JakTheBiscuit — Sun, 30 Dec 2018 11:08:00 GMT

Bring back the ability for customers themselves to raise a ticket via App or Website.

Because it is asynchronous and because there is no capacity problem makes it invaluable. It was a very poor decision to make it unavailable.

Thanks.

p.s.

Attempting to use phone is hopeless as wait times are usually 15 mins or more.

"Online chat" is often unavailable (and you have to enter a question which the agent cannot see, so you have to type it twice), (and it is often very slow even after an agent starts the conversation)

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

JakTheBiscuit — Sun, 30 Dec 2018 11:36:55 GMT

I just spent 46 mins online in the Chat program - do the agents have to deal with multiple chats at once?

The delay between each agent reply to my typing could be as long as 10 mins,

Sometimes you don't need a solution immediately, you just want to raise the ticket and have it dealt with.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

shermans — Sun, 30 Dec 2018 11:56:53 GMT

I could not agree more. This has to be a very inefficient way of dealing with queries. I cannot understand how Plusnet have changed this. Raising a ticket was functional and reliable - it was effectively the same as "Chat" except that it was offline. In other words, you could raise an issue, go away and wait for answer in due course, come back to read the reply, comment on the reply just like "Chat", go away and wait for answer in due course, come back again to read the latest reply, comment on the reply again, and keep doing so until the issue was resolved. Members did not have to spend hours waiting in queues for either telephone or "Chat", and Plusnet staff did not have to be immediately available to answer but could pace their handling of the issue.

What we have instead with "Chat" is a Plusnet agent dealing with five questions at a time, getting them muddled up and responding to the wrong member, upsetting the member for being stupid and eventually getting so confused that the agent responds with rubbish. It is MOST unsatisfactory.

When I took Plusnet to Court last year for loss of service for five days - and won £300 compensation - the Judge at the end of the case then said that he was going to address Plusnet's barrister directly about their appalling customer service. He proceeded to tell the barrister that their customer service was unacceptable and that Plusnet had to address the customer service failings which lead to the Court case. The Court's time should not have to be wasted again. His remarks were supposed to be brought to the attention of Plusnet management.

Since BT acquired Plusnet in 2007, it has been downhill all the way in terms of customer service. Paul Cusack and Lee Strafford must both be very saddened by what has happened to Plusnet in the intervening years.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

adamwalker — Sun, 30 Dec 2018 14:24:43 GMT

Thanks for your feedback on this,

We do respond both here and on social media as a way of picking up queries that don't require an immediate response.

Feel free to PM me if there are any specific queries that you might need to have dealt with.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

corringham — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 11:49:15 GMT

We do respond both here and on social media as a way of picking up queries that don't require an immediate response.

The problem with the fora as a fault reporting system is that Plusnet then reply with a ticket on the individual's account because it contains personal information. The thread is often hijacked by other people saying they have a similar problem, and it is easy to lose the original problem in the resulting mess. Messages being moved from one forum to another, or being split, by moderators also make any resolutions harder to find.

It also makes Plusnet look bad as the fora are indexed by Google, so anyone searching for Plusnet sees long lists of problems but few solutions, as they are on individual tickets that aren't public.

I assume that Plusnet thought that by forcing customers to post problems to the fora that other users would often resolve the issue without Plusnet staff having to do anything.

I would also point out that often people do expect an immediate response - they have often failed to get through by chat, or have given up trying to get through by phone after being on hold for extended periods.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

Mads — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 12:26:12 GMT

Hello @corringham,

I am sorry this is your experience on our forums. I can certainly see your point of view with regards to an OP issue getting lost among other customers responses, however, the forums was set up not just as another way for Plusnet staff to help customers but also for users to help each other with things Plusnet may not necessarily support, such as configuring 3rd party routers, VPNs etc.

As Adam mentioned previously if there is anything we can do to resolve any issues you may be experiencing please PM one of the staff members on this thread and we can investigate and help resolve them.

Thank you.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

corringham — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 12:34:06 GMT

I was just making a general point about the downside of using fora as first-line support. I see the value of them for users to help each other, but other users can't help with line faults or account queries.

My own specific issues (2+ months waiting for a refund, no final bill, no invoice for initial payment for business account, no bills at all for business account) are already spread across numerous threads and have been in two tickets for so long I have now received the automated deadlock e-mails for them.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

Townman — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 23:11:19 GMT

This has become a rather bad catch 22 issue...

Plusnet does not allow issues to be raised by tickets.

Plusnet does allow issues to be raised in the forums ... the resolution of which might inform other users, potentially leading to self help...

But Plusnet will go use the ticket system to report resolutuon...

Making the whole process something akin to a comedy farce.

The SUs have raised concerns over resolution characteristics (as opposed to personal specifics) being ‘burried’ in tickets. It does not suppport the user base becoming self sufficient and defeats the primary benefit of a public support forum.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

Browni — Tue, 01 Jan 2019 01:42:59 GMT

@Mads wrote:

As Adam mentioned previously if there is anything we can do to resolve any issues you may be experiencing please PM one of the staff members on this thread and we can investigate and help resolve them.

This is a perfect example of how the forum has lost value as an information source as any potential helpful/useful information will be hidden in a PM.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

quelquod — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 09:49:55 GMT

@Browni wrote:

@Mads wrote:

As Adam mentioned previously if there is anything we can do to resolve any issues you may be experiencing please PM one of the staff members on this thread and we can investigate and help resolve them.

This is a perfect example of how the forum has lost value as an information source as any potential helpful/useful information will be hidden in a PM.

And that’s it in a nutshell.

There has been a forum on PN (and Force9 etc.) for ever, which was always essentially a self-help group with expert users. The ticket system was used for problems which were down to PN to fix. Now the whole thing has been lumped together with PN staff contributing on a ‘best efforts’ basis but without the proper issue tracking and ownership that tickets gave. It’s just a sloping shoulders method of shrugging off customers’ problems. Thank goodness there are some expert and dedicated staff here to do a proper customer support job which the phone and chat line are useless for.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

shermans — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 10:45:35 GMT

I can only re-iterate what the Judge said in Court, because this discussiobn is a prime example of the Judge's complaint. Plusnet are not listening to either the Judge nor its customers :

"When I took Plusnet to Court last year for loss of service for five days - and won £300 compensation - the Judge at the end of the case then said that he was going to address Plusnet's barrister directly about their appalling customer service. He proceeded to tell the barrister that their customer service was unacceptable and that Plusnet had to address the customer service failings which lead to the Court case. The Court's time should not have to be wasted again. His remarks were supposed to be brought to the attention of Plusnet management."

Obviously, it fell on deaf ears among Plusnet staff.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

NTO — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 13:29:57 GMT

I followed the instructions on the website to make a formal complaint and it funnelled me to online Chat. The assistant went through the motions and then declared they couldn't help me and I should phone up instead! Another waste of time.

I suppose they wouldn't dare have a customer service email address (or have they?) , because it would just get swamped with complaints. This way, lots of people just give up.

I've had a ticket open since 13th Nov and the fix is taking a stupidly long amount of time.

They have a brilliant system of delay and smoke screen to stop you from getting a quick and meaningful response from someone who might actually know what they are doing.

As soon as I started asking pertinent questions on the forum, it went quiet.

I am dismayed at the poor service.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

HarryB — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 14:05:00 GMT

Hi NTO, I understand you've raised a complaint via a ticket on the account via the help assistant.

I believe colleagues have responded to other threads regarding the same issue so I'm afraid there's little further I can add here at this time.

Please can we keep this conversation in one place.

Thanks.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

NTO — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 14:18:14 GMT

@HarryB It is a forum and I believe my comments are relevant to this topic and to other customers.

I wouldn't be posting anything if I had received great service. The ball is in your court to improve your game!

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

shermans — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 17:19:18 GMT

Is it not about time that a member of the Plusnet Team actually responded to the OP's original topic, namely why can the old ticket system be brought back again ? Everyone who has posted here has said more or less the same thing about Chat, Telephone and the Forum. We actually also have lives to lead and it is totally unreasonable to expect customers to wait in queues for hours just to suit Plusnet's convenience. We pay the bills after all !

Please can someone from Plusnet therefore reply to the primary issue ? This is a Feedback forum after all. Can we have some feedback therefore ?

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

Townman — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 12:48:02 GMT

… I drafted this on my computer but got interrupted and had to go out … I subsequently replied to a similar theme elsewhere from another device having forgotten this draft … which I'll not waste!!

This issue has been discussed on multiple occasions within the super user space. We have run all of the sensible, logical and reasonable arguments up and down the flag pole so much that the lanyard has become frayed! The old ticketing system is not going to return.

There are lots of reasons given, but personally I feel that they do not stand up to engineering critique! From an engineering perspective asynchronous communication is very right for many issues - indeed the ticketing system remains essential for progressing fault reports or anything else which cannot be addressed in real time when one finally connects with an agent. Indeed it is deeply frustrating to have to spend a long time waiting to talk to an agent to request something which you know can only be done via a ticket - such as restore an archived mailbox!

I can see from a management perspective that some of the arguments hold grains of merit … people use all channels concurrently to get support … therefore an agent comes to process a request in one channel only to find it has been fixed in a different channel … that is not productive use of agent's time. However the additional effort required to identify the user when the contact is not connected to the CRM is equally wasteful.

For me the biggest irony is that twitface is seen as popular trendy and the "in way" of doing things, if for no other reason than the organisation wants to communicate how users want to communicate (except asynchronously via tickets) … somewhat ignoring the fact that twitface is a completely unstructured asynchronous anarchism of a ticketing system which washes dirty laundry in public. Whilst it might be the way the hipsters want to communicate there are better fits to the need here - for example a structured ticketing system!!

It seems to be more about fashion than function, not dissimilar to the majority of changes one sees in IT - or at least has been my misfortune through decades of supporting IT. New is rarely better than what it replaces, it is simply different.

The right answer to addressing the concurrent use of multiple contact channels is to close down all which are not essential (not connected to the CRM) and then service those channels with greater proficiency, whilst eliminating the causes of a need to contact customer service (for faults). There only needs to be 3 contact channels - phone, ticket and chat, this form then returning to the place where the nasty stuff which went wrong gets specialist attention or other customer experience help.

The most important factor is that the channels should be service promptly. Prompt response on a chosen channel would eliminate concurrent channel issue reporting. Sadly many people really do believe that name and shame in twitface public spaces garners a quicker response - it does not. Twitface is being seen by some organisations as the time waster, social media really is - it is not the right space for business dialogues.

Anyone remember the out cry when the ticket response target time was moved from 12 hours to 24 and later 48 (IIRC)? Ah halcyon days … far better than the current anarchism.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

jgb — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 13:56:18 GMT

Plusnet always derided the idea of any email channel to contact them for support yet they are quite content to deal via Twitter, Facebook etc., which have many of the negative aspects that Plusnet claimed that email had.

I quite agree that Twitter, Facebook etc., have no real place in business communication. The ticket system, which is directly connected to the customer’s account did (or rather does – see below) the job exceptionally well keeping all communication in a single place while the issue is dealt with, perhaps over an extended timescale (such as some billing issues during the current debacle). It provides a record of what has been said by both the customer and Plusnet staff without the time consuming need to refer to recordings of telephone conversations if a dispute arises. It is also the ideal medium when an issue does not need instantaneous or speedy resolution.

It is notable that Plusnet themselves use the system to communicate internally and with the customer when it suits them.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

ScottStorey — Sun, 06 Jan 2019 02:00:44 GMT

There has been a lot of slating of social media as a support channel which is unfounded.

There is tooling available for social media that integrates with CRM systems. Large CRM solutions like Salesforce integrate social media directly in the CRM. You can get tooling that will integrate with bespoke CRM systems too, or ones that stand alone with manual population of a link between the two systems.

Agents get a single view of all social channels in a prioritised order with the conversations threaded with those tools. Users social profiles are then linked with the CRM.

Social media support is a long way from unstructured if the right tooling is in use.

This seems to be something those of you against social media haven't considered.

All the criticisms of why tickets are better just doesnt hold any weight...as long as the right tooling is being used by plusnet.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

Townman — Sun, 06 Jan 2019 08:45:06 GMT

Hi Scott,

I recall that the reason this forum is not integrated with PlusNET’s CRM (as was the previous forum platform) was because it was too hard and difficult. Can one therefore believe that the social media channels have since been integrated into PlusNET’s CRM?

Yes multi channel integration is possible from other starting points, but may be not so practical from where we are here? From here the ticketing system seems like the best option.

There has yet to be an argument against the ticketing system which holds any credibility beyond fashion for Generation Y.

Re: Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

NTO — Sun, 06 Jan 2019 09:29:34 GMT

Sorry to ask a pretty basic question here, since you guys are getting into a much deeper technical discussion, but I'd love to know - from what you have witnessed - whether customers get better and/or faster service by posting their complaint on social media? (Either instead of, or as well as a ticket or forum request).