Current call waiting times are not accurate

[#1]

Its 00:07 on 30th Nov and I'v finally got my call answered after a 28 minute wait... whereas the "longest call waiting now" states that the wait is on 25 minutes.  So its not that accurate.  Interesting that through that time, there were never more than 5 calls waiting. based on the fact that my problem was dealt with in 3 minutes (that's seems typical of my experience phoning the help desk) I can only conclude that there is just one person answering all of the problems.
Further, the "current wait duration" web page given on the call handelling system http://cse.plus.net/ does not work from this side of the fence - guess it is an internal URL.

PN Could do better - at 23:40, a 30 minute call duration for a 3 minute support problem is not acceptable, especially when it had to be done on a moblie, because BT has screwed (sorry that is "repaired") my phone line and terminated it in someone else's property!!!!

[#2]

Where are you seeing a link to a "current wait duration" web page.
The only page I know is linked from the Service Status page on the links "For our unique, up to the minute Customer Support Statistics click here" and  "View our unique, up to the minute Customer Support Statistics."

[#3]

Quote from: townman

Its 00:07 on 30th Nov and I'v finally got my call answered after a 28 minute wait... whereas the "longest call waiting now" states that the wait is on 25 minutes.  So its not that accurate.

As PJ has mentioned, the page updates every 3 minutes or so. There's a time-stamp telling you the last time it updated underneath the stats.

Quote

Interesting that through that time, there were never more than 5 calls waiting. based on the fact that my problem was dealt with in 3 minutes (that's seems typical of my experience phoning the help desk) I can only conclude that there is just one person answering all of the problems.

There are normally 2 or 3 staff on during the night (handover's at 11:00pm). I'd not normally expect a wait time as long as you had. I can only assume that the guys were all stuck on some particularly nasty calls. It wouldn't make sense for us to have more staff on from a support perspective given the call volumes. To put this into perspective we were offered 33 calls last night (Midnight-7:00am), 31 of which we answered.

Quote

Further, the "current wait duration" web page given on the call handelling system http://cse.plus.net/ does not work from this side of the fence - guess it is an internal URL.

I'm assuming you mean http://csc.plus.net although I'm not too sure what bit of this you're reporting as broken. Perhaps you can elaborate?

[#4]

http://csc.plus.net redirects to the correct page (note the c rather than e - Customer Support Centre - I suspect that you have misheard the URL)
It probably also worth noting the statement on that page, that call times are updated every three minutes at a minimum.
So if the last update said 25mins and that was updated 3 mins ago, 25+3=28 surely?
Also possible that there is a disconnect in what is regarded as 'waiting' - the first few minutes of navigating the IVR might not be included in the calculation of hold time - but thats not really something we can clarify without PN input.

[#5]

Thanks to all for the constuctive comments - I've hardly ever been on the forum pages since the technology change as I became sick of the previous relentless gripes about PN trying to do a good job without much constructive input.  The response to this observation has been most refreshing.  May be I should spend a little more time on the forums again.

CSC not CSE!!!  I guess that's the reason it did not work for me
Well I listened very carefully to the "held in a queue" recorded voice several times and it clearly sounded like CSE and I also asked the desk agent to confirm the URL and heard CSE again.  May be someone in PN could have a listen too and consider that not everyone has perfect hearing - this might not have been the best TLA to hear down a phone line. 
As for the 3 min delay, I was constantly refreshing the page and the update time was quite recent.
Cheers.

[#6]

I can see if we can get cse.plus.net created too, although I hear CSC when I try, i'm used to the term as well as the accent so it's hard not to.
As James said, our callview system reports the time in a queue, which you don't get into till you come out of the recorded options. It's the same reporting we have, and I assure you it is accurate.
You are absolutely right of course, a 30 minute wait is never good enough, although sometimes hard to manage for late at night. As Bob said, your call may be 3 minute, but that's not to say the last two weren't 20 minute chongers. It seems to fall that way sometimes!
Ian

[#7]

From the limited involvement I have with our helpdesk, we often seem to get all the long queries at the same time, where as other times every query is a 10 second answer to a very easy question.
If you keep an eye on the call stats page you'll see it is usually very short/quick queues at that time of night, so you where probably just unlucky at you hit a bad patch.
Phil