Support Status

[#1]

Hi. I moved to plusnet recently in order to get the fibre speed and had read a great deal about the service and the UK-based call centre. BUT, this morning a friend called to say his plusnet is down, there is a major problem (according to the IVR system) and the phone queue is enormous. So, I look on the support/service links and find nothing.
With so many people having multiple ways of connecting to the web I would have thought the very first thing to do is ADMIT THE PROBLEM. You'll get much more sympathy if this happens rather than keeping quiet. As it is, I can't tell him anything.
Not very impressed.
Update: He get's through and they tell him he must accept an engineer charge if he won't first replace the filter unit. That's just a rubbish response to waste time - next thing they'll do is ask him TO SWITCH IT OFF AND BACK ON AGAIN. Looks like plusnet's service script is no better than the rest although they don't have to lie about their name...

[#2]

Hi there,
It's actually a perfectly valid request.
We are charged £144+VAT if the problem is found to be with the router, filter or internal wiring.  We only charge £60 if this is the case.  So I'm sure you can understand why we would ask our customers to make these standard checks before we raise a fault through to BT.  It's nothing to do with wasting time at all, we're just trying to save him an unnecessary bill.

[#3]

Ok, here we go.
1. Tell every new ADSL customer to always keep/buy a spare filter because they WILL be asked this question.
2. Tell every customer what the call out charge is.
3. Answer the (much more important) issue of keeping customers informed of service failures. The main reason I left Virgin is that their service would fail and they would not acknowledge it.
Regards

[#4]

HI blackwellm,

Quote from: blackwellm

1. Tell every new ADSL customer to always keep/buy a spare filter because they WILL be asked this question.

We send out 2 filters with our routers.

Quote from: blackwellm

2. Tell every customer what the call out charge is.

We do, but call out charges aren't applied if its not customer equipment/wiring at fault

Quote from: blackwellm

3. Answer the (much more important) issue of keeping customers informed of service failures. The main reason I left Virgin is that their service would fail and they would not acknowledge it.

We make customers aware as much as we can through our service status page and messages on our phone system.
Jojo

[#5]

There's also an RSS feed of the service status postings and the option to receive them by email.

[#6]

1. You don't send out filters if the customer already has their own router.
2. Call charges should be clearly identified - and the events in which they will be levied - on support FAQs
3. Why was the IVR system saying there were severe probelms with large incoming call queues when the service status said everything was fine and dandy.

[#7]

Ok, so this is how the problem resolved.
1. My friend buys a new filter, swaps it in and calls support to say he has done this and there's no change.
2. Several hours later, support calls "Would you accept the £60 charge for a call out?"
3. My friend is fairly angry at this point and asks to talk to a manager.
4. Support does NOT do this and 30 minutes later, the connection is working normally.
OBVIOUSLY, plusnet a) did something to fix it and b) can't be bothered to own up to what was done. Infuriating to say the least. Unfortunately, that's what all the other network providers do.
I would absolutely love to see this sort of issue show on the support logs - if I was a user in the same area I could understand something is being done.

[#8]

Quote from: blackwellm

1. You don't send out filters if the customer already has their own router.

I'm afraid not, though filters are inexpensive and can be bought even from most large supermarkets these days. In addition most other routers also come with two filters when bought new.

Quote from: blackwellm

2. Call charges should be clearly identified - and the events in which they will be levied - on support FAQs

I assume you mean the Abortive Visit Charge levied by BT if a fault is found to be with equipment or wiring in your premises? That's mentioned as any fault is actually raised to us, either by the agent who answers the call or on the faults troubleshooter. Mentioning it on the support pages would be unnecessary and might put people off, as it's only actually levied if a fault is raised anyway. If you've some good reasons for it being mentioned in a support article though please let us know - we're happy to act on customer feedback.

Quote from: blackwellm

3. Why was the IVR system saying there were severe probelms with large incoming call queues when the service status said everything was fine and dandy.

I'm not sure why anyone would want a service status post about the call queues - especially given that live customer support statistics are available on the website at http://csc.plus.net. Of course we'll post a service status if there's any major issues preventing us from being able to offer our usual levels of support but flooding the service status feed with information that's already available on the site would make it much less useful.
With regard to the situation in the immediately above post, if someone changes their microfilter and then the service begins to work it'd suggest that the previous filter was faulty. Even if it wasn't that, if the problem was with ADSL syncronisation then it wouldn't have been anything we'd done - the ADSL signal starts on the exchange equipment and ends on your router or modem. We don't have any control over any of that equipment (which is why we need to raise faults to our supplier, who do own all of that up to the customer's premises).