loyalty discount

[#1]

Hi Alistair,
As a rule, it would need to be DD or cheque.
Cheque payment is only available on Metronet because, well, it always was.
Any reason why you prefer cheque payment over Direct Debit?

[#2]

Quote from: Jameseh

Hi Alistair, As a rule, it would need to be DD or cheque. Cheque payment is only available on Metronet . . .

Errr?

Quote from: Jameseh

Any reason why you prefer cheque payment over Direct Debit?

I refer the Honourable Gentleman to (part of) the answer I gave earlier . . (in the old MN forum)
It also lets me feel as if I have at least a little control over some aspects of my life. Yes, I know DD's are easy, convenient, safe etc, but they're like driving an automatic car, it makes you a sloppier driver because you don't need to think so much about what you're doing.
Also it's a small act of rebellion against being dictated to as to how I pay for things. I like cheques, having grown up before the accursed plastic was invented, you paid for things with cash or cheque (no guarantee cards needed), you saved up for things you wanted or needed. If you couldn't afford it you did without.
Now with more and more places refusing to take cheques (because it costs them more to process cheques than debit cards), I'm going back to using cash, because it costs them more to process cash than cheques. So yah boo sucks!
Alastair

[#3]

Sorry Alistair,
I meant to say that payment is only possible by Direct Debit or Credit Card.  Apologies for the confusion there!

[#4]

AFAIK Folding money is always acceptable for the settlement of any debts - unless they have passed some law recently requiring the use of an intermediary?

[#5]

Jeremy - Folding money - I've found that nobody will accept my 49p notes . . .
Even though I drive past Plusnet towers 2 or 3 times a month, somehow doubt they would look kindly on me walking into reception with cash, (always assuming I could get bl*****g parked!)
As much as I don't like it, I am moving towards the idea of transferring from MN to PN (direct debit and all). The saving of about £78 (£4 pm on the tariff change + the £30 'loyalty' discount) over the next year is worth having.
Especially as it looks like the MN product refresh is going to be at least 6 months before it is 'looked at' with any seriousness.
Alastair

[#6]

It seems likely that you would be using the same/similar hardware whether you are on MN or PN - so unless there is any over-riding reason - £4 pm saving would seem to be a good reason to change anyway.
Those Credit cards authorisations are a bad idea - at least a DD can be cancelled by you (assuming you should ever need to!).
Credit Card mandates cannot be cancelled by the cardholder - ever.

[#7]

I'm reluctant to change largely through laziness/inertia, but also my BB service is now (and has been for well over a year) absolutely reliable, both in terms of speed and consistency [*touches all wood in sight*],
As a founder member of the "If it ain't broke don't fix it" society, I'm reluctant to interfere with the status quo.
Also, I suppose I have a sense of loyalty to MN, 18 months ago when there were the billing problems after the takeover I wrote:-
. . . the exceptional service I've had over the last 3 years has built up a fair amount of goodwill for MN with me, and a move as complex as the one they are attempting is bound to produce problems. I, for one, am prepared to endure a little inconvenience - there have been a couple of occasions during the last month when I've had no access - if the service returns to it's previous level of 'it just works' (with the emphasis on the works, not the just!).
I'm not a big bandwidth user but the service is essential to my business, and I'm prepared to give MN the benefit of the doubt rather than succumb to the 'Oh God, it's Plusnet - I'm off' scaremongers.
PN sorted (after a fashion) the problem and the billing's been clunky but operational since.
It's the delaying of the MN product refresh that I am disappointed with, it seems a fairly simple job but there doesn't seem to be the corporate will to bother.
I can see that the various legacy brands/products/vISPs must be a nightmare in terms of costing and management, so why not rationalise the lot into one big pot, one brand with a more flexible range of product options . . . Hang on - isn't that what seems to be happening?
Alastair (starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist!)

[#8]

[off Topic]
Hi Original Design your rite Metronet will go the sam way that Force9 went, and don't think for 1 minute that PlusNet won't, they will do it to you as well.
Force9 was the parent company, so if PlusNte can do it to the parent company it most certainly will do it to you!   
[/off Topic]

[#9]

Not really the parent company...  The flagship company perhaps?  The first trading name?  It was PlusNet Technologies Ltd that then became PlusNet plc on floatation, with Force9 and Free-Online underneath it.
And in terms of customer numbers, PlusNet by far has the biggest base - as has been told before.

[#10]

[off Topic]

Quote from: Liam

[snip] And in terms of customer numbers, PlusNet by far has the biggest base - as has been told before.

Yep I know that!     
[/off Topic]

[#11]

Going back to original topic - I am glad I read these posts because I did raise a ticket [when I found right category!] and I have been granted the loyalty discount - so  I am happy.

[#12]

Quote from: Original

It's the delaying of the MN product refresh that I am disappointed with, it seems a fairly simple job but there doesn't seem to be the corporate will to bother.

I really do wish it was a simple job. I promise you, if it were, we would jump at doing it because there is plenty of opportunity for both us and Metronet customers which we would dearly love not to be missing.
The reasons why there isn't a straightforward answer right now go deep into the current state of the back-end system and some of the decisions which were made at the time when we brought Metronet over to PlusNet originally. Because we chose to make some compromises at that point for the sake of speed (and I certainly won't try to defend those decisions, although at the time I can see why they were taken) we now have to go back and perform some pretty big re-engineering to make even seemingly quite simple changes.
I've been investigating the possibility, for example, of offering overnight usage for MN customers. From a finance and commmercial perspective, there are no barriers at all. However, it's a 2 week project for both our development and network team. That may not sound massive (And compared to something like offering home phone, it's small), but I'm afraid at this point it's very hard to argue against other priorities for those teams.
Unfortunately, because of the nature of the work, this isn't the sort of code change we can pass over to our Indian development team or get done by other resource outside the business (as we are doing with some of our other upcoming projects). All I can do is ask that you trust us that we care, and were there something we could be doing here we would be. I fully accept that we have let Metronet customers down and although I don't have a nice answer right now, I will make sure we continue to press this. Maybe, just maybe, finding the two weeks to do overnight usage in the coming month or two might be realistic... That of course assumes that change would be something  that would be viewed positively by Metronet customers?
Ian

[#13]

Thanks for the comprehensive answer Ian, I don't pretend to understand the complexities involved in re-engineering the systems, and I appreciate that you are trying to fulfil very many differing user requirements - personally I have no interest in free overnight downloads or gaming requirements - but it seems to me you have gone most of the way to appeasing the grumbles of MN customers.
Firstly by reducing the cost of additional bandwidth back in July.
How much 'engineering' this required, I have no idea, but the reduction was announced only a few days before it started happening, the implication being that someone had the idea, the bean counters said it was sustainable, and someone adjusted the invoicing code.
I may of couse be completely wrong, and it was the result of many months of planning and many hours of work by teams of dedicated software engineers, but I don't really think so 
Secondly - the offer of the loyalty discount. If PN are worried about customer 'churn' (although it seems to me that most of the PN product line is pretty competitive, it's only when compared to the 3 and 4 play cable/LLU operators that it starts to look slightly weak) then surely reducing the cost is the most obvious way to keep customers.
The engineering (or whatever is necessary) to reduce people's bills by £5 per month for 6 months, and then put them back up by £5 per month must already have been done, together with the costings to prove it was financially viable.
I can only reiterate -
In effect it will cost PN £2.50 a month over the year they're asking us to commit to. - i.e. a little over 1.5GB extra bandwidth of usage a month.
If it's financially viable to offer this as an incentive now, I for one would be happy for either an extra 1.5Gb of included usage for the £13.75 I'm paying now or the same 2GB included usage for £11.25. (But no change to contract length)
I seem to remember there were about 160,000 MN customers when PN took over, how many are there now - 100,000? Less? And what percentage of the PN customer base do we constitute now? I would guess you are more likely to lose MN customers to churn than PN customers, but to offer all MN'ers £2.50 a month off their costs would buy you plenty of time to properly assess the way to go forward with the brand.
Alastair

[#14]

Quote

I seem to remember there were about 160,000 MN customers when PN took over, how

Hi Alistair.
That figure was closer to 17,000.
I'll leave the rest of the detail to Ian on this one.

[#15]

I always liked MN's PAYG pricing, if PN are still allowing this ( PM upto a cap rather than 1GB and then more GB's) then i'd want to go over to that to be honest