Number Porting Failure - ‘On the list’ - Awful Customer Service

[#1]

I moved from Vodafone to Plusnet last week and ported my number. My Vodafone number was disconnected on Monday and has not been reconnected by Plusnet at time of posting 4+ days. This has given me experience of Plusnet ‘Customer Service’ that I do not have the energy to detail in this posting. Suffice to say I would not recommend anyone to join plusnet mobile in case they find themselves with need to contact them.
The basic issue is that my port from Vodafone to Plusnet has failed and as far as Plusnet Customer ‘Service’ is concerned I am ‘on the list’ . This means that it is with the Operations team - a non client facing team which only appears to liaise with the Customer Services team when an issue is fixed.
I therefore have no indication of whether the Opps team have looked at my issue, if they know what the issue is  whether I am still waiting while they work through their list and any indication of expected timescales ie. could be fixed in next five minutes or another month therefore contingency planning is virtually impossible.
As anyone can understand this is an issue where mobile is vital for work, banking Security and personal reasons.
This is all made 100 times worse by the how unfit for purpose the Plusnet Customer Service operation appears in my interactions with them over the last week. It’s clear this is not a problem with individuals but the overall management and process’ employed.
I am making this post now as I was promised a call by a ‘manager’ around 2 o’clock Today (now 3) albeit i did not have high hopes of any resolution.

[#2]

It’s Sunday (day 7) and I didn’t hear from the ‘manager’ as promised. I presume neither management nor the Ops team work weekends. Suspect nothing will happen over weekend but as no-one has explained/understood the process then I live in hope.

In case Plusnet is interested here are some of my experiences.

On first call I discovered they had a wrong date of birth(year was wrong) on my account. I was told to e-mail a copy of my birth certificate. I did ask why can’t it be changed by the contact centre and was told it was a data protection issue - even though I had already passed several levels of security to talk to them and they were willing to talk to me about my account. Anyways I received an email with the email address to send documentation to. On 3 occasions it was rejected by the plusnet server - I even tried removing attachment in case it was caused by that.
I phoned plusnet again explained and it was changed there and then ?!?!?

As explained previously like Private Pike  I am ‘on the list’( just an old sitcom reference for anyone interested)
No information regarding how long I might be on this list. I did ask how many other numbers were on the list and was told that this was also a data protection issue. (I suspect another sort of anatomical protection ).
I assumed that using basic arithmetic someone must have an idea how long it should be expected before Operations get round to looking at my issue. (Eg. If 1000 numbers on list and they look at 2 a day then it could be a year before they get round to me :-))
I was told that Customer services had no updates from operations regarding the issue .
If they have already looked at my case then it would be good to get an update on what the issue is and who is addressing it (eg. Vodafone). I was told it could be one of a few things that is the problem but as there was no communications from Operations then who’s to know - again suspect it might just be my issue hasn’t been looked at yet.

As an aside, I also received an e-mail update on Friday morning telling me my issue had been resolved but when I checked and then phoned Customer Service was told that this had been a mistake.

I will commend Plusnet Customer Services for their use of a script. At the end of each phone call where I am extremely frustrated by the lack of information on the one thing that I need resolved, I am asked ‘Is there anything else I can help you with today’ as if there possibly was something I had been helped with.

Would be happy to hear from anyone with similar issues to me and hopefully a happy ending that I can look forward to.

[#3]

another day - no contact

[#4]

Day 9 - I phoned PN. ‘Top of the list - will be addressed next’ Looking forward to closing this stream tomorrow :-).

[#5]

Day 10 - on the list still (only a total of 3 on list yesterday and 4 on the list today so at least it doesn’t seem like a systemic issue - not much comfort for me though) promised a call today(not received yet) to give me an update on expected timescale.

[#6 · Accepted solution]

Thankfully ending my monologue - e-mail received to say number updated. Restarted phone and it was :-).

Just from my limited experience Plusnet need to look at their process, information sharing, consistency of response and training to improve what has been the worst customer experience I have ever had from any company.

Everyone understands that issues happen but by not proactively managing issues  and consistently communicating updates it will be very hard to retain any customer goodwill.