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A moan about the sign up / activation process

xbeemer
Dabbler
Posts: 19
Registered: ‎08-06-2007

A moan about the sign up / activation process

I don’t like to complain because referrals are helping to reduce my monthly sub BUT for the last three of my new sign ups the activation process hasn’t gone as smoothly as I’d have liked.  All of them asked for free routers and of these, two had to raise supplementary tickets querying delivery status because it looked as if activation was going to happen before the routers arrived.  Worse still, my most recent referral was activated at 12.19 pm today and the order for her router went in at 12.40 pm...........!!
Oh, and I almost forgot – the Order Tracker didn’t work for almost the entire transaction!
Not much good when it comes to bolstering my reputation as a trustworthy IT geezer, is it?
24 REPLIES 24
Neil_A
Grafter
Posts: 450
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: A moan about the sign up / activation process

Quote from: xbeemer
Not much good when it comes to bolstering my reputation as a trustworthy IT geezer, is it?

Hmmm. That is not a good experience. Thanks for letting us know. I'll ask our customer support, product team and broadband operations team to have a look at what went wrong in these cases.
xbeemer
Dabbler
Posts: 19
Registered: ‎08-06-2007

Re: A moan about the sign up / activation process

Thanks, Neil.  I’m forever singing the praises of PlusNet and little things like this are a tad embarrassing.
orbrey
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 10,540
Registered: ‎18-07-2007

Re: A moan about the sign up / activation process

Hi xbeemer,
Just to clarify following the conversation with my colleague:
The first order was delivered a day late due to us not being able to take the initial account fees, this delayed the hardware delivery unfortunately. The second was delivered on time, but the order tracker did not update to reflect the correct status and we are currently investigating this.
The third order was unfortunately human error - we had to place the order for the broadband service manually. When this happens the account needs to be put into 'supplier processing' status whereupon it will wait for confirmation from our supplier that the order is progressing and order hardware/activate the account at the appropriate stage. Unfortunately the account was not put into supplier processing status in this case.
In order to prevent further occurrences of this we have created a hardware jeopardy report which will notify us of any further instances.
Many apologies for the hassle incurred over this.
xbeemer
Dabbler
Posts: 19
Registered: ‎08-06-2007

Re: A moan about the sign up / activation process

Thanks Matt!  Sounds promising and makes sense to me.  Could I just finish off by pointing out to anyone else reading this thread that, shortly after reading Neil Armstrong’s initial response to my moan, I had an unexpected call from a PlusNet techie (I was so surprised I forgot to write his name down....) to explain what had gone wrong.  He also mentioned that, as his writing skills weren’t up too much, he’d be getting a more literary-able colleague to post a summary in the forum (I guess that’s you, Matt).  This is surely a prime example of the great PlusNet customer service I keep preaching about to my prospective sign-ups – could you possibly imagine this sort of thing from Orange, Tiscali, Tesco, BT et al?  Me neither!!  Many thanks to all of you!  Smiley
xbeemer
Dabbler
Posts: 19
Registered: ‎08-06-2007

Re: A moan about the sign up / activation process

I hate to have to keep going on about this BUT, despite your earlier reassurances and my rather premature joy, my latest referral, activated at 12.19 pm last Wednesday, STILL hasn't received her router and her order tracker, now functioning, shows the order for it to be still 'awaiting processing' .....!!!!!
To save myself a bit of face, I'm having to go to see her this afternoon to get her temporarily connected with my spare Netgear DG834GT wireless router.  I'm also having to raise a ticket on her behalf to see if I can find out what's happened.
Unsurprisingly, I'm not so happy now!  Angry
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: A moan about the sign up / activation process

Hi there,
I do complete appreciate the frustration and I'm very sorry for any issues that this may have caused you.
Could you please let me know the username of your referral by PM and I'll do my best to get this sorted out for you as soon as I possibly can.
orbrey
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 10,540
Registered: ‎18-07-2007

Re: A moan about the sign up / activation process

Hi again,
Once again, apologies. There was an issue with the order for this items being received by the warehouse, but they've been called and chased and the router should be with your referral by the end of the week. There's a more full explanation on the ticket.
Hope that helps, again very sorry for the hassle.
maranello
Pro
Posts: 1,267
Thanks: 200
Fixes: 2
Registered: ‎11-01-2008

Re: A moan about the sign up / activation process


I had a similar experience with a referral. The broadband was activated before the router arrived, and the order tracker appeared to take a little time to get updated.
I appreciate that some people get frustrated when things don't appear to run smoothly. In my experience with both my own sign-up and that of my referree, any problems/queries were satisfactorily addressed using the Help Centre rather than these forums.
There were two bonuses to this approach.
1) I used it as a training exercise for my referree, showing her how to access the members portal, raise a ticket, check her usage agaist allowances, etc, so that in the future if she came across any problem she could try to sort it herself before asking me for help.
2) As a result of the delay between router arrival and activation date, Plusnet applied a discount on her first months subscription.
New sign-ups should bear in mind that sending out hardware by Plusnet is dependant on confirmation of first payment, and that if this is by direct debit then this can take longer than via credit card. But what BT do and when in terms of line activation is to some extent out of Plusnets control. This can vary and may result in an activation date earlier or later than hardware delivery, and perfect synchronisation should not be expected.
My other car isn't a Ferrari
xbeemer
Dabbler
Posts: 19
Registered: ‎08-06-2007

Re: A moan about the sign up / activation process

A sensible approach, and very similar to the one I use.  However, as I sometimes have to drive considerable distances to supervise set up and provide an on-the-spot guide to PlusNet's features, it means early and careful planning because referee's diaries rarely fit in with mine.  So if a router isn't there for the appointed activation date, all our careful planning falls to pieces.  But you're right, the Help Centre nearly always sort the problems in a timely fashion.  Incidentally, I didn't start this thread looking for help.  The fact that I got help as a result of my forum input rather startled me, I have to say; I'm well conversant with the ticket system and use it frequently.  My aim was to highlight the possibility of a problem with the process.
I also agree with your comment about BT - a law unto themselves.
rlfearn22
Newbie
Posts: 4
Registered: ‎22-05-2008

Re: A moan about the sign up / activation process

Can I please add to this forum note that I am having he same problem.  Just moved over from AOL because my router went faulty, waited quite a while to get connected.  On Monday I rang to see what was happening because the order status hadn't changed, I was assured that the router would be despatched Tuesday, arrive Wed, BB live today.  BB has gone live but no router .... not much use !
15 mins approx to get answered this morning and nobody their is able to track the progress of the order and find out when it will be despatched ... not very useful ...  The reply was - it should be despatched today, maybe tomorrow - oh great BH weekend, probably nothing till next week.
Can someone take a look pls?
RLFEARN22
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: A moan about the sign up / activation process

Hi there,
I'll get our hardware guy to try and chase this for you to see when we can realistically expect your router to arrive?
Are you sure you were waiting for 15 minutes this morning?  According to the information that I get, the longest wait so far today is only 5 minutes?
rlfearn22
Newbie
Posts: 4
Registered: ‎22-05-2008

Re: A moan about the sign up / activation process


----
Thanks James, I would appreciate that - will you come back to the forum with a reply or by email?
Your call cente stats don't match my phone display which was in excess of 10 minutes until I got answered .. stats on ACD systems can be configured in particularly strange ways at times.
Thanks.
[Moderators Note by Daniel (Assos), Removed full quote of previous post, it is not needed and contravenes the link:rules.]
rlfearn22
Newbie
Posts: 4
Registered: ‎22-05-2008

Re: A moan about the sign up / activation process

Router/Modem received this morning thank you  Smiley
I appreciate you looking into this ... now lets see what speed we can get out of it (we're a long way from the exchange!).
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: A moan about the sign up / activation process

Brilliant, thanks for letting me know.
I completely forgot to reply back in here yesterday and to be honest, we weren't actually expecting your router to be received today as at that point in time, the order hadn't left the warehouse, but I'm certainly very glad that it did turn up today!
Feel free to post your line stats up and we'll be able to have a quick look Smiley