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Repetitive delays and unfulfilled promises with order delivery

Customer7
Newbie
Posts: 1
Registered: ‎25-03-2023

Repetitive delays and unfulfilled promises with order delivery

As a previous Plusnet customer and now joining again cannot believe the poor service on activating service ordered and promises made and not delivered.

Initially, the online ordering service end Feb 23 took our payment, but did not register the order, though we could not know that. Got no confirmation and phoned in early March which then manually registered the order. Since then the order 3 times delayed (Plusnet SMS notifications) and the Plusnet explanation on that changing and every time telling us it will be resolved - always the "within about 10 days you should be online" story. Earlier this week the 3rd order delay notice, almost a month since requesting the service! On phoning in again Plusnet said they are sending us a mifi box within around 24 hours to enable us to cope till the lines etc sorted out. Nothing happens for days. Then yesterday a 4th order delay SMS. On phoning today (25 Mar 23) find out that the promised mifi box not even been sent out yet and no clarity if it will be sent out.

Is this a case of a perfect storm of our stepping into business process gaps yet unknown to Plusnet or is the Plusnet we once knew and were happy with no more? 

1 REPLY 1
Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 24,103
Thanks: 10,266
Fixes: 176
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Repetitive delays and unfulfilled promises with order delivery

You have not provided any of the details of the reasons for delay, for which there can be many outside of an ISP's control.  You do not indicate the nature of the migration - like for like or an upgrade to FTTP.  The following might shine light on why you have encountered so many delays...

Delayed orders

There are a multitude of reasons why order processing might be reported as delayed and usually it is nothing to be too concerned about, but there are exceptions. The following are some of the common causes of orders being delayed...

  • The user told their existing supplier that they are moving and the consequential action by their existing supplier will prevent any new ISP placing orders to take over the service - this needs affirmative action with the existing supplier
  • The existing circuit to the property cannot be identified in BT Openreach's systems due to errors in their data - this can give rise to the need for special processes (ORDI and Bridge cases) with BTOR to correct THEIR data
  • Something was not quite right with the order raised by Plusnet - these are usually sorted quickly
  • BT Openreach do not have engineering resources available in the usual timeframe

To see what is happening in detail, check the ticket history on your account - log into the portal in another tab, return here and click the PN TICKET link below. Look at the details of the tickets; if there appears to be no recent activity, contact support.

NB: If a user tells their existing supplier that they are leaving and that supplier places a cease on the line, Plusnet cannot process a new order until AFTER the line has been ceased.  That could lead to circa 14 days without an internet service.

 

FTTP Order installation delays

In most instances FTTP installations will require two BT Openreach engineer visits...

  1. Install the fibre from the distribution block to the outside wall of the property, either overhead or underground
  2. Install the fibre from the outside of the property to the inside of the property to the location of the Optical Network Termination (ONT) unit

The fibre network is far from being fully established and in some cases specific engineering activities will be required for some installations. These circumstances are covered in Plusnet's T&Cs as follows...

Openreach Survey: In some cases, BT Openreach have to carry out a survey before they can connect a home to Full Fibre. To do this they may need access to your property. If they do we'll contact you to arrange a suitable time. If additional work is required, this may take longer than the initial set-up time provided and there could be additional costs. Our team of specialists will contact you to confirm what additional work is needed and how long this will take, usually within four weeks from the date your order was placed. If you don't want to proceed with your upgrade based on this, you will be able to cancel your order and no charges will be applied to your account.

To see what is happening in detail, check the ticket history on your account - log into the portal in another tab, return here and click the PN TICKET link below. Look at the details of the tickets; if there appears to be no recent activity, contact support.

 

The provision of a mifi devices is very uncommon ... so that having gone wrong might well fall into what you called "stepping into business process gaps".

Sadly there are occasions where issues within BT's own database systems are legion: having found one, only that issue is fixed by the BT bridge case, after which a new order can be raised (10 day delays) ... which might then fail due to yet another BT database issue, requiring yet another bridge case.  It can be "a case of a perfect storm" in that one BT issue leads to another, each one they pass back to the ISP to address and re-submit the order.  Such is far from satisfactory, but that is how the quasi nationalised BT Openreach operate.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.