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[#1]

Is it just me or is it impossible to raise a new question in the member centre?  I can append to an existing one but there appears now way of adding a new one myself.   

I just had a chat with online support who said that it was correct, you had to append to an existing question/ticket but if (unfortunately) you didn't have any open then it was either online chat or calling up, both of which seem to take 30 mins to make a connection. 

I argued that people who wish to raise non-urgent questions, ones that don;t need an immediate answer, are then forced to use the only other two options. 

If this is indeed correct, then Plusnet, you are not providing any mechanism for non-urgent calls via the website - no wonder your call centre is busy all the time.... 

Thanks

[#2]

Hi,

A warm welcome to the forums.

You make the point well: this has been a subject much discussed both publically here and in private in the Superuser forums.  The access to the ticket system for raising new issues by residential users remains very restricted.

The only asynchronous support communication channels are this forum and the public laundries aka TwitFace.

It is not wise to piggy back different issues on to the same support ticket.

Do you have an issue now which you need help with?  Often other users can provide advice as good as that available from the staff A-Team who lurk here.

[#3]

Hi, 

Thanks for the response.  Hard to be complimentary of the plusnet residential website when really basic functionality such as this is missing.  You would think it made more business sense to allow users to create tickets and say "we aim to respond in 48hrs" rather than clog up chat and the call centre with people - Plusnet seem to have the whole this backwards if you ask me.  

My question was answered by chat (after 30 mins) and it really could have waited for a response some time this week. 

By the way, if any Plusnet employees are reading, your chat staff swear blind this functionality exists until you challenge them about it and say they are wrong, they go away and then come back and agree with you - hence the reason I posted here as I felt the chat person really had no clue what the website looks like from a customer perspective. 

Thanks

[#4]

I have just remarked on this in my survey response following a chat session.  There is another angle I've just realised:  having only thought of another point to make after closing the chat, I find I've no way back to do that as the chat session doesn't get recorded as a new ticket.  So if I want to go back and say "Oh by the way..." I have to go through the whole queuing process once more.  

[#5]

Hi there.

I think before the link to raise a new ticket was removed from the Member Centre, which was about 2 years ago, the wait times were still long, and I'm sorry to hear the adviser didn't know it's no longer available.

But thanks for your feedback, as always I'll make sure it's passed on.

Is there anything we can help you with over here?

[#6]

Is this something that could be revisited?  I mean, as things stand you are forcing all customer queries down a path that requires 

• a telephone operator
• a chat operator. 

Why not queue up the questions and respond during quieter periods?  Surely your current policy creates a vicious circle, everyone who has a query has to wait for a person to become available, therefore adding to the delay during busy periods. 

I've not seen any company operate a system like this since the late 90s, and really it makes zero sense at any level. 

Thanks

[#7]

Everything you say is very logical.  Trust me we (the superusers) have revisited this on at least 3 occasions and despite the potential obvious benefits we have not been able to influence a revisit on the subject.

There is an element of fashion creeping in ... "These days people 'prefer' to communicate via Twitface..." and there is a view that the ticketing system did not deliver the service users are looking for.

Personally (having spent many years working in a support environment managed by numbers with inadequate resources) I do wonder if the real issue is that a ticketing system presents a far too clear view of the support workload / back log / responsiveness which in bad times makes uncomfortable reading for managers.

... if only we could stop people raising support tickets, the stats would look so much better ... but then I'd have to be very cynical to believe that!