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Changes to ticket response targets (increased from 8 to 24 hours)

jelv
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Changes to ticket response targets (increased from 8 to 24 hours)

On 17th January the target time to respond to tickets was 8 hours (see http://web.archive.org/web/20130127020124/http://www.plus.net/supportpages.html?a=212&helpheader=rhm... for proof).
Today I've raised a ticket and was shocked to see that the response target is now 24 hours (see http://www.plus.net/supportpages.html?a=212).
I was aware that Plusnet's support was increasingly struggling, but trebling the target response time as really not good - especially when they are failing dismally to meet the new target. Sad
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
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32 REPLIES 32
shutter
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Re: Changes to ticket response targets

This seems to be quite extraordinary, considering my campaign of a couple of years ago...
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,80676.0.html
and as pointed out in my initial post... this present situation is actually better than my 48 hours.... UNTIL... you continue reading and my ticket was posted on a Saturday... so 48 hours was "sort of" acceptable....
However. after NINE pages from 2009 to 2012... where is the improvements promised so many times?  
Yeah... I know... the customer base has increased and we are training up more people every week..... blah blah blah.....
heard it all before....... been there... done that..... never bothered with the tee shirt, cos it was still in the design stage.........
Come on now.... get it together... and do something about it... .... .... .....
Or maybe you will not, and just hope it goes away again, like it did last February with a comment by .........

Quote

   James
   Plusnet Staff
   *
   Posts: 19874
 
 
« Reply #131 on 14/02/2012, 08:36 »

I last replied to this thread a year ago?

James Bailey
Plusnet Complaints Manager


Maybe you did.... are you going to do the same with this one....?
or are you actually going to justify your title and pay?   "Plusnet Complaints Manager".... and take action to do something about it ?
Mav
Moderator
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Re: Changes to ticket response targets

I raised a ticket this morning at 10:12 and the response time was quoted at over 35 hours!
Thankfully it's not something that is urgent.

Forum Moderator and Customer
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear - Mark Twain
He who feared he would not succeed sat still

shutter
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Re: Changes to ticket response targets

And another customer is complaining too............... 35 hours....
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,112003.0.html
Perhaps I should start another campaign?
35 hours.... Is it raining up there again? floods/  snowstorms/    fire/    brimstone/    ear of newt/    leg of frog/ sack of coal dust/ mist of the moors/
anything else needed to get the witches cauldron to work a magic spell on CSC and get a result ?
tijara33
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Re: Changes to ticket response targets (increased from 8 to 24 hours)

Unfortunately PN seem to be suffering from their popularity & haven't yet recruited & trained the additional staff to cope with the rapidly increasing number of customers. There are also snow issues in the Sheffield area. I don't know if that's part of the problem.
Either way, I'm sure that things will be rapidly resolved in the next few weeks.
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Changes to ticket response targets (increased from 8 to 24 hours)

Yeah right !, did you read shutters campaign ? - the ticketing system has been a problem for at least ten years and just never gets any better  Angry
Frankly I don't understand why such a definable and manageable process can't be fixed ?.
How is it that it is usually quicker, and more likely to receive an effective response, by posting issues in this forum, than it is to use the official ticketing system ?.  The staff responding on this forum tend to give accurate information often within minutes, whereas the ticketing system rarely results in a satisfactory answer within a reasonable period of time.
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Changes to ticket response targets (increased from 8 to 24 hours)

You say the response target is currently 35 hours, but what is the worst reply time anyone has actually seen in recent weeks ?
I think there are two targets worth measuring -
1) The time from a new ticket being raised, until the first response in acknowledging the question.
2) The time between the ticket being raised, and the issue being fully resolved.
shutter
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Re: Changes to ticket response targets (increased from 8 to 24 hours)

Despite my campaign.... EMPLOY MORE STAFF to answer tickets... etc etc etc. etc etc etc etc
for all that time, we have had the same response.... give us time and we will get there....
HA HA HA HA... larf ?.... I`m still crying...
Since my original post.... and the protracted discussions and excuses.... yes.... I did say excuses.... it would seem that nothing has changed.... except the number of customers.... 
Of course, every business needs to get new customers, because new customers pay the wages of the staff employed to service that company... unfortunately the increase in the number of customers also causes a backlog in the service requirements, and also the number of complaints.... I have not had a looka at "Feedback" for a long time, but am apalled to see the number of complaints from new customers about the level of, or lack of, customer service, on the first page.... I really am apalled... there is no other word for it... Plusnet is not living up to its advertising slogan of "We`ll do you proud"... from the number of complaints on the first page I think the Plusnet logo is two words too long.... .... I am sure you can work out which two they are... and you can leave dots for the missing words... .... ... ... ...
Now I am sure that someone in the hierachy at Plusnet towers, is going to come back on this, and say much the same as has been said before... we are recruiting more staff... and it takes time to train them up to the required standard....
unfortunatley,... it also appears that those that were trained up during my previous campaign, have done one of two things.... 1... they have got fed up and left.... or 2.... they have let their standards fall below what should be expected of them... and ... it follows that the newer "trainees" over the past 12 months have been trained up to the lower standard.
I know that Plusnet CSC management will vehemently deny this.... however, they obviously do not read the Feedback forum board... or they would have done something about it by now, and the overall staff management levels would have been increased to cope with the increase in customer numbers...
It would be interesting to be told......
1..... how many customers Plusnet had, way back in 2009 when I started my campaign.... and how many CSC staff they had at the same time....
2....how many customers Plusnet had 1 year later in 2010..... and again how many CSC staff they had then
3....how many customers Plusnet had 1 year later in 2011 ....  and again how many CSC staff they had then
4....how many customers Plusnet had 1 year later in 2012.... and again how many CSC staff they had then
5...how many customers Plustnet had 1 year later in 2013...i.e. NOW.... and again...... how many CSC staff they have NOW...
If Plusnet had enough CSC staff to deal with the number of complaints/problems on a daily basis, then there would not be a backlog, and there would be good reason for seeing the following on Martin Lewis`s email today..
Quote

Plusnet - part of BT - broadband & line rent equiv £12.65/mth (BT line only £15). MSE Blagged. Plusnet's Essentials* (b'band, eve & wknd calls) is half price at £3/mth for 9mths of the 12mth contract. Pay a year's line rent upfront (£126) and it totals £171/yr. This link gives £25 cashback, factored in it's equiv £12.65/mth. See Home Phones.


What are Plusnet thinking of...... EMPLOY MORE STAFF to cope with the increased number of customers....BEFORE you advertise for more customers.... BASIC.  Shocked
Chris
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Re: Changes to ticket response targets (increased from 8 to 24 hours)

Yes we know that the ticket turnaround times and call waits are higher than we'd like them to be. However you're making it sound like they've been consistently high since you first posted about this, which simply isn't the case.
We're working very very hard to bring the response times down, and as we've said before the way to do this isn't just to throw more people at it as that can cause problems. We need to fix the problems that are meaning customers need to contact us, that includes some remaining bugs from the new product launch and some issues we've got with the network.
To sum up, we know it's taking too long to get answers and we're working to bring it down.
Former Plusnet Staff member. Posts after 31st Jan 2020 are not on behalf of Plusnet.
shutter
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Re: Changes to ticket response targets (increased from 8 to 24 hours)

Chris.... again... you have come up with the classic... " we know there is a problem...... we are working to fix it "  answer.....
Regardless of whether the response times have or have not been high or higher since I started my campaign  these "problems"  (aka customers) are increasing and you are still trotting out the same response....  
Purleigh summed up what should have been done in reply number 12 of the original post... WAY BACK IN NOVEMBER 2009.... and you still say, we know about it and we are working on it...

Quote

Reply #12 on 11/11/2009, 10:32 »
This discussion is missing the point !
This thread is titled " Suggestion..... employ more staff to answer tickets and phones".
The underlying problem is that both tickets and phone enquiries are taking far to long to answered, and the above discussion is trying to find a technical solution to make a fairer queuing system.
Better queuing does not improve the volume of questions answered, and therefore overall response times will not come down.
There are several solutions -
1) Improve reliability - and therefore reduce support requests in the first place.
2) Respond to problems more quickly - to reduce number of subsequent people complaining about same problem.
3) Test all system changes before implementation - to reduce incidents of falling back to last known working states.
4) Have support staff answering tickets over the weekends.
5) Increase support staff so all tickets get answered within 24 hours, and phones answered within 3 minutes.
6) Improve support staff training so they solve the problem FIRST time.
Improve the queuing system if you like, but customers want answers in a timely manner.


If you had taken actions on the above quote, then you would not be in the situation you are now in, of trying to fob us off, with platitudes.....
and can I have some answers to questions 1 to 5 in my previous post?  or did you think I would forget about that, because your "are working on it ".. answer covered all points raised so far.
You might also like to read what James Bailey.... (then Complaints Manager) had to say in his detailed response Reply 13
Quote
« Reply #13 on 11/11/2009, 10:40 »
Hi Purleigh,
Good to see you raising the more important issue.
1) Improve reliability - and therefore reduce support requests in the first place. -> Being worked on.
2) Respond to problems more quickly - to reduce number of subsequent people complaining about same problem. -> Being worked on within reason.
3) Test all system changes before implementation - to reduce incidents of falling back to last known working states. -> This is already being done and always has been.  However, testing in a live environment before rollout is not possible, so we do the best we can with our Gamma platform.
4) Have support staff answering tickets over the weekends. -> This already happens.  The callcentre is 24/7.
5) Increase support staff so all tickets get answered within 24 hours, and phones answered within 3 minutes. -> Not a realistic possibility.  We aim to have all calls answered in under 10 minutes (bear in mind that we have busier and quieter times of the day and we do have "bursts" of calls.  We are increasing the number of staff that we have here.
6) Improve support staff training so they solve the problem FIRST time. -> Absolutely agree.  We've a lot of focus on this currently, but obviously it's not an overnight fix.

Remember this is what he said in 2009... yet here is Chris saying  "it is being worked on"... OH DEARY ME...
I thought James` response to point number six was a classic.... "..... Obviously it`s not an overnight fix"....
NOPE... take a few more than one overnight session to fix that lot ... even after 3 years it is not fixed
Part of my orginal posting was because of the waiting time for ticket response.. Back in 2009, it was....
Quote

it was to do with the ticket system... where 2 days 1 minute and 23 seconds, is really not good enough, and in this department, more staff would improve the turnaround.... even 24 hours is a long time to wait for a response to a "simple query"...


now .,Chris... answer this.... IF.. all the above promises to "fix" the problems then, and the future was supposed to be looking brighter, because you said you were training more staff, etc etc etc... WHY is it still the same 3 years later... ?
And don`t forget to answer the questions 1 to 5 this time....



Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Changes to ticket response targets (increased from 8 to 24 hours)

Hey shutter, why don't you raise a ticket for your questions and record how long it takes to get a sensible answer  Grin
If you get a reply, post it in this thread so we can bring this topic up in another three and a half years time !  Roll_eyes
Keep up the good work  Wink
Chris
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Re: Changes to ticket response targets (increased from 8 to 24 hours)

My point was that we haven't been in a bad place for the whole period since you started the initial campaign, if we had been then we wouldn't have won so many awards Wink
We've hit a patch of problems which have impacted response times, whilst it might seem easy to throw more advisors at it, there's much more to it.
We know response times are high, there isn't a magic fix, there's a combination of things that need to happen (including our *continued* recruitment).
Former Plusnet Staff member. Posts after 31st Jan 2020 are not on behalf of Plusnet.
shutter
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Re: Changes to ticket response targets (increased from 8 to 24 hours)

Which means ?
and just like any politician, has failed twice to answer the five questions put to you.....
Chris
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Re: Changes to ticket response targets (increased from 8 to 24 hours)

I'm not going to be able to give you customer numbers and CSC staffing numbers, that's commercially sensitive.
But we *are* continuing to recruit and have been continuing to grow the support centre, along with other areas of the business. http://careers.plus.net/opportunities/
Former Plusnet Staff member. Posts after 31st Jan 2020 are not on behalf of Plusnet.
jelv
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Re: Changes to ticket response targets (increased from 8 to 24 hours)

Let's clear up one fact - the target is 24 hours not 35 hours - see the attached screen shot. If you look at the link in the first post it used to be 8 hours.
The important thing here is that the response time was hovering around the 8 hour average and when it crept above efforts were made to get back to the target.
Now the target is 24 hours it means that we will NEVER see the response times back to where they were. Once they get the average back below 24 hours Plusnet will say they are hitting their targets. What worries me is that if in three months time the response time is still stuck around 36 hours they will just change the target again and then say there is no problem - we are hitting the target.
Given that Plusnet makes a great play of their service in the advertising, if someone had looked at the publicly viewable Customer Support Statistics and seen the 8 hour target and that had been a factor in their signing up to Plusnet the change in the target constitutes an adverse material change in the service which would allow them out of their contract for free.
What really stinks about this is that it has been slipped out with no announcement - hoping it would be some time before anyone noticed? I would like to see a proper announcement about this from the MD or another person at the top of the management structure explaining the reason why this change has been made.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20)
Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month)
Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month)