Chat queue - shocking

[#1]

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@bucksboy wrote:
the old but good 'Ticket' system worked send it off some time latter  a reply simples.

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That's fine, however to respond to the amount of tickets we used to, that would involve taking advisors off of the phones/chat, which would result in even longer queues. You may also be surprised how many people call up within 24 hours of raising a ticket when tickets aren't responded to which again ultimately causes longer queues

[#2]

Well having options is good, and Twitter and Facebook conversations are answered within their opening hours by the same staff who look at this forum. Although it seems easier to get a response on those 2 platforms.

[#3]

Can I have a job? working from home @HarryB

P.S Business Chat goes through instantly.

[#4]

Seems to me Plusnet just don't get it we ,the pesky customers, just want to get issues sorted out but to do so we have to ring up and get told busy.....use chat and told busy. Now it seems can use facebook and twitter ! What ever they are I don't use them. So the staff are spreading themselves over 4 different err...'platforms' I understand the term is.

Then Harry says it's all our fault tickets did not work as when there was no reply in 24 hours pesky customers rang up and took more staff time.   Look we pay for a service and it's Plusnets job to have sufficient staff to answer the queries that happen from the customer base....sorry is that so hard?

Still say the 'ticket' system worked best. Plusnet used to be a Which? best buy and folk praised the customer service but it's all gone to pot.

[#5]

HarryB that is a ridiculous statement saying that something that worked for years was removed because customers USED it ?  as it caused a lack of staff elsewhere

I know THIS may sound stupid ,,, if there is a lack of staff employ more !  which we have been told for years is happening

[#6]

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@bucksboy wrote:

Then Harry says it's all our fault tickets did not work as when there was no reply in 24 hours pesky customers rang up and took more staff time.

@rongtw wrote:
@HarryB that is a ridiculous statement saying that something that worked for years was removed because customers USED it ?  as it caused a lack of staff elsewhere

That's not what I was getting at. I completely understand and appreciate that many customers are happy to raise a ticket and wait for a response.

However if we were to try moving back to tickets they way they used to be, this would require moving staff from calls/chat, which would undeniably create longer call/chat queues.

Ultimately the decision to move from tickets towards chat has been discussed in depth previously and there is nothing further I can really add.

@rongtw wrote:
if there is a lack of staff employ more !  which we have been told for years is happening

We are, http://careers.plus.net/jobs/

[#7]

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@HarryB wrote:

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However if we were to try moving back to tickets they way they used to be, this would require moving staff from calls/chat, which would undeniably create longer call/chat queues.

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would it?
or would it result in less people using the phones, thus resulting in shorter call queues.
as it stands right now, the only option is to use the phones (i've found the chat 100% useless as you always end up with the "i can't help you, you will need to call us" response).

[#8]

I have been trying to resolve a problem with my service dropping out since last week. On Saturday i waited 45 to have my call answered then got transferred round the houses till eventually i spoke to stacy and eve, supposedly a manager. I was PROMISED a call back in 72 hours, guess what, no call back, after more hours on the phone still be fobbed off, promised call backs that don't happen, being sent emails to incorrect email address..what a shower of sh** the service dept is.....   or is it just me receiving this level of service???????

[#9]

So true Chenks the amount of posts on here who have said Chat told them to Ring

[#10]

Hi Harry

I used to work in IT support and know what the issues can be. I'm now a senior consultant so I'm the escalation point for serious issues. My thoughts on this:

1. Tech-savvy people tend to create a ticket and chuck every bit of information plus the kitchen sink in so make it easier to use that feature - it often saves hours of time.

2. If people are logging the ticket electronically, DO NOT assume this means it's a low priority ticket. They may be logging the call via their mobile phone, or from a PC at work, telling you the internet at home's completely FUBAR.

3. If your helpdesk system is set up correctly then it should be able to triage an inbound new ticket within minutes, without human intervention. This frees up the people who have to answer the phones / man the instant messenger.

4. Like your own comment says, a lot of the waste comes from people chasing for updates so even if there's nothing new to add, make a point of updating tickets that are on hold pending action from customer / supplier / partner. The more you do this, the more your customers will cut you some slack as they can see it's not PN causing the hold-up.

Anyone who's ever been held to an SLA waiting on someone else will tell you how annoying it is if they have to chase for updates. If their issue is related to a service not working at all, putting them on hold for 45 minutes or in an IM queue for 90 minutes will NOT enhance their calm. PN should be contacting them, not the other way round - and the ticketing system should be linked to SMS notifications so customers get the notification either way.

If someone with access to the online system can see a note that says "PN here; we have checked and your ticket is still awaiting BT Openreach, we'll keep you informed"  then that counts as a contact attempt, and often it'll be enough for a customer to think, "okay, good, they are still looking at it and haven't forgotten about it".And not ring you.

How long does it take to put a note like that on a ticket? 2 minutes? Just set someone the job of spending an hour every morning whizzing through all the open tickets that might've been updated overnight.

5. When people (especially non technical people or people with complete outages) have to do stuff over the phone, the CSC operator can deal with only one customer at a time so ideally you should want to avoid tying the phone lines up for noncritical questions.

6. Ticketing systems are asynchronous. This means, if you've got 100 people logging tickets about a service outage and you know one fix will benefit all 100 people, then maybe you need some way to link those tickets together so everybody gets the update and it cuts down on duplication.

Addendum:

7. If you know there's an outage, you should be able to pop that up on the ticketing system so that as someone types in their home number, it'll work out if there's a pre-existing outage that likely affects them.

[#11]

HarryB Think this needs Escalating to PN top escalator

ASAP

[#12]

Here's a thought ........... if problems actually got solved, more issues were fixed first time instead of being passed around or incorrectly actioned, we the pesky customers wouldn't have to waste a percentage of our lives in a Plusnet queue. Doing so is not a lifestyle choice, and I don't think that anyone enjoys it.

In most cases we only put ourselves through it when we want Plusnet to put something right, which I suspect, more often than not, has occurred because Plusnet hasn't done what we expect, by omission or commission. When this happens, and it happens too much for my liking, my instant reaction is to realise that another chunk of my life is about to be wasted because of someone else's failure. I resent this.

As someone else has observed, the ticket system was the preference of any savvy person, in that you define the problem, and then carry on with your life in the expectation that it will be attended to as it should be. If the operative needs to check something, then you aren't kept waiting. With a ticket system in place, if your preference is to choose to sit on the end of a phone, then you get to do that because you want to, and you get what you deserve!

If Plusnet have insufficient staff to offer a civilized ticket system, then what are they doing allocating staff to deal with Facebook enquiries? Who are these people who think that no matter which company you wish to contact, your route is to write something on Facebook rather than contact the company concerned on their own website? Perhaps they want to avoid the help pages on company websites which usefully try to filter out what can be answered by a FAQ. I resent the apparent possibility that if I'm waiting to contact Plusnet via the "official" website, other people might have found a shorter queue via the back door.

I very much agree with tstaddon, especially his point 4. Does Plusnet have anyone with his expertise?

I see no advantages with a chat system. Type a considered message on a ticket at your own pace and press 'send'. Why is it better first to sit in a queue, and then for two people to be under pressure to compose and type interchanges when they type less fluently than they speak, with long intermissions gazing at "%%%% is typing".

I used Plusnet Chat last week. I was in a queue for over an hour with my position receding as well as advancing. When a connection was finally established, and the very moment the awkward question was asked, the session was terminated. Another hour and a quarter of my life wasted!

[#13]

I'm an old Metronet customer and remember excellent service. Plusnet brought in a lot of the expertise and insight from that team, some of whom went the extra mile when I had Openreach issues on a previous house move.

The lessons learnt were one of the reasons I've stayed with PN. Broadly speaking, the issues aren't with PN expertise or willingness, it's the age old issue of keeping customers regularly updated especially when a (frequently underperforming) third party like Openreach is involved.

I am against using Facebook or Twitter in lieu of ticketing - sales enquiries or broad Q&A is fine, but some airlines do insist on using social media for this and it is HATEFUL HATEFUL HATEFUL.

First of all it makes it more difficult for the customer to track progress. Secondly, there's a privacy issue if account details or address details need to be provided. Thirdly, PN don't own the conversations, the social media sites do. Are they Data Protection Act aware, let alone compliant?

Actually, I like the chat feature. It's far better than phoning for issue tracking, because the user can maintain a chat log and see who they spoke to, at what time, and what responses they were given. It also means it's easier to give positive feedback.

Back in the day, I still had some people at PN who'd come over from Metronet on MSN Messenger - brilliant because when we had Openreach totally hosing up a SIM order by virtue of  ADSL customers of PN / BT / anyone else being connected to 80s TPON lines which couldn't get ADSL at all, and people enquiring about broadband were being told even by BT Retail that they would never be able to get it ("and are you sure you wouldn't be better off with an ISDN line?").

I was able to ping the guy working the case, and as and when he had time he'd stick notes into the conversation. I then took the information he gave, along with all the salient names/dates/times etc, into a complaint I sent to Ben Verwaayen the then BT director to prove (a) BTOR had sat on a work order for over 2 years to install a copper overlay (I sent proof of that work order too!), (b) SIM provisions contractually obliged them to deliver the overlay, (c) BT Retail were incorrectly telling their own customers that broadband was unachievable and (d) telling customers ISDN is their only option when it patently isn't is simply not on.

Within 2 weeks of that email being sent off, the copper overlay was installed so that didn't just sort my issue out, it sorted out the issue for the entire village. And it only ate up 5 minutes of that techie's time here and there.

Other thing to remember about chat windows is you can have more than one of them open at a time, so there's no real reason why a techie can't be chatting to 4 or 5 different people at once. If they're messaging about a service outage, simply route the chat sessions to a techie or group of techies who're working on that issue - it then becomes dead easy for any one techie to post an update to all.

Here, we use Slack for that kind of chat -  https://slack.com/is

[#14]

HarryB       ?  a question does this Feedback actually go to any  Higher up staff  to read ? 

Or does it just lie dormant on here ?