Customer service is more than being chatty

[#1]

I was led to believe PlusNet prided itself on its customer service, I thought this meant they would deliver a good service.My experience in the last month has led me to understand this is not the case.

Firstly, just try calling support, typically a 15 minute wait.

Report a problem by email and they send you a lot of pretty graphs that are meaningless to a normal person. Give them performance data, as they request, and still nothing happens. I currently have a download speed of 1.69Mb/s and an upload speed of 0.01, this is not as good as my old modem in the 1990s

For almost a month I have had low speeds and completely failing connections, every time I contact them I am told it is "some mystical contractor" that is resolving this.

In fairness I have had good connection for the majority of my 18 months with PlusNet but when I needed them to respond they have failed to resolve the problem. 

In short the customer service is not up to its claims, very polite staff, but ineffectual service. Now I find that after my initial contract has completed they are going to charge  50-100% more than some of  their competitors.  Only BT is slightly more expensive. Look carefully at their offers before jumping in. £36.48 a month for ordinary broadband (7-8Mb) is not a good deal nowadays PlusNet!

[#2]

Hi Steve, I'm sorry that you've been having problems with your connection.

I can see the fault ticket is open and has been responded to throughout the course of the fault investigation, I appreciate that the graphs may not mean much to you, this is why they should be prefixed with *internal* or similar.  They are for our reference to show the checks that have been performed.

The last time your line was tested a fault was detected on the phone service, so we reported that through to Openreach and they advised this was clear. If you pick up a phone handset and dial 17070 running the quiet line test, is there any noise on the phone line at all?

Regarding the cost of your service, once any initial discount periods end the price will revert to the standard monthly cost of the service, however if you're also at the end of your contract you can negotiate a new deal with our customer options team if you like.

[#3]

Thank you for this Chris, you are nicely highlighting  my point, So let's chat. I never complained about my phone service, I don't use it, nor do  have a phone connected on it, as I am sure your records will show. Its my broadband that isn't working. As another day passes it still isn't working. Surely all your high technology and graphs can tell you this and are more reliable than me listening to a phone hum. I am using the broadband diagnostic tool you asked me to use, except today it cannot assess a download speed of 1Mb/s because there is no connection at all. I am currently using my neighbours connection to write this feedback.

I have had no response on the internal fault ticket you refer to, oddly only on this public one.

Regarding the cost of your broadband, your attitude to customer service and retention is that we negotiate with you to get a fair price after we have discovered it is significantly higher than your competitors, how oddly perverse? Doesn't leave me feeling warm about PlusNet really. I actually have tried that and was told that there is no room for negotiation, I can have a faster service though for the same price! I wonder why given the current service and speed, this doesn't fill me with hope?

[#4]

It doesn't matter if you don't use it, but you need to test it to rule out it being the problem.
I'm no expert, but if there is a problem with your phone line (outside your property) it could affect your broadband.
If it is bad, then get the landline sorted first and report it to your provider.

I've had it before when I was a student, but then mind you we didn't have broadband then (showing my age).

[#5]

Other other thing I can think of is a dodgy filter, which may have died.

I don't know if you have multiple filters and sockets, but it is worth swapping them around, and disconnecting everything else. Then test swapping them around from the nearest socket to your house door (which would usually the master one), to see if it makes any difference.

In my house I had a hum on the phone line (didn't need to 17070 it, could even hear it with the dial tone on) - after a bit of messing around it turned out it was a dodgy extension cable Sky had put in from the person who lived there before was causing it. Removed that and got another one.

It is a pain, but it is worth messing around with. It could be anything within your property which once worked doesn't now. So it could mean a few pounds for a new extension or filter, but if you think it isn't that then raise a fault.

[#6]

@SteveLockley,

Hi Steve,

A warm welcome to the forums.  Just to re-enforce @Alex's comment, if there is anything not right with the "phone" line - the copper circuit over which the broadband operates it is entirely futile attempting to investigate the broadband performance.

A cheap corded telephone hand set (circa £5) is an inexpensive diagnostic tool, which could well save you the £65 charge for a "fault found with user equipment" BTOR engineer call out.

These basic checks to mitigate such charges are fundamental checks carried out by all ISPs (including BT Retail) before calling out an engineer.

Filters can fail - I had one fail recently 4 days after purchase - the symptoms were that the broadband did not work very well.  On plugging in a telephone hand set (line not used for calls) it was discovered that there was no dial tone.  Removing the filter, there was dial tone ... and went out and bough another filter for a few quid.  Saved a massive call out charge and delivered a quick resolution.

[#7]

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@SteveLockley wrote:

I never complained about my phone service, I don't use it, nor do  have a phone connected on it...

...Its my broadband that isn't working. As another day passes it still isn't working.

While I appreciate you may not use the phone line, it can affect the broadband as the broadband runs down the line.

If there's a fault on the phone line, this could certainly affect your broadband service, as Alex has mentioned.

Looking over the fault report my colleague raised on the 24th, I see we had a response yesterday advising the fault had been resolved. I'm sorry this update has not yet made it on to the ticket, however the ticket system unfortunately is not an instant response support channel.

I've tested your line today and initially your speeds are still testing lower than expected at around 3.9Mbps download. However this looks like it may have just been some settings on the line that DLM (Dynamic Line Management) will have applied to try and combat the dropping connection previously.

As our suppliers have advised the fault is now resolved, I've put a request through to our suppliers to reset these settings, which should hopefully bring the speeds back up within the estimates for your line.

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[#8]

Well I don't know how you can claim the fault was fixed when I still only have 50% of the contracted service. You have in fact managed to restore a connection so far.

It should not have taken this long to sort in my honest opinion.

For those who made helpful suggestions, I should have said that I had already been through all the hoops of new filters etc.

The fault was always outside my property and I knew this as I had done all the tests, (and ones not suggested by PlusNet).

It seems to me that the only things that matters is how on the ball the service provider is at chasing their external suppliers (probably openreach) I don't think PlusNet met the mark on this one. I have decided to terminate my contract and go with another supplier. One thing that really annoyed me was the whole idea that after all this  I have to barter with PlusNet to get a decent price (see earlier mails). They actually said that if I lived in another area they might be able to do better, so I am  discriminated against because I live in a village. I have almost halfed the price I now pay with another supplier (and its not a short term deal in case you are wondering), furthermore its for fibre not ordinary broadband. Frankly, this amazed me, my advice for those on the forum is just shop around, customer loyalty is of no value in this world. NB. To date. they have offered no recompense for the poor/lack of service for the best part of a month !

[#9]

Fibre may fix your problem as it will be going to the cabinet I assume, so it could have been dodgy wiring back to your exchange, you can check on-line how far it is. As you said you live in a village, it may be far. My parents were quite far before I got Fibre for them, which has been fine so far.

I think BT Wholesale have bands or something like that, whom PlusNet have to pay. You're probably in the most expensive, and when you think about it they have to factor in how many engineers live around the area, petrol costs for them to drive there, etc.

I got fed up personally when the landline went down twice, one for two days then a year later for three, my parents don't use mobiles (I wish they did!) so the landline and BB down is a massive pain for them. I think I had to raise an on-line fault to BT via mobile data tethering, the tests failed and they called an engineer out.

The provider, just pays BT Wholesale x and charges y (y > x). So it would go though the same infrastructure.

Changing to Fibre may work better for you, but other than company specific things like price, contract length, quality of CS there would no difference on who you chose.

[#10]

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@SteveLockley wrote:

Well I don't know how you can claim the fault was fixed when I still only have 50% of the contracted service. You have in fact managed to restore a connection so far.

Our suppliers have advised us that they have fixed a fault on your line. Since the reset Harry put through, your router is in sync at 6.3mbps but the BT IP profile is capping the speed at 5mbps.

We appreciate that this is still below your estimates of 7-8mbps. Testing your line is showing an active MSO (Major Service Outage). Unfortunately, the estimated completion date we've been advised of is by 11-07-2017 17:00:00

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@SteveLockley wrote:
It should not have taken this long to sort in my honest opinion.

I entirely agree, but sometimes faults can drag on and in the case of MSOs it's beyond the sphere of Plusnet I'm afraid.

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@SteveLockley wrote:
For those who made helpful suggestions, I should have said that I had already been through all the hoops of new filters etc.

We ask you to perform some checks to try and resolve the issue before we initially raised the fault, because in many cases we'd arrange an engineer visit which does incur possible charges from our suppliers.

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@SteveLockley wrote:
The fault was always outside my property and I knew this as I had done all the tests, (and ones not suggested by PlusNet).

Very likely because there's an active MSO.

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@SteveLockley wrote:
It seems to me that the only things that matters is how on the ball the service provider is at chasing their external suppliers (probably openreach) I don't think PlusNet met the mark on this one.

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I've reviewed your fault report and I can't see where chasing our suppliers would have helped. Initially, we reset your line to try and improve your speeds because no issues were identified via a line test. That brought the sync rate to 7mbps.

Upon retesting your line, we identified a line fault and reported that through to BT and as per Harry's response that was confirmed as resolved by our suppliers - I do apologise that this wasn't communicated out to yourself on the day but unfortunately the ticket system as previously advised isn't an instant support channel.

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@SteveLockley wrote:
I have decided to terminate my contract and go with another supplier.

I am very sorry to hear you've decided to leave us. I do hope you reconsider.

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@SteveLockley wrote:
One thing that really annoyed me was the whole idea that after all this  I have to barter with PlusNet to get a decent price (see earlier mails). They actually said that if I lived in another area they might be able to do better, so I am  discriminated against because I live in a village. I have almost halfed the price I now pay with another supplier (and its not a short term deal in case you are wondering), furthermore its for fibre not ordinary broadband. Frankly, this amazed me, my advice for those on the forum is just shop around, customer loyalty is of no value in this world.

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Unfortunately, as you're within a Market 1 area, the costs are more expensive. More information can be found here: https://www.plus.net/help/broadband/broadband-prices-around-the-uk/

If you contact our Customer Options Team on 0800 013 2632 (Selecting Option 1 then Option 2) I'm sure we'll be able to provide you with the best deal we possibly can.

At the time of writing this, there is no wait time to get through to them and they are here until 8pm.

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@SteveLockley wrote:
To date. they have offered no recompense for the poor/lack of service for the best part of a month !

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We'd provide a refund of your broadband subscription charges from when the fault was reported to us, once your fault has been resolved.

I hope this helps.

Anoush

[#11]

The fundemental problem with situations like these, is the 18th century communications employed by BT Openretch ,and the "quality" of their workforce and its supervision..

Yesterday, I passed an Openretch van parked by the local cabinet -2 "engineers" in the van reading papers!! About an hour later, I returned - and they were still in the van ,but now eating -no sign of anything having occurred either inside or outside the cabinet. Any bets that someone's call out will have been abandoned because of "lack of time" ?