New Plusnet Customer - first impressions

[#1]

Well I had been thinking of moving away from BT for some months. I think what finally persuaded me was the free calls to mobiles and the Youview+ deals.

I took the plunge a couple of weeks ago and signed up for telephone line, all calls, Fibre plus unlimited.

A few days later the router arrived, it looks like a newer version of my BT hub, so great.

I received texts and emails from the beginning advising me of the likely go live day. On the actual day the telephone service transferred all OK, including the caller display, but the broadband just disconnected. I plugged in the new router but just got the flashing "B".  After a 15 minute wait to customer services, I was informed that for some reason the transfer signal from BT had not been received, and if I could give them two minutes they would activate me there and then. By the time they came back on the phone, I was live.

The speed I got out of BT was on average 50 meg download, I am still in the settling in period, but so far the speed I am getting with Plusnet is 55 meg, so I am happy with that.

Then I wanted Youview +, so phoned up customer services, spoke to Michael, and after some helpful advice and a deal, agreed on their basic package. Today the box arrived and was installed, again no problems, all working as it should, so now the wife is happy as our old Humax PVR was on its last legs.

I have logged on to the customer account area, and can see on a daily basis the telephone calls we have made, and yep, the calls to mobiles are marked as no charge.

So, what are my thoughts on Plusnet so far?

I love the fact that I get to speak to plain speaking English staff, albeit Northerners, but hey, everyone has their own cross to bear.  Me, I am a soft southerner!!!  No, seriously, so far Plusnet staff have been a joy to talk to.

All communication with the staff at Plusnet has been great, I love the text backups, and when I spoke to Michael he raised an incident to ensure I could see he was going to call back as agreed.

The service is faster, and cheaper than BT, brilliant!

Could they do anything better?  The 15 minute wait for customer services was a pain, but I guess they have to balance an inexpensive service with constant growth, a challenge, but if they can reduce the waiting times it would be great.  The online chat system was also so congested that I was sat waiting for an operator?

All in all, I am very happy so far, but hey, I have been live for just a few days, but early indications are good.

Thanks so far Plusnet.

Carl.

[#2]

Its nice to hear that PN do get things done correctly

The Unfortunate thing is at Present the Dissatisfaction outweighs the satisfied , as long term customer i am obviously  happy with PN but of late i am getting depressed that a once excellent service has degraded to worse than Talk Talk and BT

[#3]

I moved to Plusnet in August. I was rather surprised that they insisted that I pay a year's line rental 2 weeks before my transfer. That does not seem right.

The telephone line was transferred on the date given but the broadband would not log in and connect until the next day. Why?

After that things were OK for a month but then they sent me a bill for monthly line rental, which I naturally refused to pay, having already paid line rental.

At this point I found exactly how hard Plusnet make it for customers to contact them, the only usable point of contact being via the forum. Trying to get onto them by telephone simply wasted hours listening to some horrible, and very loud, 'music'. They refuse to provide customers with any e-mail address for customer services and the online chat rarely works - well not on the 5 different browsers I've tried.

Three times I managed to contact someone in customer services and each time I was assured that the problem invoice had been sorted out. My account still showed the charge in place, however.

This last weekend my service was suddenly cut off with my telephone diverted to some automated payment line!!! Likewise, when I went into the local library and tried logging in to their web-site it refused to let me past a page demanding payment, even though I had previously checked that NOTHING was owed on my account. After almost 2 days of getting more and more annoyed listening to their intolerable 'music' I finally got onto someone human who took another hour before restoring my services. For how long?

Plusnet is without doubt the absolute worst company I have ever experienced for customer service (and I've met some!!). Their technique of trying to force customers to pay wrong invoices is tantamount to fraud and the cutting off of services is a definite breach of contract. No-one from Plusnet has contacted me to offer any form of compensation for all the hassle I've had as a result of their faulty software; nor have they repaired the issue so that other customers do not suffer in the same way.

I will NEVER recommend that anyone takes a contract with this company.