Why do PN Support Agents not answer asked questions?

[#1]

Attn: Adam or Kelly or any CC team member
Sometimes a user wants advice before presuming that they have a fault requiring investigation.  I sought advice on the high level of FEC errors [circa 180 per second) being reported by my router (see tickets 60201864 & 60202161) to determine if I had a problem outside of acceptable operational parameters.  I am sure that PN does not want fault calls raised where there is actually no (fixable) fault.
To say the least I have been quite disappointed to not receive the requested advice, but instead be given an indifferent direction to raise a BB fault report, with the dire warning that BTO will charge £144+VAT if they cannot find a fault in their equipment.  For some this is more than enough to put them off raising the fault report less no fault be found and thereby attract BTO's penalty charges.  The response makes me feel like "Why should I bother trying to help myself investigate and understand what's happening here and then provide PN with the best information on the percieved problem?".  Should I simply behave in a "useless" fashion and pass all of the work on to PN's over streached resources?
To make matters worse, I received both an email and a text message inviting me to provide feedback on the response, however the survey system believes that the survey has already been responded to.  Is this a flaw in the survey system or has a response been blocked by the relevant support agent?
Finally nearly 48 hours to respond to a BUSINESS account question is not the service level that I have become to appreciate from PN.  In summary I regretably have to suggest that there is a lot of room for improvement here.
Kind regards,
Kevin

[#2]

Hello there,
I have to admit I'm disappointed by the response you were given too as it doesn't directly address the questions you've asked us. I'm going to go back and reply to it myself shortly so apologies for that, some feedback will be passed on.
Concerning the survey this can happen sometimes if you have filled out a previous survey and the cookies from that are still being detected. I'm not sure if that is the case but if you have and still wish to complete the survey please try deleting your cache of cookies and temporary internet files. Otherwise please let me know.

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Finally nearly 48 hours to respond to a BUSINESS account

I'm sorry you feel that was a long wait for a response, however I would always advise calling us if you have any urgent issues that need to be addressed.

[#3]

Adam,
Thank you for your 'as ever' positive response.  I await your further response.

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the cookies from that are still being detected

I get the same experience on both my PC and iPhone in respect of the request for feedback on this problem.  I have just successfully responded to a request for feedback on a ticket relating to my RESIDENTIAL account (dealt with in just 16 hours).  I therefore suspect a problem with the survey system.
BB performance is proving patchy, so I'm trying to raise a fault report (as an insurance plan) but the BT Speed Tester keeps failing.  http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk confesses to having technical problems and reports vairable speeds of between 4.8M & 5.6M on consecutive runs.
Date Download Speed Upload Speed 
Today 11:37 4805 kbps (601kB/s) 973 kbps (122kB/s) Share
Today 11:37 4758 kbps (595kB/s) 975 kbps (122kB/s) Share
Today 11:36 5598 kbps (700kB/s) 969 kbps (121kB/s) Share
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html result

Speed itself seems OK, however performance is intermitent, hence question on observed error rates.  The problem with focus on speed tests is that they are a point in time measure and do not paint the 'over time' experience.
Link Information
   
Uptime: 3 days, 13:30:51 [equals 86 hours]
DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Maximum Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,144 / 6,688
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,144 / 5,792
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/GB]: 478.80 / 8.82
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 19.5
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 25.5 / 44.5 
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.0 / 4.5 
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / IFTN
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0 
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0 
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0 
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 7 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 75,776 / 46,825,901
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 8,005 / 3,523
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 1,384 / 31,268

46,825,901 / 86 / 60 / 60 = 151 FEC errors per second - hence the question is this level of error a concern / the source of variable performance, given that speed tests are within the expected performance envelope for my line?
Cheers,
Kevin

[#4]

Thanks for getting back to me, I'm going to speak with a colleague who deals with our survey system about that as we do appreciate that some customers hold multiple accounts with us and certainly don't want to make it difficult for us to get feedback from our customers.
You're definitely doing the right thing to log a fault and I do hear what your saying about achieving an over-all picture of the issue, however in order to raise such things with our suppliers we do need download speed test results, it' shouldn't be a problem if the BT tester isn't working out for you though as we can use the TBB results. It might be a good idea to try and run a number of speed tests at certain points in the day to try and build a picture of speed performance over a 24 hour period.
In answer to your question about FEC errors, yes I would say that is a concerning level but we do have to be able to pair that with a noticeable performance issue in order to broach the problem.

[#5]

Hiya,
I'm the survey guy!
The surveys are designed to be sent on calls/tickets where our generation system identifies the account when a call/ticket is made and none have been sent in the last month. It's also designed to ensure that it is only filled in once (to avoid dodgy data - in the past we've had disgruntled customers fill in the same thing time and time again).
Unfortunately a draw back will be that if you are the contact for both a residential and a business account and you have been survey on both within the last month, it will give you the experience that you've noted.  I'm in full agreement that it isn't ideal and I do also want to work with the Business Team Leaders to see if we can set up a specific business survey tailored more towards Business Customers.
I'm sorry that this was a bit irritating for you.

[#6]

@Adam
Thanks a million, in spite of problems with speed test and the PN fault site yesterday, action is well on its way to 'improve' my business line operation.  Maintaining synch and speed has never really been an issue, where as transmission without error has in wet weather been problematic since we started.  As ever it's down to our location and generally crappy BTW copper circuits.
@James
For clarity, the first prompt received to complete a survey response was on the business account (see tickets nos above) and the second was for the residential account (associated with this forum userID).
Responses to the surveys were attempted in the same sequence that they were received.  First the business invitation to provide feedback was attempted on a PC and mobile device - both failed stating that the survey had been responded to.  After which I successfully responded to the residential request on the PC without trashing cookies as suggested as a solution.
Your reply seemed to suggest that you thought the failure occurred after the successful response.  This is not the case.
I hope that this clarification will assist in improving the feed back system.  On that point I have previously discussed with Bob Pullen the frustration that (as best as I recall) if feedback is sought direct from the closure of a ticket on the support portal, the process takes the user completely away from the PN portal and provides no return route at the end of the feedback process.  Might I suggest that the feedback service is launched in a new window or that your seek the provision of a 'return to sender' button on the thank you page with the survey provider.
Cheers,
Kevin

[#7]

Hi Kevin,
Thanks for coming back to me.  Regarding the feedback from ticket, we do want to ultimately build our own surveying system at some stage but as I'm sure that you can imagine, these things take time and investment and at this stage we don't currently have any sort of dates when this would be likely.  It would probably make life and awful lot easier too!
However shortly after receiving the business survey did you receive the residential one?

[#8]

James,
Yes, business request received in business postmaster mailbox and by mobile text. Response attempted and failed. Following day advice n problem received, however request also received to residential pst master.
Business response reattemptecd, still failed.  Residential response successful, business reattemptecd and failed.  I conclude that the access 'key' for the business survey is somehow marked as send.
Need a survey system?  PM me... I have .asp and MS SQL solution (needs dusting down) which might be a useful start point...
Cheers,
Kevin

[#9]

Thanks for the offer Kevin!
The ideal situation for us is to build one using our CRM (which we use for practically everything) and integrate it within that which I'm afraid you probably can't help us with!
In honesty, I am unsur why you were not able to fill in your survey for the business account, however as I mentioned I'm looking at the prospect of running a separate survey for business customers, which should result in this problem disappearing, for you at least.