Very poor service from Plusnet

[#1]

@mechanic123 FYI - I am with Zen, who do not have a forum - they did up to about 6 months ago, but it was never used. However, if they arrange an OR visit, they do not track them, and you still have to ring in if the engineer doesn't show up - I doubt A&A track them either.

[#2]

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@mechanic123 wrote:
.... it's things like customer service that differentiate providers.,,,

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Or you could say, the monthly price paid for the service, regardless of whether you need the extra support.

[#3]

I wasn’t going to post back to this as there appears to be an underlying theme from some that I should not have the right to be frustrated with Plusnets customer service

well after Plusnet raising a fault stating high resistance on the line, no engineer visit from openreach, I get a call today stating it’s an issue with the router and instructions to reset, why on earth would an engineer be arranged if it was this, I’ve followed the instructions send but as suspected it’s the same slower speed that as originally promised

This is the last post or comms I will have with Plusnet and will just look to cancel as I feel they are not a company I want to be involved with

fergin

[#4]

@Fergin 

You have every right to complain that you have problems with yout broadband connection. From reading this thread, the Plusnet Help Team have been pro-active in trying to get Openreach to address this promptly for you, including getting an engineer appointment at the week end.

Not only you but also Plusnet were let down by Openreach not turning up as promised. There is always the risk of this happening due to a myriad of reasons, over which Plusnet have absolutely no control.

If you leave Plusnet you will likely find that you will be presented with a bill for early termination charges and unless you go to a full fibre or cable service your new ISP will simply be back to square one getting Openreach to fix the fault.

[#5]

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@jab1 wrote:

f they arrange an OR visit, they do not track them, and you still have to ring in if the engineer doesn't show up - I doubt A&A track them either.

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The big difference is that A&A take ownership of problems - and they will get it fixed as quickly as possible. They do cost more per month, but you get a completely different level of support.

[#6]

Zen also take ownership of a problem, although you do have to call in if an arranged engineer doesn't show up/doesn't resolve the issue on first visit - but you get a dedicated person to contact if that happens - no having to explain to another first-line agent every time you call in.

Also, any new order/regrade is handled by the same person until you are satisfied, again, no repeat explanation needed.

In both these scenarios, relevant is recorded against your account, so if your named contact isn't available, someone else on the same team can pick it up with no issue.

[#7]

I've not used Zen personally, but I've known a number of people who have used them and I've only heard good reports.

The only bad thing I'd say is that Zen no longer offer ADSL - so they would be unable to offer me any broadband at all. A&A do offer ADSL for £7pm more than Plusnet - which I'd suggest is worth the extra if that is all you can get and you want a reliable line.

A&A do constantly monitor every line so you have easy access to the history of just how your line is performing.

[#8]

With A&A, in their equivalent of the Member Centre, when you place an order, they will list all the incremental steps that are needed to occur to get from initial order to being fully implemented.  Most of those steps have details of a realistic deadline, what action is required, what confirmation is expected to complete that step, and who is responsible or gets notified.

When a particular step gets completed by the system, then it gets marked as done, and the next action is automatically initiated, and so on until the order is completed.  However, if a step goes past it's scheduled deadline, then the 'task owner' gets notified for review and corrective action, and from observation when a step didn't complete ontime then the manual corrective action gets done mid-morning on the next working day (which seems reasonable given that Openreach broadband and phone changes are usually performed overnight).

This list of actions is visible to the customer in real time, so it is very clear how far along your order is, and what is happening at any moment.

[#9]

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@Anonymous wrote:

This list of actions is visible to the customer in real time, so it is very clear how far along your order is, and what is happening at any moment.

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Just like Plusnet then! (only joking)

I just checked my AAISP performance chart - apparently my connection suffered slight packet loss earlier in the month for a few minutes, and my max latency peaked at 22.3ms. Overall the average was 6ms, so can't have been too bad - it was almost certainly my server (that responds to the pings) applying an update.

And I don't even have AAISP broadband, just a L2TP tunnel.

[#10]

@corringham  were your packet losses after 11:30pm ?,  as earlier this month, A&A did overnight firmware updates on each of their Firebrick FB9000 LNS routers, causing many customer's traffic paths to drop for a few moments before automatically reconnecting to a different LNS router.

All described in great detail on A&A's service status page.

"Just like Plusnet then! (only joking)" 

[#11]

No, it was around 9:30pm, and coincided with some download activity. It is consistent with my server applying an update - not that 3% packet loss caused any problems - if it wasn't for looking at the charts I wouldn't have known.