6 week delay and counting

[#1]

Tell me, is it reasonable to place an order on the 7th May for a new line, and receive a third engineer appointment date for the 18th June?

When I placed the order on the 7th May, I selected 3rd June as my engineer appointment date.

AND then the problems begin....

Delays due to cabling, delays due to suppliers, delays due to rejected orders, delays because order is re-submitted.

New engineer visit date 10th June.

Then delay again, order rejected, order re-submitted, 3rd engineer date given blah blah.

Every time, it is always down to suppliers (Openreach presumably), never anything wrong by Plusnet.

Now I understand things can go wrong, but what I don't understand is the constant rinse and repeat of the same failing processes and lack of any urgency, escalation, prioritising by Plusnet.

Is your whole company populated with people who have no responsibility for problem escalations?

Do you not employ anyone whose job it is to "get busy" and chase things, chase people, manage?

[#2]

Hi there.

Firstly welcome to our community forums and I do sincerely apologise for the issues we've encountered with your order. From this point on I'd like to take ownership of this for you to ensure we're doing all we can to chase and escalate this where appropriate in a timely manner, so I've moved your support ticket 190105895 to my own workflow.

I understand our suppliers have booked an appointment for an engineer to visit you on the 18/06/2019 between 1pm and 6pm to complete the installation. I've got in touch with Openreach to discuss a sooner appointment slot due to the delays we've experienced and I've been advised that they're willing to provide an expedited/fast tracked appointment date.

While discussing this with the Openreach adviser, I've been assured that the external work has been completed so the installation should hopefully all go smoothly on the day. They've now booked the absolute earliest date of 10/06/2019 between 8am and 1pm. If you're not free then could you let me know as soon as possible so I can re-arrange please.

Hope this helps.

[#3]

@idrive19 

A warm welcome to the forums.

Without you providing any background details of the issues you have encountered, it is not possible to answer "is this reasonable?".  In most circumstances ordering and delivering service is not problematic, however in specific circumstances it can be horrendous!  The following can give rise to delays and cancellations...

• New build sites - there can be a lot of issues over infrastructure ownership (cable ducts, local circuits, cabinets and trunk cables) between the site builders, sub-contractors and BT Openreach them selves ... after which service needs to be handed over to BT Wholesale before a retail CP/ISP can deliver the services you ordered
• Over subscribed locations - FTTC local cabinets can be found to be full (or working ports not available) at the time of installation, even though at the point of ordering BT's systems showed availability to CP/ISP retailers - similar things can happen in respect of serviceable exchange side (trunk) circuits or distribution side (cabinet to premises) circuits - all of these give rise to the need to plan, order and deliver additional infrastructure
• Faults found on install - an engineer turns up to do the installation and a fault is found with the infrastructure resources allocated for your order - depending on the nature of the fault, resolution could be days - weeks - months especially if roadworks or third parties (power companies, tree cutting...) are involved
• BT infrastructure records are wrong - in BT's systems things are found to be not what they are, for example your property is not connected to the cabinet recorded in their systems - that can cause BT to push back the installation - which needs to be rescheduled - which needs to be handled by the CP/ISP - these give rise to "Bridge Cases" which BTOR/BTw are allowed 48 hours (working days) to address and their 'addressing' of the issue is limited to the point issue raised only - if further issues arise, they are each treated distinctly having another 48 hour turnaround - if they get things done very badly the CP/ISP might be able to get an order expedited (costs over £120) though that might not achieve delivery that much quicker
• Order cancellation - there are a myriad of reasons why BT Openreach or BT Wholesale might cancel and order - where there is a SIMultanious order for both phone and broadband, a failure on one part of the order will give rise to the other failing as well - in such circumstances individual orders for phone followed by broadband tends to be more pragmatic, even though there is a delay between them, pragmatically it can be quicker than attempting a new SIM order
• After all of that there comes the CP/ISP related mistakes - like for example placing your order on the wrong line due to agent error or to issues in the BT database - rejected orders need to be resubmitted
• Then there are issues arising from current supplier (or subscriber) rejecting line take over orders where there is already a working line / subscriber

Sadly the space is complex, so without some insight into your specific circumstances it is not possible to answer the "is it reasonable" question.  Yes everyone would like it to be perfect all of the time, but the real world is not like that - I have personal experience of a number of the above!

Ofcom has a lot to answer, for not being tougher with BT Openreach and BT Wholesale when things go wrong.  They are not backwards at being tough with CP/ISPs, but if those organisations are not receiving a proficient service from the owners of the wires, beyond having people like @Gandalf doing close order management of issues, there's little more they can do, whilst Ofcom choses to do nothing.

Hope you are soon sorted. 

[#4]

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Ofcom has a lot to answer, for not being tougher with BT Openreach and BT Wholesale when things go wrong.  They are not backwards at being tough with CP/ISPs, but if those organisations are not receiving a proficient service from the owners of the wires, beyond having people like @Gandalf doing close order management of issues, there's little more they can do, whilst Ofcom choses to do nothing.

Hope you are soon sorted. 

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I had a Google search a few days ago for "Openreach Service Level Agreements" and much to my surprise found very little and mostly years out of date, so yes, Ofcom should be doing more to make them more accountable. With 5G on the horizon, you'd think Openreach would be trying harder.

[#5]

Thank you Gandalf for taking ownership of this for me. Much appreciated.

[#6]

No problem, I do hope this is resolved on Monday once the engineer has been

[#7 · Accepted solution]

Hi @idrive19

Just before I log off for the night as we finished at 10pm I've checked your broadband order and I can see it completed earlier this afternoon. Looks like our system has been a little slow on this occasion with activating your account, so I've given it a kick now. You should be able to connect in a few moments once you've setup your router.

Let me know if you have any issues.

I've also added a reply to your support ticket making you an offer for a goodwill gesture

Hope this helps.