A quick update, it's now 8 weeks and 2 days since placing my order on 1st December and if the next scheduled attempt works it will be one day short of nine weeks since placing the order.
Things finally stepped up a gear after my initial post on Monday and Paul and various others have been very helpful with regards getting things escalated and attempting to finally get me connected to fibre.
Early this week I was given a date of Monday 1st for the fibre to be connected but with a promise that this would be expedited to an earlier date. True to their word someone did something or other to the line and late on Tuesday night I spotted the blue light on the router instead of the hated orange and flashing red ones. So yesterday morning I got a call to say all was well and we should now have fibre speeds. The good news was we had broadband once again but still no fibre.
After a few phone calls and a bit of investigation I was informed that we now need another engineers visit (a fault engineer this time - which I read as one who actually knows what he's doing) and the earliest this can be arranged is for Monday 1st Feb - and I will need to wait in again for his visit.
What amazes me is that when I had the last engineer home visit (Mon 18th Jan) he appeared to do a very thorough job and had worked out exactly what was wrong and how to fix it, sadly this couldn't be done there and then and needed to be scheduled for a later date. When it eventually was done the suggested fix either didn't work or wasn't done correctly and we lost the normal broadband as well for a spell. The next step was pushed through quite quickly and was supposed to finally correctly connect the fibre but unfortunately just gave us normal broadband again. So now we've got a five day wait for a fault engineer.
I know next to nothing about how the telephone systems work but I am very good at finding and fixing faults with vehicle electronics, engines, PC's, laptops and circuitry in general. The key thing I've learnt about finding and fixing faults is that you remove all distractions and work logically from one end to the other without a break until you discover the fault - or faults. If you have to take a break you make detailed notes and get back to it ASAP while it's still fresh in your mind. As soon as you've established the faults you then need to fix it and test it straight away. Having a system where multiple people attempt to repair a fault one step at a time with long breaks between each step is asking for trouble, is certain to cost more, and goes again plain old fashioned common sense.
Not sure how much of the process delays I’ve experienced are down to Plusnet or Openreach but one bit of feedback I'd give Plusnet is that you desperately need a process that automatically flags up how long an order has been in the system without being completed. If an order is taking longer than normal then there's obviously an issue which needs to be tackled. Assigning some quality resources to the problem sooner rather than later will clear issues quicker and more economically in the long run and do wonders for your reputation.
In summary, I’m still waiting for fibre, your frontline staff are great, but your processes have some serious flaws which are ruining your customer service reputation.
