Bring back the ability for customers to raise a ticket via App or Website

[#1]

OllieC

"... however as I have mentioned above, this is something which ultimately would cause more problems than it solved."

I must have missed something.  I asked earlier in this thread for an explanation of why the ticket system had been removed, but as far as I can see, there has been no answer.

Furthermore, you add :

"If a customer ... is in need of help or has a query, one single contact on a platform of their choice would result in a quicker response if the username is provided off the bat via PM"

I have tried the PM route just two days ago and have received no response from anyone.  I cannot believe all this nonsense about different platforms when none of them result in ever getting a response. Do I have to resort every time to taking Plusnet to Court just to ensure that Plusnet fulfils its contractual responsibilities, as I had to do last time ?  On that occasion, if Plusnet had been bothered to respond to my loss of service, there would have been no need to go to Court.  But no amount of contact on any platform could wake Plusnet out of their stupour, and I was left with no alternative but to go to Court.  The Judge awarded me £300 compensation, but Plusnet was represented by a solicitor and a London barrister who had to travel to my local Court out in the provinces for two separate hearings, and their costs must have been at least £2,000 on top of the £300.  Would it not really be more cost effective for Plusnet to do the job properly in the first instance by responding to issues promptly rather than getting their priorities wrong by messing around with social media ?

In the meantime, perhaps you could nudge someone to respond to the issue I raised two days ago ?  Even the courtesy of a simple acknowledgement would be more professional than just silence !

[#2]

@OllieC (post 25) said ..

We have a system which pulls the messages and posts into one place. However, it puts these into chronological order and new responses from the same customer are placed at the back of their contact queue.  If we only had one channel I believe this would cause a lot of dissatisfaction as not everyone uses the same forms of social media…...

Re the first paragraph, so what is the problem of also having the ticketing system?

Re the second paragraph, not everyone wants to use any social media route so you get dissatisfaction from those who want to deal with Plusnet directly through their account (without waiting forever on the phone or even on chat) and not through a third party.

I have yet to see a valid argument as to why the ticketing system cannot be reintroduced to the benefit of all, both customers and Plusnet.

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Quote fixed.

[#3]

The whole debate about whether or not a ticket system is better than the current system would be moot if whatever system Plusnet put in place actually worked. The evidence from the forums is that a lot of customers have problems that have been outstanding for a prolonged period, or for which they are not seeing any response from Plusnet, or both.

The same types of issue are being raised by customers time and time again - refunds, orders delayed, incorrect bills, etc.

There are a lot of promised call backs, or promised ticket updates, or promised refunds etc. etc. that just don't happen.

Unfortunately, I suspect that not even a CRM system that coped with multiple social media input sources and a ticketing system perfectly would change that. While I don't doubt that support staff are trying to resolve issues, senior management just don't appear to care at all.

[#4]

From experience Twitter is a better response time than facebook .

But neither are as good as should be they are no faster than posting here

[#5]

@smiffy1  Thanks for responding to my question 

[#6]

I wasn't sure whether to reply to my first post or the last post in this unexpectedly long thread, so I chose this one, forgive me if this confuses things.

I think some people have introduced a red herring, namely other channels of communication.

The ticketing issue is not  primarily about how to communicate, it is about queuing, traceability, date/time stamping and not having to communicate synchronously.

A ticket is about recording the issue, having it queued and dealt with according to reasonable priorities, and about logging the issue quickly, not necessarily about having it resolved in real time.

Someone with connection issues obviously wants those dealt with a.s.a.p., while someone with a billing issue may be happy with a slightly longer time between raising the issue and having it resolved.

So forget about social media, this is not the issue.

The issue is about being able to log a problem, have a record of it being logged, have a reference to the log (the ticket number), the trace of the subsequent communication (the content, not the channel), and hopefully, the eventual resolution.

Being able to raise a ticket in a minute or two, instead of having to spend a lot of time waiting for a response via whatever medium, and having a date/time stamp and ticket number is very important, especially when the service provide cannot provide sufficient staff to answer immediately.

Please bring it back.  It's better for Plusnet and it's better for your customers.

[#7]

Sorry but you are wrong here - a preference of Generation Y for the likes of social media as a means of commication has been cited as a reason for the demise of the ticketing system. That though does not detract from the merits you identify.

It is not so different to the clamour for everything being a smart phone app. instead of a straightforward browser application accessible by everyone, with or without a smart phone. It’s all about fashion / form over functionality. In such circumstances logic and practicality is not going to win the debate.

[#8]

 Which inevitably leads to more confrontation. Maybe more should consider the legal route to get Plusnet to sit up and take notice.

The motivation for the change to "other platforms" (to use the current euphemism) is because Generation Y has a very short attention span.  If they do not get immediate reaction, they lose interest and do not follow up. That reduces Plusnet's workload as their algorithms envisage a certain drop-out rate - just like airlines who over-book.  That may sound very cynical but there is no other logical explanation as to why Plusnet would favour such an inefficient process to replace the ticket system.

This forum is supposed to be a Feedback forum but the silence from Plusnet indicates that it is not - we are just talking to ourselves !

[#9]

@BrightonRock wrote:
Does that also mean that, if an ordinary user replies to a post in the Forum, doing so will delay your team looking at the thread?

While this is correct, I'd say that the benefits of other users contributing to a thread far outweighs the very small delay in a staff response caused by this. After all this is a community forum for people to help each other out. 

Anything urgent the superusers have a way to escalate a thread to prioritise it.

@shermans wrote:

I have tried the PM route just two days ago and have received no response from anyone. 

Sorry that you haven't had a response to your PM. If you can advise who you PM'd I'd be happy to chase this up for you. It's worth noting that unsolicited PM's aren't always responded to due to differing workflows as per the forum rules but I do apologise if you've been asked to PM and we haven't got back to you yet.

@smiffy1 wrote:

From experience Twitter is a better response time than facebook .

But neither are as good as should be they are no faster than posting here

This isn't actually strictly correct. Neither Twitter, nor Facebook nor posting on our Community Forums are faster. They should be equal to one another seeing as we pull the posts, tweets, messages (apart from individual Community PM's) through the lithium social response tool and they're filtered into the same queuing system.

@Townman wrote:
Sorry but you are wrong here - a preference of Generation Y for the likes of social media as a means of communication has been cited as a reason for the demise of the ticketing system. 

I'm pretty sure that the ticket system was replaced in favour of live chat in 2015 to provide a more immediate resolution to a query or complaint.

@shermans wrote:

This forum is supposed to be a Feedback forum but the silence from Plusnet indicates that it is not - we are just talking to ourselves !

 From what I can see we've been replying to this thread over the weekend, so there's no silence here from us.

[#10]

@shermans wrote:

This forum is supposed to be a Feedback forum but the silence from Plusnet indicates that it is not - we are just talking to ourselves !

 @Gandalf wrote:

From what I can see we've been replying to this thread over the weekend, so there's no silence here from us.

I and several other people have repeatedly asked what was wrong with the original ticket system and why it needed to be changed.  The Plusnet team has studiously avoided answering the question.   Just read back through the postings from Plusnet staff : Gandalf, AdamWalker, OllieC, HarryB and Mads.  Not one has attempted to address the question posed by the O.P. namely :

 "Bring back the ability for customers themselves to raise a ticket".

Answer please, not on a postcard but here on the forum !

@Gandalf wrote in reply to

@shermans :

"I have tried the PM route just two days ago and have received no response from anyone. "

Sorry that you haven't had a response to your PM. If you can advise who you PM'd I'd be happy to chase this up for you. It's worth noting that unsolicited PM's aren't always responded to due to differing workflows as per the forum rules but I do apologise if you've been asked to PM and we haven't got back to you yet.

I sent a PM to @Mads  and needless to say I have heard nothing back.  I rest my case !!

@mads wrote :

if there is anything we can do to resolve any issues you may be experiencing please PM one of the staff members on this thread and we can investigate and help resolve them. 

[#11]

I and several other people have repeatedly asked what was wrong with the original ticket system and why it needed to be changed.  The Plusnet team has studiously avoided answering the question.   Just read back through the postings from Plusnet staff : Gandalf, AdamWalker, OllieC, HarryB and Mads.  Not one has attempted to address the question posed by the O.P. namely :

 "Bring back the ability for customers themselves to raise a ticket".

Answer please, not on a postcard but here on the forum !

As far as I'm aware we removed the ticket system in favour of live chat to provide our customers with a more immediate response. While I understand people are wanting us to re-instate it, I'm afraid it looks like the decision has been made not to.

I sent a PM to @Mads  and needless to say I have heard nothing back.  I rest my case !!

I'll pick this up now and update you soon.

[#12]

It appears that the only way to raise a problem online without waiting on the telephone is to raise a complaint,

If enough of us do so maybe Plusnet can get back to the good old days of decent service.

[#13]

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@Gandalf wrote:

 As far as I'm aware we removed the ticket system in favour of live chat to provide our customers with a more immediate response. While I understand people are wanting us to re-instate it, I'm afraid it looks like the decision has been made not to.

---

In all fairness @Gandalf, this may well give an immediate or quicker response, subject to queuing but does it actually provide a quicker resolution to the issue raised.

By inference, if I, or anyone else, has a service issue then it is in our interest to raise it via chat as by your own admission it will get an immediate response. 

I for one am not convinced.

[#14]

@Poacher wrote:

It appears that the only way to raise a problem online without waiting on the telephone is to raise a complaint,

By all means feel free to message us via Facebook Messenger or DM via Twitter and either myself or one of the Help Team who respond over these forums will be happy to help.

@Mook wrote:
In all fairness @Gandalf, this may well give an immediate or quicker response, subject to queuing but does it actually provide a quicker resolution to the issue raised.

By inference, if I, or anyone else, has a service issue then it is in our interest to raise it via chat as by your own admission it will get an immediate response. 

Once you're through to the live chat agent, they'll be able to advise on your query there and then as opposed to waiting days for a reply to a support ticket. If your query needs further investigation, then they'll raise it to the appropriate team.

Compared to if you create a support ticket, when an agent picks it up they'll then raise it with the appropriate team (if they can't sort it out then). Using live chat will cut out the time between raising the ticket and getting it picked up.

Any faults with your service can still be raised online at faults.plus.net though.

Hope this helps.

[#15]

Many of the older members of the Plusnet community do not subscribe to the TwitFace social media and would appreciate a simple method of raising a non-urgent query without spending a long time on the telephone.