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

[#1]

... and of course those with non-perfect hearing would also prefer written answers.

[#2]

I understand that not everyone uses social media and that ideally some people are wanting the ability to raise a support ticket themselves back, and I can confirm that feedback has been passed on higher up in the past.

Regarding your comment about wanting a written answer, I'm pretty sure live chat provides just that. You'll be able to e-mail yourself a copy of the written transcript following the chat, or copy and paste the transcript during the chat.

[#3]

Gandalf wrote :

Regarding your comment about wanting a written answer, I'm pretty sure live chat provides just that. You'll be able to e-mail yourself a copy of the written transcript following the chat, or copy and paste the transcript during the chat.

That may suit Plusnet, but it is the customers who have to wait for hours for an agent to answer, who then tries to answer four other chats simultaneously and gets them all muddled up.  Certainly the written transcript is very useful evidence of the agent's confusion when subsequently submitting a complaint, but that is all it achieves.

Please explain why the customer should have to hang around on line waiting for an agent to respond.  We have more important things to do with our time.  Why is OUR time less important than Plusnet's time ?

[#4]

it is the customers who have to wait for hours for an agent to answer,

While I do sincerely apologise for the wait times of both live chat and over the phones that can be occasionally lengthy, the time you wait will be shorter than waiting for a support ticket to be picked up, though this doesn't excuse the long waits.

We're continually working to keep the queues at an acceptable level consistently.

who then tries to answer four other chats simultaneously and gets them all muddled up.  

To be honest, this can happen across any support platform in its own way. We're all human after all. However, I appreciate that this doesn't make for a good experience as I'd expect for the adviser to take their time and make that one interaction count to try to resolve the issue to avoid you needing to contact us a 2nd time regarding the same issue.

If you have any examples I'd be happy to review them and pass feedback on accordingly where appropriate? Feel free to PM me if you feel if you want to discuss that further in private. 

[#5]

@Gandalf, In your reply to my post I have to admit to seeing the benefit of using chat and your reasons for promoting it. And as I have no reason to doubt what you are saying does it not makes sense to remove the Social Media channels as inputs to the backend system to eliminate the cross pollination that happens when these are used?

I know nothing about Social Media or how it works but would it not be in your own interest to redirect a user to the Chat system when a service issue is being raised on these channels.

By redirecting I mean, ‘forcefully’ encourage them, after all they too would benefit from a faster resolution path.

[#6]

Hi @Anonymous

As more and more people sign up for a Facebook or Twitter account (I think it's in the millions), the way things are heading nowadays appear to revolve around social media, and people seem to favour contacting a company in this way as opposed to the more traditional methods. Although this isn't to say that everyone favours social media.

The social media platforms are odd in a way that while they're not an instant response tool, they're more instant response than the ticket system and when the queues are low, we can have a back and forth conversation similar to live chat.

Lots of people use social media as a medium to complain/leave a negative review but don't expect a response, so proactively monitoring these platforms and replying to those complaints can ultimately turn an experience around.

Like most other written methods of communication, a full copy of the conversation is stored internally with a unique reference number, as well as on the relevant social media account on their side to refer back if needed.

[#7]

I personally don't agree with the social media method of asking for support. For me it is talking rubbish such as what I had for breakfast (with a photo of course) and whether I liked it or not. Not that anyone would care about that of couse, and I wouldn't expect them to.

If I needed support on any business, I would expect a line number or a ticket system.

Facebook and Twitter et al are what I had for breakfast, and what boring things I plan to do for the day that people will pretrend to care about, but don't really.

If PlusNet are cost saving, then they're doing a good way about it. Why were tickets (or to give them the more PC name quations) cancelled?

[#8]

they're more instant response than the ticket system

Only because twitface is better resourced that the ticketing system queues were (still are?).

The "unresponsiveness" of the ticketing system was (is) a direct consequence of...

1. A failure to address the causes of the need to contact support
2. A failure to resource the ticket system inline with demand for support
3. Resources needed to be diverted to the public washing of dirty laundry space

It can be argued that little has changed, other than there are more bums on seats shovelling the you know what!!  The right solution is not more unstructured ways of communicating just because they are fashionable, but to address the reasons giving rise to people seeking support (sometimes very simple improvement in PN's communications).

No organisation can afford to keep adding costs in terms of support staff, desks, phones, chairs and technology stacks to manage the work loads, somewhere along the way the causes of failure must be remedied!

As an aside I looked at the twitter space last night (if only because the user portal was down (no announcement) … and wondered how much effort / cost (which might be better spent fixing issues) is put into the daily sourcing / preparation of the trite stuff posted there … games and graphics are not what a support channel is about.

[#9]

It doesn’t matter how many millions or billions of new or existing Social Media accounts there are @Gandalf, what does matter is how many of these users are your customers and of those how many of them want to use Social Media is their preferred point of contact.

I have no issues with your using Social Media as a point of contact, I am merely saying what I have based on the responses here. If your users prefer to use these channels then it is in Plusnet’s interest to ensure that these channels are fully integrated in to the back office system to eliminate the ‘cross talk’ and the delays this causes.

I'll not say anything more on the subject, you have better things to do with your time.

[#10]

@Anonymous, Unfortunately cross talk as you put it can occur via any support platform. For example, you can start a live chat while waiting on the phone as well as raising a support ticket simultaneously.

While integrating the social media platforms into the CRM system is a good idea in my opinion and I believe something we've provided feedback on in the past, it'll still be difficult to stop someone from contacting us over 2 or more support platforms.

I'm just trying to point out that there are a lot of benefits to providing support over social media.

[#11]

Frankly, there is no point in this so-called "Feedback".  No-one is listening.  They are just going through the motions.  They are also relying on other users to solve Plusnet problems without stopping to think that over time other kind users are going to get fed up with dealing with Plusnet's issues.

I have head enough also just talking to myself and have better things to do.

[#12]

OK, I was wrong I am saying more.

@Gandalf I am not disagreeing with you as regards the benefit of using Social Media, what I am saying is that if it is used then it should be properly integrated in to your CRM (this is done using Enterprise Integration Patterns) and if done correctly it wouldn’t matter how many paths of entry a user took as there would still be a single thread of contact. This could then be leveraged so that if a user contacted you using two methods the system could even dispatch its (identical) responses back to the user using both of these channels.

Nothing can dissuade me from this opinion as I know what benefits a properly integrated system can bring to an enterprise having written quite a few of them in my time.

[#13]

Unfortunately cross talk as you put it can occur via any support platform

The fewer routes there are to support, the less the "cross talk".  This is an issue of PlusNet's own making.  The ticketing system, tied into the CRM is the only sane solution here.  However, it is not the fashionable approach.  I changed my mind to call this a 'fashionable solution' because it solves nothing, just adds complications.

However as noted above, no one is listening, or at least the hearing is not influencing the decision makers who clearly do not on a daily basis have to deal with the consequences of their decisions.

I admire the patience of the guys who support these channels for I cannot believe that the methods adopted make their working day easier than it might be if the bulk of their support workload came through the ticketing system.  I have worked front line support desks and know well the benefits of having everything managed through a single point of contact … full back ground details and customer information in one place makes life so much simpler.

[#14]

We're listening but I'm afraid this doesn't mean we'll always agree or we'll guarantee a change, but I can confirm this feedback had been passed on. 

[#15]

@Gandalf

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.

I have tried to PM you on this subject but it now seems even the PMs are blocked !  I have been trying repeatedly again since your reply to download my webmail messages but to absolutely no avail.  The servers are always too buy and still just time out.  I will have to get up at 3.00 a.m. while it is still dark and try to do it, but do not hold out much hope of success.  However, I am now away until Wednesday next and cannot do so before then.  Please will you arrange to ensure that my webmail is NOT archived before then.

I understand your suggestion of using a third party mail service - not a good solution at all for obvious reasons, security being just one of them.  However, this was caused, as I explained, by a short term project, and the correspondence is reducing to more manageable proportions now, and therefore in the future it should not be an issue again hopefully.

But in the meantime, I do need to download the mail currently in the three monthly folders as an offline archive of my own.  As the user servers are always engaged and cannot be accessed, is it possible for Plusnet to email me the archive in a readable format ?