@CHRIS.... Employ MORE people to answer the phones

[#1]

"Give us some time....... and we`ll get there".......  remember those famous words...
Well, I have given you time, and you still haven`t lived up to the promise made way back then.....  ..I have just spent the last 40 minutes with an amplified phone stuck to my best ear, which is not any better now, thank you,... after hearing the tinny sound of some unrecognisable music, and some bloke telling me to have my user name and password ready , ...every 30 seconds or whatever..... .
When I phoned up, the auto response said the wait was 15 minutes.... that was at 20:55..... I checked the graph and the number of calls waiting was 21 with a wait time average 17 minutes.....
at 21:20 it was refreshed and the number of calls waiting had reduced to 17.37  where on earth do you have .37 of a call waiting  ?  but the response time had lengthened to 28 minutes..... ok.. so I hang on a bit longer,... my arm is aching from holding the phone...and my ears are in pain from the noise emnating from the ear piece.... until
at 21:35 it is updated again.. the number of calls waiting was down again.... to 13.08    aha I thought... could be soon.... but then i looked a the response time... and it had lengthened again to 35minutes .50sec. 
since starting this gripe, I have been back to check the stats again....
21:50  updated  the number of calls waiting was down again.... to 5.93  but look at the waiting time.... 40 minutes and 32 seconds...
it also states in the writing underneath, that

Quote

We actively monitor our peak times to ensure we always have enough people on the phones to answer your queries, without keeping you waiting too long in a queue.

please tell the person who is "actively monitoring" ..... that they are not doing their job properly.....



It really isn`t good enough...... is it ?





I am going to have to wait up until about 01:00 to be able to get a quick answer... if anyone is still awake at that time.... 

[#2]

Unfortunately i believe PN will get WORSE !! before it gets better 

[#3]

You are so RIGHT....
checked the times at 22:56 and it show 3.84 calls waiting, with 0 seconds delay..... so I thought..... ah good... I`ll give them a call.....

Quote

"Due to the high volume of calls, we have a waiting time of 1 hour.........................................."

Guess I shall be up late tonight......

EDIT EDIT EDIT...... due to the high volume of calls?  ? ?    3 .01 calls waiting at 23:05   waiting time to answer  1 hour 3 minutes 8 seconds......  
HIGH VOLUME ? ? ?  WHAT  ????     oh yeah.... and don`t forget .... someone is monitoring at "peak periods" to ensure we aren`t kept waiting too long......  

[#4]

Quote

we`re sorry for making you wait, but all our advisors are currently busy, please have your username and password ready, and we`ll answer as soon as possible...

So... here you have the classic LIE... "all our advisors ar currently busy".... doing what ?  with 0.67 of a phone call waiting.... and expected time to wait 50 minutes  & 19 seconds. they must be busy playing darts...  or chess, or playing games on line....
What else would they "all" be doing at 23;50 ?  certainly not answering MY phone call,...which incidentally, was not added to the 0.67 other calls waiting when the stats updated... 

So, I hang on again.... hearing this tinny racket. and the dude repeating himself....  then suddenly.... all hell is let loose on the phone.... I can hear a ringing tone.... and ... could it be... a voice saying "how can I help".... 
I was stunned....  It took a further 10 minutes to complete the call...  I did ask the guy how many people were answering the phones....  " I don`t know"... he said....... well.... there`s a surprise... 

[#5]

Ah, so it was your fault that the longest wait time went to ......Average answer time today 53 minutes and 11 seconds... just before midnight 

[#6]

now plusnet is no longer 24/7 or very soon to be, what happens to those in the call queue when the shift ends?

[#7]

Employing more people may not be the solution, if cost cutting included removing the phones.

[#8]

When they start losing customers because of rubbish support maybe then they will realize they made a bo bo 

[#9]

As I've said on another thread. Modern marketing is based on mirroring your competition, don't stand out and try to do something different just follow the industry norms. So the model PN are now following is TalkTalk. 
So they have staffed up middle management with industry clones following the industry norms. PN has lost its soul and the call waiting times are just a symptom 

[#10]

I's lost more than it's soul Peter, when you read about some of the issues that now repeatedly crop up not just on this forum but elsewhere, it's apparent Plusnet has lost a lot of its technical competence. and it is only the opinion of the bean counters that's important.

[#11]

I wonder how the number of referrals has been over the past year..... compared with (say) 5 years ago...  pro-rata the number of customer base......
Can`t imagine many people recommending now.... I would have done a couple of weeks ago.... but now,....
after the past couple of days.......NO WAY......


My personal reputation is worth more than a bad recommend....

[#12]

Whilst I agree totally with your last comment, I think that the number of referrals now is very small beer in comparison to the total customer base and Plusnet will not be the slightest bit concerned as long as their advertising, ridiculous offers and related factors continue to bring in new customers from the likes of TalkTalk. However Plusnet's reputation for good customer support has gone down the drain and is unlikely to recover in the near future and will never recover to the levels it once was. They won't get the awards in future years as they have in the past. It will only be then that shareholders at BT may start to question the path that Plusnet has gone down.
Plusnet could have expanded it's customer base in a slightly different way without this significant drop in Service Standards, yet they have chosen to completely ignore most of the sensible advise they have been given in the last couple of years from highly experinced Qualified Engineers and IT people. But as long as they have sufficient customers tied to contracts, the bean counters won't be the slightest bit concerned.
Employing more CSC staff is only dealing with a symptom of the problem, they need to deal with the disease itself - the cause of the majority of reasons people need CSC support, issues well covered in this forum.

[#13]

I agree that Plusnet is on a bit of a slide when it comes to support wait times and prices, but out of the biggies it’s still the best, and still by some ways. I spend a lot of time on the phone trying to get my customers broadband problems sorted, and yes the wait time for Plusnet phone support is by far the longest out of BT and Tallktallk  (most of my customers that I deal with are with one of these two) but when you finally get it, I find that the quality of Plusnets support (is still for now) far superior.  Regarding the pricing – no one is ever happy about price rises, but savvy customers can still  haggle and get good deals out of Plusnet.  In short – Plusnet still have a way to fall before they lose my recommendation, but they are not as good as they once were, and I hope that the powers that be stop the slide and even reverse direction upwards a little.     

[#14]

@Dx7..... this thread is not about the quality of customer service, vis a vis other providers... it is about Chris, promising that things would get better , if he was given a bit more time.... that was way back in 2009, when I started this thread...
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,80676.0.html
several times in that thread, which had been revived again in 2012.... i.e. 3 years later... and Chris`s final post was

Quote

Chris     Plusnet Staff     *     Posts: 11984     Quote « Reply #128 on 08/02/2012, 21:41 » Gerry, A one of snapshot of stats doesn't suddenly mean we're understaffed! The proof is in the reduction of complaints on here about the call wait times (I'm not saying we don't still get complaints but EVERY call centre has spikes of calls that means long waits happen sometimes.

so things have not improved as he said they would.... and my posting is a reminder to him, that he did say that it would get better... given time...
3 years after the last post... and the situation is worse than it has ever been......
I have provided several snapshots, taken when the "perceived" customer base would be in bed, and therefore less number of calls to be waiting....but the waiting time INCREASED as the NUMBER OF CALLS WAITING DECREASED... between 2230 and 2359 last night.... even with only 2/3rds of a phone call registered, the waiting time increased  during one period of update...close to midnight, when it would be expected to show a NIL waiting time, or at worst 5 minutes. with onlyu 2/3rds of a phone call being in process....
Check out the "snapshots"  for proof of my information. 

[#15]

Fully agree with all the points made in the above posts, years ago Plusnet actually phoned me about issues I had raised in tickets, guess those days are long gone.
What is happening now is short term thinking, get the numbers of customers as high as possible by almost any means and when it nears the point when everything is going to the wall get out and take another job as you have built up a reputation of increasing profits in your last post, this works for those at the top but it's the poor b****** at the coal face who will be first to go or stay on under even worse terms.
How many times have we seen this in other firms such as the Banks etc.