Chat Service Availability - UPDATE ? ? ?

[#1]

In the "sticky" at the top of this page, there is the following...

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Access via “Help and Support” will always report UNAVAILABLE, whereas access via “Contact us” will report the correct status - available / busy / closed - but never unavailable to residential users.

Plusnet have a resolution to this planned for release later in the year. In the meantime, please attempt to access chat via “Contact Us” before reporting that the service is unavailable.

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Has this "resolution" actually happened......yet ? ? ? ? ?  cos it`t now "later in the year"  .

. and if it gets left over much longer.... it will be  " ...... in the new year.... "  

lets hope it is not going to be given the 

Give us time, and we`ll get there... Nonsense

[#2]

If I were a betting man .............................>?

[#3]

I'm a betting man, and I'd wager that it won't make a release this year.

[#4]

Or even this decade

[#5]

So.... @JonoH  are you saying they are LYING ?

More "smoke and mirrors"    hoping people will forget what has been said a few months ago...  Ah well, that`s

"Good Honest Broadband" in action from PlusNet..... again... perhaps they should change that to the more truthful...

"Give us time,.... and we`ll get there"  broadband... 

[#6]

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@shutter wrote:

So.... @JonoH  are you saying they are LYING ?

No, I'm saying that every organisation has to reprioritise where to spend its resource and there are a number of issues more pressing than the link to chat works in one place but not another.

[#7]

So.... Do you think we could actually get an "HONEST" response, with a FIRM COMMITMENT to improving this statement that was given at the beginning of the year, but now looks like a typical "fobbing" off situation, hoping that nobody noticed .

Or is that asking too much.

In two months time, they will be able to bring out the same statement.... and it will mean exactly the same...

[#8]

I just gave an honest response, but for clarity, our intention was to fix it this year but we've had to reprioritise due to other commitments, regulatory changes and higher ranking incidents that impacted more customers to a greater scale. 

One of the reasons we decline to usually give any kind of timescale whatsoever is because of how it's received when we have to push it back, I've tried to champion internally that providing timescales and pushing them back if needs be is a better customer experience but it's much easier and safer to not do this, posts like this don't help me champion a culture where more information is provided to the customer, it, in fact, hinders it.

[#9]

@JonoH  So.... my post about the lack of an update, has been received in a "negative" aspect , by those who see it as a positive thing to keep the customer in the dark, rather than update them with the truth.

Your response... aka "the true" fact that the aforementioned "resolution" is not going to take place this month, or next month,.... i.e. "later in the year"... proves my point. However, it also shows, that without my post , another point would also have been proved, and that is that no update would be issued, and no further action was intended to resove the situation "later this year".

.So what was the point in making the original statement, and the post a Sticky... or  why was it not quietly removed... to save the embarassment of someone actually asking a question about it....?

Sorry if that offends you @JonoH But maybe the position you have taken regarding keeping the customer informed, needs to be bolstered by "Public Opinion"...

If nobody "shouts" then nobody hears.... I shouted,... and now I should shut up....  ? 

[#10]

It's a simple fact that Plusnet is not the company it was, when Plusnet was Plusnet there was a chain of command who cared about it's customers, the senior management cared what the customers thought about the company, sometimes they got is wrong & sometimes pretty spectacularly, but once advised they would try to put it right. Don't get me wrong there was an altruistic reason for this, the senior management had shares in the company & many did very well when it got sold off.

But now Plusnet is BT the senior management have been removed & replaced with the standard contempt that BT has for all it's residential  customers, I am not talking about the frontline staff, many of them are still great & will try to resolve the issue but are now compartmentalised & now cannot reach across the desk to resolve a problem. I am talking about the senior managers & the team that steers how Plusnet is run, it was a sad day when Plusnet was sold & was the beginning of the end.

[#11]

@Phaeton has, it seems, got PlusNet "sewn up".... correctly.... they are not what they used to be, whilst still claiming to be "independent" of BT, the parent company, who owns PlusNet, and hidethis fact, behind "company speak" when responding to customers, who have line faults, referring to "the boss company" as "our suppliers"...

@JonoH must have been trained by them, in the art of "company speak" , judging from his explanation as to why the original "resolution" has taken so long to be forgotten....

Quote...

  but we've had to reprioritise due to other commitments, regulatory changes and higher ranking incidents that impacted more customers to a greater scale. 

Unquote.

Really,? ? ? ?   what does that actually mean to the customer ?   is that plain speaking and "honest broadband" ... not to me.... just a load of waffle, similar to M.P.`s when asked embarassing questions,.. they will say anything, but what the truth of the matter is......

I would rather an "official update" on the original thread posted way back,   rather than this debacle. stating that the "resolution" was not going to happen, this year, ... and probably would not happen next year either..

I am not a programmer,... but from this end,  ( and I have my own website so I do know about "dead links" )... all it needs is someone to sort out the reason for the "dead link"  and re-write it so it works....  surely that is not needing a full board meeting and resolutions passed, to time manage it, sometime in the future, only to be fogotten.....

If it is not a PlusNet matter,...i.e. it is something tha Lithium should be doing... again... does it need a board meeting, to pass on to them, that this is not working properly,... do something about it, cos we are paying for the services of Lithium and not getting it ....

[#12]

Hi Shutter, we're just as disappointed that we've missed our Live Chat deadline, but as I'm sure you understand a company of our size does have other things to look at. That's why this has taken a back seat for now, but it's absolutely still something we're looking to fix. We always aim to be honest, but sometimes we can't share everything until we're sure it will be true. We'd rather share less information and know it's factual, than share too much and risk some of it not being right.

[#13]

It wouldn't be so bad if you had a viable alternative, but a minimum of 45 minute average to answer the calls is not acceptable.

[#14]

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@Phaeton wrote:

It wouldn't be so bad if you had a viable alternative,

Are you aware that Live Chat still works and that it's just a link from one section of our page that is broken? you can still access it here from our contact us section.

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[#15]

No every time I have tried to use it in the past I'm always told it's not available.