Disappointed with your approach to customers having persistent technical issues

[#1]

Dear Plusnet
In early feb I reported a problem with my service that is still ongoing. My line used to have a downstream SNR of 10db and would stay connected for weeks. I now have an SNR of 1db and have to reboot my router every time I want to use the internet. Ping times to google.com are somewhere between a speedy 500 ms and a stellar 3500ms
Your tech department have been spectacularly ineffective at getting any sort of resolution and we go round the same 2 operations ("We'll set the SNR of your line to 6db" and "We'll reset your line to see if that helps") like they've never been trained to do anything else; if this is all theyre going to do, you could write some computer software to do these 2 operations and make a huge saving on your wage bill
I asked for a refund for the entire time my service has been awful, because I don't feel it's worth what you charge for it in its current state. I was told 'after we resolve the problem, we'll consider giving you a discount'
As far as customer service goes, that's sheer disgusting; you've admitted there's a problem, you've demonstrated over the past 2 months that you cannot fix it, and you feel it's justified to tell me you'll think about returning some of the money you've charged if you ever get it fixed.. Please tell me where your motivation is to fix the problem? You're charging me full whack and serving me a pail of dung, shirking what any decent human would see as a reasonable obligation; to deliver what a customer pays for.
Suppose you bought a box of light bulbs from Tesco and immediately after buying them, opened them to find them all burnt out or not fitted with filaments at all.. Would you expect a refund? And how would you feel if the customer service rep said "Oh! You wanted lightbulbs that actually worked? mmm.. tell you what.. Buy another 4 boxes of broken bulbs, then go away and come back in 4 months time when we're due to get our next batch of working bulbs; we'll consider whether to give you your money back or not depending on what mood the store manager is in"
How about a "yes, we can see that your service has been incredibly poor for the past 2 months; here's a 90% discount by way of credit applied to your account for those months, and we'll continue to charge you 10% of normal til we fix it" - surely this would motivate you to fix the problem, and motivate me to rave about plusnet rather than badmouth them to everyone who asks me who supplies my broadband
That's my feedback; your treatment of customers whose lines have a problem is a massive insult to the loyalty and patience they've shown you over the years that their subscription has paid your mortgages
Shocking
ps; many thanks for your time in reading my feedback
[Moderator's note by Jim (Oldjim)  Derogatory description of Plusnet staff removed as per this Forum Rule ]
Quite right, Jim, and I do apologise for making such a reference. Tim

[#2]

I'm sorry to hear about the problems you've experienced in dealing with us here, on first impression it seems that the main thing lacking in our approach so far is someone taking ownership and looking at the bigger picture. This is obviously needed to make sure that we don't continue repeating the same actions which obviously aren't helping.
I'm going to take ownership from here, I'll take the time to respond to this post first before going over the full history of the issue for you to see where I think we'd be best taking things next.

Quote

As far as customer service goes, that's sheer disgusting; you've admitted there's a problem, you've demonstrated over the past 2 months that you cannot fix it, and you feel it's justified to tell me you'll think about returning some of the money you've charged if you ever get it fixed.

This is what we do for every customer that requests credit for their downtime.  I can make sure you are credited from the start of the fault up to now but the logic is if we do that and the fault continues we'd then need to do the same again when it's resolved.
In summary we can see exactly why you're not happy, as mentioned as my next course of action I'll perform some analysis against your account to see firstly what we need to do next to help you and secondly exactly where we went wrong and where we could have done better.
EDIT: thanks for your time on the phone just now, we're just booking the engineer I mentioned so I'll get back to you and confirm that ASAP.

[#3]

Just to balance this up a bit. I have been with PN is June 2011 and I have had a recurring problem with my profile and speed dropping off a cliff from time to time. What has to be realised is that PN can only do so much at a time and there are tried and tested methods of problem solving to allow them to get to the bottom of the problem. I have never spoken to these people in a manner in which I would not accept for myself, let alone come on here and defame their abilities. I have found them to be courteous, efficient and polite. Each time I contact them they explain to me what way they will approach this for me, but then it is a matter of people speak to them. People who come onto the forum and express their dissatisfaction are of course entitled to do, but to come here and insult them on a personal level is not what is acceptable nor will it enhance your reputation both here and in PN's customer service. I have no doubt they will pull out all the stops to resolve your problem. So give them a break, they deserve it. 

[#4]

well said Harps1h, i have similar problems and they do their best to sort it ,great set of people here 
mine is caused by REIN which is  beyond their control but they have done everything possible to help

[#5]

@rongtw: you issue is beyond human control, but mine can't have been because the service was good for years, then fell apart for nearly 2 months. Something went wrong. You only caught the tail end of my exasperation here, when patience truly had run out

Quote from: harps1h

Just to balance this up a bit. I have been with PN is June 2011 and I have had a recurring problem with my profile and speed dropping off a cliff from time to time.

I was a happy customer for 2 years, then something went wrong and the 10dB SNR on my line dropped to 0 overnight, service was a shambles and 2 months after I first reported the problem I was still going round the "we'll up your SNR, oh that's nuked your profile, we'll up your profile, oh that's nuked your SNR" merry go round with 3 engineer visits and BT insisting the line was flawless. Things got better after I started the process of leaving
I'll agree that the team were polite, speedy and couteous - they just didn't fix the problem but saw fit to acknowledge it yet deny a refund
And, as one might have expected, they're continuing to refuse a refund now that I've resolved the problem with the broadband myself, by leaving plusnet. After saying here that they'd look to issue a credit once the issue is reolved, they've since washed their hands of the issue and stated they won't issue a refund because they don't issue refunds for slow speeds (conveniently overlooking the fact that my complaint was about service reliability, not speed) and there is usage on my account (from the last 10 days, it started working better as soon as I requested my MAC) so clearly the internet was working for the entire 2 months; something of a backtrack on the earlier admission that it wasn't. Maybe the final engineer visit helped, maybe it didn't - I'd already decided to leave by that point, though I did look to see if Plusnet could offer BTOpenZone minutes (alas, no.. I'd have stayed if they did)

This bit's for Adam:
I've asked PN for a breakdown of all charges I've been subject to, plus would be subject to in order to leave the service, and how these balanced out against the credit I'd be receiving for poor service, plus credit for unused prepaid service up to the next billing date so that I could see who owed who money
[mremoved] wrote a response which left me wondering if he actually had any appreciation of the ongoing problem at all. In summary, he said "I can see you've been complaining about the speed; we don't issue refunds for slow speeds and your internet connection has no problems, so you don't get a refund. If you want to complain about this some more, here's a link"
I don't want to complain about it more; I want to call it quits. I figure we're about even: you charged me for 2 months (£32) and didn't really deliver, and you've intimated that you're going to charge a £25 cessation charge. Please use the £32 mentioned, plus the £3 or so prepaid amount you would have refunded me from my last payment, to pay the cessation charge yourselves and go out for some beers with the £10 change - I've cancelled my DD and I want no further dealings with plusnet
Please accept my compliments for your team's dedication and professional, courteous manner and reflect on the fact that this final refusal to see reason over a few quid has left a feeling of disappointment with someone who is often asked who he would recommend for broadband
jim:csa