Engineer No Show for home move. Great!! Now sat on phone for 50mins+

[#1]

So I rang PlusNet twice this morning to check everything was ok regarding the home move we had booked a few weeks back for today(18.09.15) between 1300-1800. All good, nothing to worry about. Well, Girlfriends been sat at home all afternoon and a no show. Now we can't speak to anyone as the call wait is 50mins+ and we are stuck without service. We moved home on sept 7th and had to wait til the 18th for the home move so are without service even longer now. This is very poor service and I guess you guys are going to bill us for it all!!

[#2]

Hi AliceAndSin,
A warm welcome to the forums.
Sadly BT Openreach (PlusNet's suppliers) are notorious for not turning up for confirmed appointments.  Yes sometimes, PlusNet's appointment requests do not get correctly registered on BTRO's systems, but in this case, your comment suggests that it was a confirmed appointment.
PlusNet do not start your account / billing cycle until the installation is confirmed by BTOR.
PlusNet should pick this up directly and arrange a new appointment.  You should ask about BTOR compensation for their no-show appointment.

[#3]

Really sorry to hear what's happened.
I'm just looking into this.

[#4]

Quote from: Townman

PlusNet should pick this up directly and arrange a new appointment.  You should ask about BTOR compensation for their no-show appointment.

Are you sure Plusnet placed the order correctly?

[#5]

Andy,
Agreed - neither of us can know for sure, however the OP did state that they had confirmed the appointment with PlusNET.

Quote from: AliceAndSin

So I rang PlusNet twice this morning to check everything was ok regarding the home move we had booked a few weeks back for today(18.09.15) between 1300-1800. All good, nothing to worry about.

That would seem to suggest that the appointment had been booked properly.
Kevin

[#6]

There are an increasing number of people on here posting the same thing, when it turns out that Plusnet's ordering systems failed to place the order correctly and then notify the end user about the failed order.

[#7]

@AliceAndSin
Unfortunately our suppliers systems are down for maintenance at the moment.
Once they're back up we'll get the order placed as soon as we can.

[#8]

that's sounds suspiciously like the order was never placed at all

[#9]

From what I can see, it actually looks like it was off the back of an agent error.
There wasn't really any Plusnet order system > Openreach interaction on this one as it was off the back of a house move.
@OP - Really sorry for the inconvenience caused here. One of mine and Matt's colleagues will get the ball back rolling for you.
Matty

[#10]

in this instance plusnet should place an expedited order at their own loss, rather than a normal booking.  Will they do that?

[#11]

Matty,
Can this case be pushed for management / process review please?  How could an agent have assured the OP that the appointment was in place if there had been no interaction with BTOR's systems?
How can an appointment slot be identified and booked without interaction?
How can PlusNet's order system show an appointment as confirmed without interaction?
You've suggested that this was 'agent error', but how could they get it looking so right, yet there be nothing behind it?  That rather implies no inter-system automation, but rather a human being looking in one system and manually transcribing information into another with no 'system join' or interconnection.
@AndyH -  :-[. Good call!  I hope you'll understand my logic based on the information presented.  I just do not comprehend how an order showing an appointment slot (which can only be obtained from BT systems) and had been confirmed to be in place could not have been actually booked on BT's systems.  That would somewhat imply that no order status can be relied upon by looking at PlusNET's ordering system alone.  All status requests would therefore need to be confirmed via BT's back end systems.
@CRT - what's the SOP on this and did the agent who confirmed the appointment follow them?
Kevin

[#12]

@ Kevin - It's a complicated process with the ordering systems as you have Plusnet > BT Wholesale > Openreach. With three different ordering systems that all need to interact with one another, things can go wrong. Getting an appointment date from Openreach does not automatically mean an order has been placed correctly by Plusnet. Unfortunately, there are an increasing number of people on here reporting order issues, when the order has failed/not been placed correctly by Plusnet and there have been no notifications about the failure.

[#13]

@AndyH  I beg to differ. This should be bread and butter business as it is routine business transactions in their millions across BT portfolios. The management concerned should be undertaking proper Root Cause Analysis to eliminate the faults causing these repetitive  failed transactions. Not only is it causing inconvenience and loss to their customers, it shows the BT companies involved are wasting the shareholder's profits through inefficient systems.
The valiant Matthew Wheeler should not have to apologise so frequently!

[#14]

With all house moves, the order needs to be placed manually. I'm wondering if it's an issue at training level, as the order was simply placed incorrectly. I also agree that there has been more of these in recent memory.

[#15]

Interesting replies. As mentioned, I did ring twice on Friday morning to confirm it was all booked and the engineer was due out and both agents said YES! I've yet to hear anything from plusnet and am now trying to get through. It's been a nightmare since Friday night to get through and actually speak to a person.
Me and my girlfriend are, as you can guess, well peed off. She spent the entire afternoon off work, sat in waiting for them.
Question is, how long until we actually get our service? We both work full time and one of us will need to book work off for another engineer.