False advertising. 'Plusnet' is not an appropriate name.

[#1]

Sure, the staff are helpful enough when you finally get through, but there can be no argument that the difficulties and time taken to get through are disgraceful beyond any excuse, utterly absurd, ludicrous, ridiculous, pathetic and an insult to every paying customer that's ever had to put up with this abominable shower of charlatans.

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Title changed as the modification of the Plusnet brand is not allowed as per the Forum rules.

[#2]

[#3]

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Picture changed as the modification of the Plusnet brand is not allowed as per the Forum rules.

[#4]

Oh! Come off it chum! Just because you have a beef, should that be a real reason the name is inappropriate? There are many like me, who have been with PN for several years, who are quite satisfied..

[#5]

@jamessc I agree with @Luzern, but in a way I do have a little sympathy with your comment re: call waiting times.

Unfortunately, I have cause to contact quite a large number of other organisations, both private and stae-controlled, and experience the same long waits at times. The cynic in me says that the reason for the slow response is to disuade you from calling, but the more considerate part of me recognises that no-one is going to employ, on a full-time basis, enough call-centre staff to ensure second-ring answering.

How long does your employer take to answer a call?

[#6]

I have asked the question before and will ask it again.

Why do all large companies not have a system whereby they say you are number (x) in the queue with a average waiting time of (y) ?

 If the response was you are number 20 with a waiting time of 30 minutes you may not be happy with that but at least it gives you 2 options, either phone back later or put your phone down and go and do something else for 20 minutes or so.

To keep hearing poor music, your call is important to us, etc simply winds people up. Customers need specific information about when they are likely to get through.

These comments are not just aimed at PN but all companies that keep you on the line without any indication of when you might get through.

My time is just as valuable as the companies time.

[#7]

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@gleneagles wrote:

My time is just as valuable as the companies time.

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As I'm the one indirectly paying their bills I consider my time more valuable.

Listening to inappropriate music and information on the phone is little different to having your call ignored.

And for a customer to be ignored is just plain rude and disrespectful.

[#8]

I agree entirely, @gleneagles, but from my experience, that can sometimes, but not very often, be hard to implement. Just to give one example from my personal experience, at the last two places I worked, we had individual numbers for 99% of the extensions which we obviously gave to regular callers, and a switchboard for those callers who didn't know the direct number.

You could enable your suggestion on the switch, but it would be difficult on the extensions.

[#9]

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@jab1 wrote:
...  no-one is going to employ, on a full-time basis, enough call-centre staff to ensure second-ring answering.

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That may be so if the employer is short sighted enough to employ staff with only one job description.

Most supermarkets maintain speedy checkout service without over staffing.  By monitoring the till queue lengths, when there are till staff with nothing to do, they get redeployed to another task (such as shelf stacking, or providing a counter service, etc).  As soon a the till queues grow again, then the priority is for the staff to move back to the tills and serve the customers.  Thereby the customers get served quickly, and the staff are always gainfully doing something.

If Plusnet reintroduced the old online support ticketing system, then Plusnet could employ enough support staff to answer the phones within an acceptably short time, and when any staff were idle then they could be responding to the online tickets.  The ticket system would also have the effect of reducing the numbers of incoming calls, and customers would be happier because they can calmly submit their question knowing that it is recorded on the system and will be answered shortly, rather than the current anxious and time wasting wait on the phones to talk to an under-trained numpty who doesn't care or won't help.  At least with online tickets there is a written record of the entire conversation, so complaints about useless staff can be escalated with reference to the ticket, at the moment it looks like nobody at Plusnet cares about getting things right or listening to customer's concerns.

[#10]

@Anonymous I agree with what you say above, but unfortunately the senior management seem to me to be the fly in the ointment.

All your post is eminently correct but I suspect PN's bosses (BT) have decided that what was once a good company with excellent standards has to be brought down to the lowest common denominator.

[#11]

I would imagine PlusNet have call centre logs and management can look at them and assess when is a busy period and when isn't. During the day of course than at night probably not, except people who have to do night shifts. At my student job I had to be up at 4:30am to get there at 5:30am (yes - that wasn't pleasant!).

This time of year will be difficult.

I'd imagine they'd have staff local to the office, so don't mind working Christmas Eve, and others who say their family is abroad who need to take a more extended break.

More people in the UK with a PlusNet connection may need to work from home.

I've don't use call centres very often (not that I'm complaining), but I haven't used one recently with an estimated time. Though i'd imagine it would be difficult to tell. Say overall there were 100 people waiting, how would PlusNet's system assess an accurate time for person 101, when a person under 100 may have a simple problem which takes a few minutes (say a quick update on their system) or something more complex.

You can only judge it based on quantity of calls waiting, not how long each one takes.

[#12]

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@Alex wrote:

This time of year will be difficult

Yes, because Plusnet wasted the rest of the year NOT updating their systems, or eliminating procedural problems that cause the same issues to be repeated again and again, they have done no development on keeping up to date with current technology (such as IPv6), have ignored for years customer complaints about products and services, and have self inflicted problems such as removing traffic prioritization, so the cycle of increasing customer complaints continues.

[#13]

"False advertising. 'Plusnet' is not an appropriate name."

Now I'm no legal expert, but I'm almost 63% sure that's not how false advertising works.

Suck's that you have beef with PN though, sometimes it's worth the wait and sometimes its not. Luck of the draw on who you get through to I guess. 

Perhaps just open three web chats at once, one of them is sure to be competent. (Not a guarantee)

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[#14]

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@jab1 wrote:

@jamessc I agree with @Luzern, but in a way I do have a little sympathy with your comment re: call waiting times.

Unfortunately, I have cause to contact quite a large number of other organisations, both private and stae-controlled, and experience the same long waits at times. The cynic in me says that the reason for the slow response is to disuade you from calling, but the more considerate part of me recognises that no-one is going to employ, on a full-time basis, enough call-centre staff to ensure second-ring answering.

How long does your employer take to answer a call?

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If when you choose your ISP (or other provider) you main criteria is cost it is inevitable that there will be consequences.

I've had to ring my new ISP a handful of times, on one occasion I had an apology for the tardiness in answering the phone because he wasn't actually sat at his desk and it took at least 10 seconds longer than it should have done.

[#15]

I agree with you, too, @jelv, but the organasations I am talking about are usually health/social services on behalf of my mum - I have no alternatives there.