Feedback on Faults Messaging

[#1]

Hi

I recently had a speed fault causing a drop in upstream synch from 17 Mbps down to 3/4 Mbps. 

Initially I followed the faults process at https://faults.plus.net

I found that easy and straightforward.

Ticket 213633729 was raised.

Openreach attended and confirmed the fault and noticed I was not the only house affected.

In the end it turned out to be fault within the fibre cab and a replacement card was required.

The Plusnet staff have been good phoning me and adding sensible notes to the ticket.

However,  the automated ticket responses & emails from "system user" have been unhelpful and simply incorrect.

Twice I have been accused of not performing required actions. This is totally incorrect.

1)After one week:

"Your speed fault
Hello Richard,

7 days ago we asked you to complete some actions as part of the investigation into your speed fault.

We've not heard back from you, and need to let you know that if we don't hear from you by 7 days we'll assume that this is no longer an issue and will automatically close your fault.

Don't forget that you can run a speed test at https://speedtest.btwholesale.com/ (more info) and we have some advice on the things which can affect broadband speeds on our help pages.

If you've contacted us today about your fault then please disregard this email."

Despite the fault being in the hands of Openreach at this point I felt compelled to reply to prevent the fault from being closed.

2) After 2+ weeks:

"Your speed fault

Hello Richard,

During the investigation of your reported fault we asked you to complete some steps to help us diagnose the problem. You have reported that you are unable to do so.

As such, we're unable to continue the investigation so have had to close the query.

This also means you will not have the right to leave your contract without paying any cancellation fees at the end of the 30 day period from the date you raised the fault, or the date we have set out in previous emails.

If you are still concerned about your speeds, please use our online speed tester at: https://speedtest.btwholesale.com/ (more info) and we have some advice on the things which can affect broadband speeds on our help pages."

Fortunately Openreach had fixed the fault at this point and the ticket is only awaiting the final report from Openreach.

The automated message is incorrect, unhelpful and were my fault not fixed by Openreach I would be alarmed.

In summary, the Plusnet automated messages during the fault process have been unhelpful and could be vastly improved.

Regards

Richard

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the feedback @RichardB 

From what I can see this is due to agent error in not 'restarting the speed fault clock' after we paused it when we asked for your availability for an engineer to visit. We'd pause the counter when we're waiting on you to do something but when we can move things along again we'd then resume the clock.

Unfortunately as this wasn't done we automatically emailed you those service notices. If we had followed documented process you wouldn't have received them and instead at the end of the fault investigation when the problem was fixed, the wording of the email would've been very different along the lines of "we believe the fault's resolved now"

[#3]

Hi @Gandalf 

Thank you for replying.

It is good to know the automated messages are due to human error and hopefully are not the norm.

Regards

Richard