Forum Support

[#1]

As one of those who try to help customers on here (despite no longer be a PN customer myself), and seeing the declining level of staff involvement - with a couple of honourable exceptions, I have decided it is time to comment in the hope that something might be done, although I accept I'm probably talking to a brick wall.

It appears that only two of the support team visit here on even a semi-regular basis and, with  respect, do not always pick up on 'difficult' issues which require investigation, seeming to prefer easy ones where the issue can be knocked back to the OP. I appreciate that Plusnet are the 'budget' operation of BT Retail (or whatever they call themselves today), but the customers are still paying for service and it seems to be lacking. It was stated a couple of weeks back that 'we've been busy' - doing what?, but nothing has changed. Do management not get reports of possible bottlenecks, and try and investigate why they happen and what could possibly be done to relieve them?

I could make guesses as to what is happening here, but won't bother, as they would be ignored or glossed over. I'm aware that if I do get a response to this, it will be generic and bland as it will come from a staffer who will have been told what to say, but to be honest I have my doubts.

/rant over

[#2]

Well, we aren't cherry picking the easy issues. Forum posts as they have done for the last year are pushed to the people listed Here through the social response queuing system that we use for Facebook and Twitter. 

We are genuinely still incredibly busy, so it's taking us massively longer than we'd like to pick stuff up both via social or here.

Changes are happening behind the scenes though to expand the team etc, so hopefully we'll be in a better place soon.

(P.S. I wrote this response myself )

[#3]

Cheers, Anoush. I can appreciate that you are busy, given the recent introduction of FTTP, and I'll accept that you aren't 'cherry-picking', but there are topics I personally have  replied to and advised the OP they need your (the Help Teams) response which have appeared to have been forgotten/ignored, slightly to my embarrassment.

I am aware that your boss seems to prefer Facebook/Twitter as the 'go to' communication channels, but there are many (including me 😉 ) who do not use these, and the forums seem to be the poor relation - my personal feelings, so I could be wrong.

Joking apart, I hope these changes are a little more tangible than the ones promised last time this issue arose, but I'm not holding my breath.

Sorry to sound cruel, but I genuinely enjoy trying to help around here and when I perceive that the system is weak, or failing to work, I will say so.

[#4]

@jab1 

I do agree with what you are saying, but I often wonder if the fault first line screening is left to the army of volunteers to take the strain from a stretched system. If you and a few others weren't here and assisting then the system would be even more stretched. I wonder how many look at the title and think, I'll let John take that one! (I do 🙂 🙄)

We the volunteers can help out best is with advice on connecting up, configuring third party routers and technical advice plusnet first line can not provide.

Dan.

[#5]

No worries and cheers for the feedback. Keeps us on our toes.

Forum posts come through at a same level of priority as Facebook and Twitter. We're just busier on social so there's a lot more of queries from those platforms in our queue. 

If we haven't responded to a post then it's probably likely that it's either not something we can/would respond to or we haven't got around to it yet or the issue's already resolved. 

Thanks for sticking around and helping out too! 

[#6]

Think you could be partly right there, @Dan_the_Van , and I honestly don't mind answering where I can - it is kind of gratifying to solve a problem - but there are times when I have to admit there is nothing more I can do, and have to hand-over to PN Support. When that handover takes place, but it takes days (weeks) for any further response, then I take it kind of personally, although I know I shouldn't.

[#7]

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@Gandalf wrote:

If we haven't responded to a post then it's probably likely that it's either not something we can/would respond to or we haven't got around to it yet or the issue's already resolved. 

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@Gandalf One that is in my head (and on my watch list) that needs Help team support: https://community.plus.net/t5/Broadband/80-loss-in-download-speed/td-p/1879072 . There may be others, but I kind of promised the OP you guys would help, and in fact Adam945 did pop in early on but it seems to have dropped off the radar.

[#8]

I've had a look and that post is still in our queue, but should be picked up today.

[#9]

@Gandalf 

Just a question: if users in the Forum respond to a post does that delay any response from you and the rest of the team to the thread?

[#10]

No worries and no it doesn't.

[#11]

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@Gandalf wrote:

I've had a look and that post is still in our queue, but should be picked up today.

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The time of this response was around 48 hours after the last post on the referenced topic.  What would be a reasonable expectation for a staff response to a post?

In the good olde days of the previous forum (without best of breed technology!) and the ace team of the three Chris Ps the published expectation was 8 hours.  Then things got tough and it went to 24 hours as a public declaration.

What is now the target response time please?  Does the "its gone stale ... move on" threshold introduced whilst @JonoH took a sabbatical still exist?

[#12]

Looking here - https://community.plus.net/t5/Plusnet-Feedback/No-Internet-Engineer-did-not-turn-up-for-new-connecti... - FIVE DAYS to respond to an installation failure - is that deemed acceptable?

[#13]

@Townman It isn't, but no doubt we will hear the excuses.

[#14]

I honestly don't know what the cause of this is, I assume it's due to some recent changes in how we operate. As we made some fundamental changes to things like working hours and a drive to ensure agents take personal ownership of customers issues.

I'm aware we've had some attrition in the team but we've held back recruitment, till we've announced these changes to ensure we get people who are right for the role, and to ensure those that apply know what they're getting.

I'll find out the full reason, but I'm pretty sure that is a huge contributing factor.

[#15]

Very strange - I have picked up an issue on the email board, and until I exposed the failures of the system, nothing happens - now there is a staff response, but (and I may be wrong, so apologies in advance) I have a feeling this is a case of too little, too late.