Forums as a way of reporting problems

[#1]

Recently there has been a few comments relating to the problems with using forums to report problems rather than allowing customers to raise tickets directly.

A few minutes ago I replied to a message where a customer reported being billed over a period of 3-4 months for a closed account. He had entered his full address and phone number, as obviously Plusnet would need to know those details. My reply failed as the post was deleted just before I hit enter - presumably because a moderator or support person saw they post and quite rightly wanted to protect the customer's details

For lots of issues, public forums are not the right place to report problems, and there should be a better way of reporting problems!

[#2]

Another reason that using a forum for support is a bad idea is that several people may add a "me too" reply to a particular problem, but then the topic is marked "fixed" when just one of those issues is fixed - leaving the other customers with a problem that isn't fixed, but listed in a topic that is marked "fixed".

There are currently a lot of such cases in the "My Account/Billing" forum.

[#3]

Thanks for the feedback, I've passed it on.

While I understand what you've said, we do though have many other ways someone can report a problem to us privately; over the phone, live chat, Facebook/Messenger or Twitter DM's.

It'd be pretty difficult to stop people from posting in the forums as it's a public space, but if they choose to post account information then through the mods, we'd ensure that these details are removed as quickly as possible.

Regarding marking a topic as a fix, in no way does this affect the support we provide over here. Like Facebook and Twitter posts/messages, we pull every post from the "Help with my Plusnet services" board as well as "Plusnet Feedback" and the "Trials" board through the lithium social media response tool system and we reply accordingly where appropriate.

Even before the days where we pulled community posts through the social media response tool, we wouldn't ignore a thread when it's marked as a fix, we'd read the latest posts and reply where needed.

Hope this helps.

[#4]

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@corringham wrote:

A few minutes ago I replied to a message where a customer reported being billed over a period of 3-4 months for a closed account. He had entered his full address and phone number, as obviously Plusnet would need to know those details. My reply failed as the post was deleted just before I hit enter - presumably because a moderator or support person saw they post and quite rightly wanted to protect the customer's details

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I think I know the post you are referring (were the personal details held in an attachment?) which had been edited and subsequently caught by the Spam Filter.

I have now redacted the details and released the post.

[#5]

Originally the post had details in the message too - I didn't look as far as the attachment. I think the message was edited twice, once while I was composing my response which meant the message disappeared so my response failed, and then to edit the attachment. Without prompt action by moderators much more information would be exposed when the posters are just trying to provide information because they want help with a problem.

[#6]

To be fair information about not posting personal details is in the Forum Rules which, I assume, everyone has read

[#7]

Of course everyone has read them    However, if details aren't given the poster will often be asked to provide them by PM, which just delays the problem being looked into. 

[#8]

Now if we had a ticketing system we’d not have such issues passing on the required personal information ...

[#9]

Hey, that's a good idea! I wonder why nobody has thought of that?

[#10]

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@corringham wrote:

However, if details aren't given the poster will often be asked to provide them by PM, which just delays the problem being looked into. 

I’d say that the majority of the time we can find an account just from the private details in their forum profile; the account username they’ve provided upon signup, their forum e-mail address or the last IP address they’ve used to logon here. 

If they signed up to the forums pre-Lithium, then we can search our accounts system just using their forum username as a forum account was somewhat linked to their broadband account back in the day, because you couldn’t sign up here if you weren’t a customer.

@Townman wrote:
Now if we had a ticketing system we’d not have such issues passing on the required personal information ...

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Not sure that would entirely be a solution as we do currently have 4 other ways that someone can report a problem to us privately. 

[#11]

@Gandalf,

Indeed there are might be - 4 other ways too many. We all know the arguments on this one. Plusnet want to communicate using the user’s preferred method ... so long as it’s not the ticketing system. It all smacks of Generation Y emotive social preferences over common sense business solutions.

We both know that discussing this has become futile ... the sad thing about this discussion is that neither side has been swayed by the merits of the alternative view. Twitface’s unstrutured approach / content, being preferred against the structure of a ticketing system linked to the CRM, can only be seen as a decision based on emotion and fashion not on logic and proficient business process.

It boils down to generation Y vs. the old farts!! It does not focus on the needs of the process - efficiently capturing reports of issues in an environment which delivers the essential information to support agents with the fewest possible message exchanges.

How many times do agents need to touch twitface messages to find out the key information required to start looking at an issue? The use of a method tided to the CRM would eliminate those wasteful interactions, allowing agents to spend more of their time addressing the issue instead of seeking the customer information required to make a start!!

Further a good ticketing system should facilitate issue cause recording and there from failure trends can be identified to drive root cause analysis and elimination. I doubt that twitface can do that?

[#12]

@Townman, what are these 4 methods? This is news to me.

[#13]

Hi @Anonymous,

I do not know, they were @Gandalf's words I was referring to.  I could guess though...

1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. This forum
4. Possibly the new messaging system for mobile phone users 

[#14]

Thanks @Townman in that case I'll direct the question to @Gandalf.

[#15]

Thing is not everyone uses Facebook and Twitter.

Yes I use Facebook, and Twitter I only used to get London 2012 tickets - which worked 

I know of people despite having Facebook accounts never use them at all and people who refuse to use it.