Help Assistant removed - unable to view tickets

[#1]

https://portal.plus.net/wizard/index.html but for a new ticket it is next to useless

[#2]

@thenouvellesband
The links were removed BEFORE the support staff where overwhelmed.
When we had tickets for everything, support was just slow; restricting the ticket system has forced more phone calls and hence overwhelmed the 2 call centres.

[#3]

And we were promised Better support , after losing 24/7 

[#4]

The only thing that will solve the support issue is £££, get more bodies in.
Tinkering like removing night time hour support and removing tickets wont remove anything and removing tickets likely makes things worse since answering tickets is more time efficient than taking calls.

[#5]

Just catching up with this thread after a very unsatisfactory response to a ticket I raised by using the least onerous option of requesting a VAT invoice. At least it got me into the system and I said at the outset that a VAT invoice was not required.
I wanted to know what would happen to my unrestricted upload speed when my current 'up to 38Mbps' contract ends on 14th August 2016, because I am uncomfortable with it potentially dropping to 1.9Mbps. I also added that I didn't want to 'Chat Online' or phone, specifically because I wanted a proper written reply.
First message sent at 08:53am Monday 25Jan2016 was a perfectly reasonable update which went as follows:-

Quote

Thank you for contacting us, please accept our apologies for the delay in the getting back to you. I have forwarded this ticket to our customer services team who will able to look into this issue for you.

So far so good.
Then another CSC analyst replied with this rather terse take it or leave it follow up at 12:41pm on Tuesday 26Jan2016:-

Quote

Thank you for getting in touch with us about your account. We are in the process of changing the way we communicate with our customers. As this is the case, this question system is in the process of being replaced by our new online chat system. Therefore, we will be unable to assist you through this system any further. We will be able to answer all your questions via our chat system, so please feel free to start a chat on the link below: https://www.plus.net/home-broadband/contact/ Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause. There is no need to reply to this ticket. If you wish to close this ticket you can do so via our website. Alternatively it will automatically close in 14 days.

...and my response a few minutes ago:-

Quote

So that's it then. No answer at all? I'll be very generous and give you another opportunity to answer my question IN WRITING. Thanks in anticipation.

As originally indicated I wanted a written reply to my question as it may well have a bearing on whether or not I stay with Plusnet. I don't want to move away but if Plusnet are going to take the same approach as my former ISP and not be considerate of customer needs then a move might be inevitable.
Maybe I should just correspond by letter. At least that way I might just get my written reply.

[#6]

If you use chat the text is recorded and you are offered an emailed record of the conversation. It would be up to you to keep that, though I believe the record is available to staff.

[#7]

spraxyt, that's all very well if it works. On one of the very few occasions that I've used the chat, I went to click on the 'email me a transcript' and it crashed. There was no recovery from that.
Thanks for keeping us informed Spruance

Quote from: Spruance

We are in the process of changing the way we communicate with our customers. As this is the case, this question system is in the process of being replaced by our new online chat system. Therefore, we will be unable to assist you through this system any further.

Well if that's truly what they are going to do, then a lot of people are going to be more angry. It is totally unacceptable to have to sit in a queue on the phone for nearly an hour or more, or try and watch the chat for extended periods whilst getting on with something else before you can then actually chat with someone, and in a good number of cases being told  "oh you need to phone in". Never mind the cases where the chat agent has neither a clue what you are on about or has not been adequately trained to deal with a more technical issue.
Apart from the fact that the Chat is not an adequate replacement for all types of tickets, a transcript should be automatically sent to the user's account so they can view it at any time, as they can tickets. Whilst Chat plays a very useful role and is satisfactory option in a lot of cases for a lot of users, users should have the option and we want tickets brought back as they were. As it is .....
NOT GOOD ENOUGH PLUSNET - ARE YOU LISTENING !!!

[#8]

Quote from: Anotherone

NOT GOOD ENOUGH PLUSNET - ARE YOU LISTENING !!!

La la lala la! I can't hear you (not over the on hold music anyway) 

[#9]

Well, I am pleased to report sense has prevailed on this occasion and I have received an apology and written reply to my query both on the ticket and via email.
Nonetheless I find this change to the ticket system very odd indeed and very much of a retrograde step.
One of the things that first attracted me to join Plusnet - from the originally good but latterly truly dreadful Pipex - was the ease of contacting PN Customer Support. It didn't matter who picked up the query you always got the feeling that every effort was being made to resolve the problem and throughout regular updates were sent either via email or text. This is why I also subsequently chose to switch my telephone service to Plusnet from BT.
Periodically I price up my full fibre broadband and phone package on BT's website to see if I am still getting a good deal. Usually Plusnet are proportionately cheaper so it's a no brainer, but currently the difference is just two pence! So, when prices are too close to call it comes back down to who is the easiest to deal with, who is the most obliging and who is the easiest to contact. Something that Plusnet with their now non-customer friendly help system should perhaps bear in mind especially as parent company BT is apparently planning to switch back to a UK based telephone support strategy.

[#10]

I just joined the forum as it was the *only* way I could register my anger with Plusnet without being made to wait in a phone queue.
What possessed them to reduce their customer support access to phone only. Yes *phone only*. Online Chat is an urban myth. I've been trying to access it for two weeks and every time I visit the site it's unavailable. There's now no email support and the ticketing system has been removed. Nineteen pages of angry customers and growing Plusnet, are you reading this.
All I wanted to do was find out when my minimum contract period expires as can't find a record of it. What I don't understand is the stupidity of the decision to remove both ticketing and email support when online chat is unavailable. Ironically I was quite happy with Plusnet but who would stay with an ISP you can't contact online? Did they not realize this would happen? I will be changing my provider as soon as I can get through to Plusnet on the phone and find out if my minimum contract has ended.

[#11]

it is very likely that the reason you can't access chat is because of an ad blocker

[#12]

Thank you for the suggestion. It worked and I can now access Online Chat. I got through to someone within a couple of minutes which was much better.
To Plusnet: please bring back ticketing or email support until you can find out how to enable online chat without your users having to disable software. Email, ticketing and online chat all have benefits in different circumstances and personally I would prefer the choice of all of them. At the least you should not disable two of those if the third option requires users to uninstall software for it to work. Had I not very kindly been told that was the problem I'd never have known. What percentage of your customers use ad blockers? Half?
Sorry but it seems like a fail.

[#13]

Most content blocking things should be able to let you add an exception for a particular website.

[#14]

So where on the Plusnet website are the pages describing how to disable the ad-blockers to enable chat to work?

[#15]

I don't know, I'm not going to check, let's assume it's not there. I was only saying that to point out you shouldn't have to uninstall the whole thing. I also would have hoped that someone knowledgeable enough to install some sort of content blocker might be vaguely aware of how to control it, and, like most things, it's unlikely it will always block 100% of the stuff you want it to block while never blocking anything you actually want to see.