How does Plusnet manage to win awards?

[#1]

I am bemused by the awards Plusnet seems to get. Am I the only person who has had appalling service? To begin with, on the day my Internet was supposed to be set up, I waited half a day (having taken time off work); no-one came and no-one phoned. A few days later I lost my telephone connection. That came back but then I lost my internet connection for several days. No you have to consider that I already had fibre to the house and a BT OpenReach modem was already in place so no engineer visit was required. Whenever I tried to phone Plusnet there was a message (and still is ) apologising for the 'high number' of calls. As it is always like that, it's not a high number, it's a normal number of calls. If Plusnet is so good, why are they receiving so many calls anyway?
Today I received an email telling me that they had been unable to collect my direct debit payment because, "The bank/building society doesn't recognise the instruction set up to pay the Direct Debit." I contacted the bank and was told this was because Plusnet had set up the Direct Debit and tried to collect the payment on the same day. The earliest it could go was about 4 days later. When you realise that I sent the DD information 8 weeks ago, why has Plusnet only just actioned it. The result was I had to phone (another 30 minutes wait) to pay the bill.
Speaking to their Customer Services I was told I had been very unlucky. I have had 4 issues with Plusnet. Assuming that only 1 in 100 customers has a problem, the chances of having 4 problems becomes 1 in 100,000,000 (1 in a hundred million). That doesn't seem very likely to me. That indicates a poor level of service. The excuse for the incredibly long waiting times is they have had a sudden increase in the number of customers and need more call handlers. So instead of recruiting to deal with customers ahead of time, they wait until it gets bad and then start recruiting. I wouldn't call that good service.
Because the service has been so poor, I would like to terminate my contract but have been told I can't without incurring a penalty. Another example of lack of concern for the customer.
On one positive note, Plusnet did pay £25 (unasked for) into my bank account as an apology.
Sadly, leaving Plusnet early would cost me £200 (I am still mulling that over as a preference). If the company had an ounce of integrity, they would allow me to close the account without penalty. As it is, all I can do is keep advising people not to believe the adverts. Plusnet will NOT do you right.

[#2]

Your not the only one with issues with plusnet customer service .
I like you have had nothing but false promises from the beginning and after 4 months have only just received the product that I was promised in the beginning and even that was only because myself and the openreach engineer managed to work out that the problem was with plusnet and none of the equipment.
I was also sold a product  falsely with the promise that my master socket would be moved when instalation took place .which it didn't and had to end up doing it myself.
Also I will probably get told by some of the forum  "pro plusnet  mod wannabe users to start my own thread blah blah blah
Lol

[#3]

Quote from: Chasgunter

To begin with, on the day my Internet was supposed to be set up, I waited half a day (having taken time off work); no-one came and no-one phoned. A few days later I lost my telephone connection. That came back but then I lost my internet connection for several days. No you have to consider that I already had fibre to the house and a BT OpenReach modem was already in place so no engineer visit was required.

I've had a look over the orders and it looks like they were both scheduled for completion on 20/04/15.
On the phone side of things:
We received no notification of the delay from our suppliers until 20/04/15 23:31
I apologise that we were not able to notify of the delay prior to this.
I understand the phone line then activated on 21/04/15 shortly after midday.
With the fibre:
We contacted our suppliers for an update on the delay and we were advised the delay and the fact that the engineer failed to attend was due to their system issues, that again, we unfortunately we not given prior notice of.
In trying to progress the order our suppliers ultimately cancelled the order (on 28/04/15). We replaced the and got the services activated as soon as we possibly could (29/04/15).

Quote from: Chasgunter

Today I received an email telling me that they had been unable to collect my direct debit payment because, "The bank/building society doesn't recognise the instruction set up to pay the Direct Debit." I contacted the bank and was told this was because Plusnet had set up the Direct Debit and tried to collect the payment on the same day. The earliest it could go was about 4 days later. When you realise that I sent the DD information 8 weeks ago, why has Plusnet only just actioned it. The result was I had to phone (another 30 minutes wait) to pay the bill.

Having checked the history of the direct debit instruction on your account, I can see that the instruction was submitted on 04/04/15. This then activated on 14/04/15. We then requested a payment on 21/05/15.
I fail to see how your bank are stating the instruction was submitted and payment was requested on the same day, this does not reflect the history on the account.

[#4]

Whilst Im not saying your bank is definitely wrong in this case please do bear in mind that banks are very often full of $!*%. I speak from experience both as a customer of banks and as a customer service agent who has had to handle customers whose banks have told them nonsense.

[#5]

Well HarryB. I've been with my bank for 39 years and never had a problem. I checked my direct debits on-line immediately and there it was set up but not on the date you say. I've been with PlusNet for 5 weeks and have had no end of problems all exacerbated the length of time it takes to reach someone on the phone. Given a choice, I prefer to believe my bank rather than PlusNet. Of course, PlusNet denies that they are in anyway to blame. It seems it's all down to BT or my bank.
The phone wait is inexcusable. The recorded message says your busy. Either you have insufficient operators or the the system is so poor you have lots of people calling for support.
I was so disillusioned I asked PlusNet to release me from my contract as an act of goodwill. Given the problems I have experienced I would expect any company with an ounce of integrity to agree. Of course this is PlusNet and they said it couldn't be done. So I have opted to leave anyway and pay the £196.00 demanded. It's worth it to be rid of PlusNet.