Last straw after 15 years?

[#1]

"you may need to pay a little more for your broadband and phone, one of the ISPs I've heard good stuff about re support is andrews and arnold," -- says pint

Just looked up A&A to find they want almost double my monthly BB bill for Plusnet. PN offers a basic router, basic service and basic backup at basic prices which fulfils all of my requirements and I would think a million other customers.You have been told how the BT HH6 can give you a worthwhile improvement for £10 and 15 minutes' setup.

I think the increasing numbers of home workers must now accept that if their BB is critical they need a business package at business prices. Then you are entitled to expect top-class equipment and instant service which you shouldn't need anyway. I think that PN offers excellent value for money but you get what you pay for.

Put another way, my in-laws are genuinely annoyed because their shiny new Dacia (peace upon it) is not as quiet and smooth as my old Mercedes-Benz 🙄

[#2]

Sorry, but I think you're missing the point Longliner. Having been a customer of Plusnet for over 15 years, I know that (until recently) they offered a basic service with a basic router and basic back up. I'd be happy with that. At no time have I said I want instant service or top notch equipment - not sure where that came from. But no backup at all is not basic service or basic support. Five and a half days with zero response? That's diabolical.

[#3]

5 days with no comeback is poo even by plusnets scatty standards, unfortunately its not uncommon both now as you have found out, and in the past.

 Have you tried prodding them a little? Plusnet make a great deal over their Yorkshire heritage/base and running on that base sometimes it can take a little badgering before Yorkshire folk pick up  -a few old phrases spring to mind such as :

you can always tell a yorkshire man, but you cant tell him much

and Yorkshire born, and yorkshire bread, strong in the arm and ....

All you can really do is poke them a bit to try and get a response.

another issue is that your using a residential product with a residential service level ( ie not upto that much) for something that requires  a business level support - not sure what the situation is with plusnets t's and Cs but some ISPs have a clause stating you cant use a home product for commercial such as homeworking purposes

[#4]

This thread (https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Account-Billing/Business-use-of-residential-broadband/td-p/1009711) suggests that WFH should not be a problem. I'd think that any company who penalised people temporarily WFH in the middle of an international health crisis, at a time when the government is telling people to WFH if they can, would attract a shedload of very negative publicity.

[#5]

There doesn't appear to be any way to contact the mod, but I don't understand why this thread has been moved? I'm not looking for help with my router. The issue is customer service (or rather, the complete lack of it).

[#6]

@Uncle_Tupelo 

My apologies. It should have been moved to Plusnet Feedback where it is now.

[#7]

might have been moved as it started as Router knackered, contact plusnet............silnce..............nothing

[#8]

There was once a time when:

You could see live call handling stats as they were at the time things like average time on hold/number of people waiting and so on, complete with a graph showing this data over 24 hours/weekly, you could then use this data to call at a quieter time such as after 10pm and get things sorted out quickly and easily.

 You could even view the webcams inside plusnet here:

 https://community.plus.net/t5/Plusnet-Blogs/New-Webcams-Now-Live/ba-p/1313626

and here:

 https://kitz.co.uk/isp/Plusnet_cam_webcams.htm

and Plusnet didnt do TV advertising save for a little bit on the local football teams shirt

[#9 · Accepted solution]

Having given up hope of any response, I was surprised to receive a very polite and apologetic call from a member of the social media team this afternoon. He explained that their CS capacity had been overwhelmed by calls after last week's storms, but that the lack of service was unacceptable. A replacement router is in the post.

[#10]

Glad to hear this, UT, and hope your new router arrives soon. Infuriating as it must be, how about we give the PN guys a break, they're doing their best despite sharing all our covid problems? I suggest you invest a few quid on a BT HH6, better performance and keep the Hub One as a spare.

[#11]

I've every sympathy for the PN employees who do all appear to want to do the best under difficult circumstances,working with a system which doesn't allow them to deliver the service they want to. The man I spoke with was excellent. My criticism is of PN, not the staff.

I don't believe a BT HH6 would be any better for me than the Hub 1 as I'd be using neither for WiFi. I use a Tenda three node mesh system for that. If I've got that wrong, I'd be happy to be corrected.

[#12]

---

@Uncle_Tupelo wrote:
I've every sympathy for the PN employees who do all appear to want to do the best under difficult circumstances,working with a system which doesn't allow them to deliver the service they want to.

---

Isn't that always the case eh? Lions led by donkeys.

[#13]

Plusnet have been hollowed out somewhat, and that was before Covid

They used to boast of 24/7 suppport, call them any time of day or night:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120623044608/http://www.plus.net/satisfaction/

and if you didnt want to call, or didnt have the time to do so you  could leave a ticket,

 however most of the time spent calling is usually spent in a queue , no problem as plusnet has (had) a handy chart so you could see the best time to call, and even how long you wold be on hold for, looks like anything after 10:45pm would be a good choice, or even in the early hours

https://web.archive.org/web/20120701124511/http://www.plus.net/supportpages.html?a=212&helpheader=rh...

You could even view the webcams, located throughout plusnet and see how well staffed ( or not) the call centre was/is, as well as other bits

https://community.plus.net/t5/Plusnet-Blogs/New-Webcams-Now-Live/ba-p/1313626

https://kitz.co.uk/isp/Plusnet_cam_webcams.htm

[#14]

It's certainly changed a helluva lot since I signed up, and not in a good way.  In fact I think it's safe to say that there isn't a single aspect which has in any way improved.