Ooh bad news, Plusnet. You nearly won an award.

[#1]

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@gleneagles wrote:

@Townman

As I understand it PN have made increasing profits over the years with a increase in customers, providing the increase always exceeds those who leave then no problem.

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So it's a sort of pyramid scheme?  Appears to work well for a time but inevitably crashes and burns.

M

[#2]

New boss arrives and increases profits by reducing staff and service, after a few years he applies for a higher paid job as his cv clearly shows how much profit he made in his time there, next boss arrives and does the same thing but at some stage something gives, we have seen it in the nhs and many private companies so if you happen to be the boss at that time everything is your fault so a smart boss knows when the brown stuff is going to hit the fan and moves on.

Not quite as serious in a government post, failure usually results in promotion.

[#3]

Well Andy Baker took over in 2013 , when PN was Good since then it has gone downhill

So he now must be due a move back to BT to leave the sinking ship that is Plusnet .

[#4]

Interesting point raised on TBB forums by Andrew which I'll quote here

Oddly the fact that TalkTalk and Sky have such low complaints suggests that maybe Openreach is not the root cause of the big difference that BT and Plusnet have, since its supposed to be equal treatment to all providers, and if anything plenty claim BT Consumer get favourable.

The data certainly suggests that the remedy is less to do with a seperate Openreach and more to do with how big providers differ in how they handle complaints.

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/general/t/4522031-bteepn-broadbands-top-the-complaints-table-q3-201...

[#5]

There is also a potential difference in how robustly they handle OR's many deficiencies.  Even smaller ISP's like A&A formally challenge BTOR to justify many of their 'slopy shoulder' type responses whilst Plusnet just seem to accept any response as non negotiable.

M

[#6]

Sorry guys, I think you are all missing the point.  It takes a lot of money to acquire new customers... just look at all the discounts, cash backs and then the compo for failures.

It would be far cheaper all round to fix the customer dissatisfaction issues.  You keep happy customers, you get less demand for support services, you become a preferred option by reputation.

What the PN management team are driving at the moment is: loosing unhappy customers, driving up support demand and becoming a supplier to avoid by reputation.  The failure to address known issues over a number of years is driving negative behaviours and outcomes.

One the bright side, the approach does generate a demand for call centre jobs! 

[#7]

@SpendLessTime,

Sky do better - therefore not an Openreach issue?

IIRC (and someone will shoot me down if I'm wrong!) BTOR are obliged to give LLU suppliers a better level of servuce than other WBC users get.

BTOR offer different service levels - they are not allowed to supply the 'standard' (PP) level to Sky etc.  People like A&A also don't take the standard PP level either ... Which is why they are more expensive.

[#8]

Sky 7 complaints in total (per 100k)

Plusnet's increase in a single quarter 7 (per 100k) (Never mind the other 23 you have to add to get their total)

Which supplier handles Openreach better? Or is it Plusnet using their supplier as an excuse to cover their own issues? I don't know and the people who do, won't say.

@Townman Sky down graded their support from Openreach to save some money and that hasn't shown through on their complaints numbers. (TBB I believe was the source).

Yes level of support is variable as some suppliers pay for quicker response times. Nothing stopping Plusnet from purchasing better response times.

[#9]

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@SpendLessTime wrote:

Interesting point raised on TBB forums by Andrew which I'll quote here

Oddly the fact that TalkTalk and Sky have such low complaints suggests that maybe Openreach is not the root cause of the big difference that BT and Plusnet have, since its supposed to be equal treatment to all providers, and if anything plenty claim BT Consumer get favourable.

The data certainly suggests that the remedy is less to do with a seperate Openreach and more to do with how big providers differ in how they handle complaints.

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/general/t/4522031-bteepn-broadbands-top-the-complaints-table-q3-201...

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From that same thread, MrSaffron of TBB makes what I believe is a valid point when comparing ISPs.

...but there may be demographics at play - i.e. people who believe you HAVE to buy from BT also being the least technically savvy too, thus more upset and likely to complain

[#10]

I think Sky customers are just as technically unsavvy, indeed all mass market companies are going to have loads of technically unsavvy users. Most Sky customers buy on price as part of a deal including TV.

My neighbour hung onto to Sky for years due to the price and quality of service. The only thing that made them change was that Sky refuse to use Openreach FTTP and they could no longer manage on a 2.2Mbps ADSL line.

And this forum is full of people who like to think they know a lot about technology and it is full of complainers