PlusNet Techie Support

[#1]

PlusNet Customer is getting worse and their technical help is very poor... What do you think.

[#2]

from my personal experience (over a number of years)
Dealing with Sheffield: Fantastic, gives 100% confidence in PN for me.
Dealing with South Africa: Tend to be completely uncertain about anything. Had a line installed by BT, could barely understand the guy- and he generally didnt inspire any confidence.

The problems have been noted by PlusNet - Sheffield is currently recruiting *alot* of staff, AFAIK - they use a mentoring system, to ensure junior staff learn from the more senior staff...  
PlusNet is undergoing some very rapid growth, the last time this happened, Support lagged behind customer numbers, and its happened again... it's no 'big deal' in my opinion atm... These things take time - i hope that PN Keeps growing, adding more capacity and adding more customer service staff.
So No, i dont think its "getting worse" - its GOT worse, it (should be) improving

[#3]

Quote from: Matt_2k34

PlusNet is undergoing some very rapid growth, the last time this happened, Support lagged behind customer numbers, and its happened again...

Then as someone else has posted, time to take foot off the pedal - there may be some advertising contracts that mean they cannot cancel (perhaps TV promotion), but surely where there are banner ads for PlusNet they could be swapped to promote Just-The-Name (as one example).
I saw some comment the other day about bus shelter adverts, and I guess that once the new account (Extra) is launched, and the cost of the Pro account comes down, then PlusNet will expect even more workload, from new customers, initially at Sales but soon after at Tech Support.

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it's no 'big deal' in my opinion atm...

I think it does PN no good - the first impressions for a new customer do 'count' and if there are problems getting support then they will make a lot of noise outside of PN saying how poor they found it, and they won't care too hoots about awards in past years...  It could damage PN more than benefit them, and I guess training is at peak at present to try to cope with new customers from a week on Monday.

[#4]

i agree, But as a long standing customer, ive seen MANY ups and downs with PN (been with them since 2003)
First impressions are very important, however with PN having such a miniscule % of market share, im sure 'annoying' a small percentage of those who sign up, still wouldnt harm growth even if it does damage the brand slightly.
I am a little disappointed by the progress that PN have been making on certain things (e.g. Length of time bugs take to get sorted) BUT in my opinion, they've come clean, said they have an issue - and as such - are attempting to deal with it. Better late than never, but as i said before, im very happy that the company is pushing itself into the market more and more... PN does get alot of trials and is not lagging behind BT in any way shape or form in terms of a 'better broadband rollout'. And for that - the guys behind this deserve some admiration.
Tech support is practically always flakey (unfortunately) - while im not excusing it - i think it is to be expected sometimes - i just hope the team at PN can resolve this in an effective manner, rather than rushing and bodging a fix (lots of new staff who cant handle the requests coming in from customers-  this i feel, will be more detrimental in the long term)

[#5]

Quote from: Matt_2k34

i agree, But as a long standing customer, ive seen MANY ups and downs with PN (been with them since 2003)

Yesterday was the 7th anniversary of the date I first used PlusNet for ADSL.  I had a spell of non-use (firstly because the degree of traffic management on whichever account I had made USENET unusable even between 0200 and 0600 when I felt it ought to have worked far better, so I left to another ISP, and secondly when I had no landline... indeed at present I am glad to be getting 15 GB for 7.50/month from Three mobile, for days when {no fault of PN} my landline gives neither dialtone nor ADSL - I'm not going to be able to cancel that for quite a while as things look at present).

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First impressions are very important, however with PN having such a miniscule % of market share, im sure 'annoying' a small percentage of those who sign up, still wouldnt harm growth even if it does damage the brand slightly.

Not so sure it is "miniscule".  OK, there are some big guns out there - BT, Orange, Sky, and TalkTalk {with others it has bought like Tiscali, Pipex and AOL lumped in} but PN has a much stronger profile with the general public, I suspect, than many other ISPs outside the big names, because of non-internet methods like bus shelter ads and on TV, and as someone else posted, perhaps (until support can meet the targets they have set) that push to promote should be toned down a little. 
PN is about to alter prices and add a new product so to me it looks like the one half (marketing) is working far too independently of the other half (CS/Tech Support), and marketing has the (relatively) easy part in that situation... I'd love to be in a position where my task was to keep track of the competitors and see what pricing changes could be made to match/better them, sounds like a cushy number to me

[#6]

Hi all,
Thanks for your honest feedback here. We do fully acknowledge that there is a sense with some of our customers that at a time where we have stepped up promotion that the quality of support has taken a hit as the demand inevitably increases. To add to what Matt_2k34 has said we have experienced periods of rapid growth before in the past, I would like to think that we have learnt from past experiences here and are recruiting vigorously, this process is ongoing at present and I am confident that as the new support staff are bedded in (as I know some of the new guys definitely are now) that we can keep dissatisfaction down as expectations grow when we release the new residential product set.
Personally I have worked with other ISPs in the past and have seen first hand that rapid growth can be damaging to such a company, however I am confident that we are taking some very important steps to restructure and expand our employee base at present and I am seeing people here pull together and adapt to this incredibly well.

[#7]

@adamwalker
I believe tthe issue here is how to prioritize posts.
You have taken time out to reply to this thread but ignored the more important ones here which have gone un answered from the start of the holidays.

[#8]

The guys are replying to threads in the order they come across them, we're not ignoring threads. It's the first day after a 4 day weekend, it's going to take some time for all threads that need a response to be picked up which is what the team are trying to do.