Plusnet and Bereavement

[#1]

On May 28th this year my father passed away at the age of 90.  He had an internet account with Plusnet that I wanted to keep active for my daughter to use when she visits her grandma.  Consequently knowing that his bank account would be frozen I transferred payment to my mothers bank account.  For some reason the first payment failed - probably a delay due to the recent banking computer problems.  Today my mother received a letter threatening legal action against my father to retrieve the money owed.  Not surprisingly this greatly upset her (she is 88 years old and having trouble coping with his death anyway after 66 years together).
So in an effort to resolve the issue I contacted customer services by phone and I am utterly appalled at the complete lack of compassion shown by the representative of Plusnet that I spoke to, or any wish on her behalf to resolve the situation quickly.  Having explained all of the above to your representative I was staggered by the complete lack of compassion or even an attempt at an apology.  To add insult to injury the representative told me that she could not reactivate the account until the payment had been made, despite the fact that it is not an error on our part that caused the failed payment.
I am disgusted at Plusnet.  Your TV adverts are a sham promoting you as a caring family friendly business when you cannot even acknowledge a persons death and the circumstances that followed. I am also a customer of Plusnet but am seriously considering moving to another provider if this is a typical example of your customer service during a distressing time.

[#2]

Firstly am sorry for your loss, as I recently lost a loved one...
Had to change account for PN last week and was told everything would take up to 11 days, but also added a phone package so fingers crossed...
I can't believe the response you got as I have always had such a good service from Customer service, even at 3am

[#3]

@LoneRanger
I suggest you post the number of a ticket from your father's account to enable the Digital Care team to identify the account when  they are in on Monday.

[#4]

Fair enough:  58103844

[#5]

This seems to be a very serious error by Plusnet and I condemn it totally.
I am also nearing my own demise and am making all the prparations for my son to take care of when I finally ' leave'.
If this is not resolved quickly by Plusnet (I have been a customer of PN for a number of years) I will definitely find another Internet Service Provider very quickly...........
Thank you for exposing this inhumane action by PN.

[#6]

I suggest this is down to inexperience (and a lack of common sense) by one or two individuals.
Some years ago the husband of a friend of ours who was a Plusnet user died very suddenly and she was faced by similar problems with bank accounts etc. Plusnet could not have been more helpful.

[#7]

Hi Loneranger,
Sorry to hear that you have had a very bad customer experience with us.
We've listened to the call and completely agree with you in what you have posted. I cannot apologise enough as it must be a hard time for you and your mother anyway without the need of having to attempt to sort this account out and us not assisting with this.
We have given feedback to the agent and her team leader that you spoke to, so that this does not happen again. When this situation does arise it's something where we should/do show empathy and help all we can. Unfortunately you didn't get this, hence giving the feedback for this.
I am speaking with my billing team at the moment so I can get your account enabled. Their is nothing else you need to do with your account, I will update this thread for you once this has been done.
Again please accept my apologies.
Kind Regards,
Chris

[#8]

Just a thought, is there a case here for a specially trained and empowered team within CSC to deal with situations such as this?

[#9]

Hi Loneranger,
Further to my previous post, your account in now enabled and everything should be working for you. All of your details are up-to-date.
If you have any further questions or need any assistance, please come back to me and I will be all the help I can.
King Regards
Chris
@Strat
This is something that our CSC are trained in and is part of our customer service skills, it's certainly something that has been made aware to the agent, all CSC staff are trained and aware of how to deal with situations like this, it does seem fairly common sense anyway. Feedback has been given the the agent in question.

[#10]

Thanks Chris.

[#11]

Hello Chris,
Thank you very much for investigating this and reactivating the account.  In the past I have been very happy with the service that Plusnet has given me and the help I have received in resolving problems has been exemplary and an excellent example as to how telephone support operatives should treat their customers.  I hope this is just a one off occurrence and others will not suffer the same distress that we have. I guess the girl I spoke to had not had to deal with this sort of situation in the 'real world' of customer support before now.

[#12]

Hi Loneranger,
We do certainly pride ourselves on giving the best customer service we can, and glad to see you have had experience of that in the past. It certainly may be that our agent hasn't had to deal with something like this in as you say the "real world", but still this was unacceptable. Feedback has been given and if further training is needed then it shall be given. I feel comfortable in saying this is a one-off and has now been dealt with accordingly to not happen again.
My colleague has responded to your ticket 58103844, if you want to have a look at it.This is just regarding further information with your account.
Like I said, if you need any further help or assistance then please come back to me.
Chris

[#13]

I appreciate your assurance about 'rooting out the inexperienced agent/agents' and hope that no-one else will ever have to open a thread about similar occurrences.
In the meantime I will stay with what I believe to be (normally) an excellent ISP.

[#14]

Read this thread with interest and just wondered whether an option could be added to the phone menu (or even a dedicated number) so that when the call goes through whoever answers it is already aware that a bereavement is involved and will already have the empathy and right attitude ready to deal with the caller?

[#15]

The simple fact is that this should not be required.
Our advisors are expected to have the empathy and attitude to deal with such cases.  Empathy is something that is highly targeted within our quality checks and is part of the job.
@Loneranger - I'm very sorry for your loss and I apologise for the circumstances under which you have needed to make a post on here.