Poor experience with chat operative. Why the dismissive attitude?

[#1]

Hi all. I was hoping for a more positive experience with PlusNet, I must say.  I am leaving TalkTalk and was headed for Virgin. Then Virgin's "customer services" kicked in and I'm going to cancel installation, meaning I need a new provider.  I then hunted around and saw good customer service reviews on PlusNet and prices looked decent. 

Then thought of Quidco and checked it out and wow, did that open a can of worms.  OK, with one or two issues I could see that it could be sour grapes or just people who'll moan about anything but dozens of complaints?  Surely worth mentioning.  I thought I'd try online chat and have my fears assuaged so I could order with confidence. 

Well, it didn't go as planned.  I'm frankly a bit horrified by the immediately dismissive attitude shown by [CSA Removed] without even reading any of it.  I realise that he/she may get this raised repeatedly, but to simply dismiss it immediately as nonsense and then post a link to the PlusNet propaganda page (awards - yeah, I know you've got decent customer service, or at least you're supposed to have - but I'm worried about this avalanche of complaints online - maybe you could make me feel better about it by addressing them seriously and not being flippant and dismissive?)

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): CSA name(s) removed (to an area staff can see) as per Forum rules.

[#2]

Here's the transcript. Am I overreacting?  Bear in mind this is (was) a genuinely interested potential customer who just wanted some concerns addressing.

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[CSA Removed]:Hi there, how may I assist you with your Plusnet order today?

Carl: I'm currently with TalkTalk and I was about to join Virgin but I've had such a bad experience with them in setting things up that I'm probably going to cancel tomorrow. That left me looking around and I read good things about you.

Carl: Until...

[CSA Removed]:Hello Carl.

Carl: I happened to get to the pages on Quidco about the number of times you guys decline cashback. Seems petty, but I place a lot of trust in companies and how they deal in all aspects of their business. This looks like a very shady practice indeed and it's putting me off you, to be honest. Why do you cause so many problems with cashback? Too many stories for it to be untrue.

Carl: https://www.quidco.com/plusnet-broadband/reviews/?ucb=1572317bfab05ee136888cd1158e306c0

[CSA Removed]: I'll be happy to assist you with this.

[CSA Removed]: Do you really believe all this non sense online?

[CSA Removed]:https://www.plus.net/home-broadband/awards/

Carl: Er, I think you just about put the nail in the coffin with that response [CSA Removed]. If there had been one or two, then fine. With the number of genuine reports in there... are they ALL lying?

[CSA Removed]: Please have a look on how many awards we won for our services, do you think we would be awarded like this by conning people?

Carl: You're mixing two things up. I already said I read good things about your service. That's fine. But there are too many stories online about the cashback issues for it to be made up. And you just called it nonsense without checking!

[CSA Removed]: And any cash back due by quidco is quidco's business, not ours.

[CSA Removed]: We are not responsible for quidcos's cash back.

Carl: Yeah - that last response is something that has been reported as your standard position on this.

[CSA Removed]: That's the truth.

Carl: It's also a very dismissive attitude. There are literally dozens of people saying the same things - that YOUR customer services say it's declined and give no reason. Or say that people have used discount codes when they haven't. It seems all rather petty...? Why advertise it if you don't intend to hnour it?

Carl: I'm just getting fed up with not being able to find a decent reliable company that don't have some dark edge to them somewhere.

Carl: It seems you're all very keen to sign up customers with promises of great deals and then it all sours. Not for everyone, of course, but for many.

[CSA Removed]: You haven't even shopped anything with us and you are already complaining? I really don't get it how's that even possible?

Carl: I think I need to leave it for tonight and look again tomorrow. It's not complaining. I was giving you a chance to see how you reacted and your response is speaking volumes.

[CSA Removed]: I wish you a lovely evening.

[CSA Removed]: Bye bye.

Carl: Your immediate reaction was, "it's nonsense" even before you read it

[CSA Removed]: Ok.

[CSA Removed]: Bye bye.

Carl: OK then. Look forward to being part of an email to your customer services tomorrow!

Info: The chat transcript will be sent at the end of your chat.

[CSA Removed]: Be my guest please.

Carl: Oh I will.

[CSA Removed]: 🙂

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Maybe it's just me, but I find that to be cocky and unprofessional. I've since realised that, as with most other ISPs there is absolutely no customer services email anyway. Oh well, maybe I'm just expecting too much.

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): CSA name(s) removed (to an area staff can see) as per Forum rules.

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Post released from Spam Filter.

[#3]

Oh wow. Censorship now?  Did someone really just remove the chat transcript I posted? 

Edit: For those reading this and wondering what's going on, I also posted a chat transcript in here of my conversation tonight.  I had to edit it for formatting a couple of times and it then vanished.  As it shows I've posted one more message than is showing up (i.e. 3 and only 2 are showing) it's obviously around somewhere but either flagged up as spam or a mod has decided it's not right to show it in here. If the latter, I'm even more convinced that I am right to have concerns over PlusNet.

[#4]

It will likely be stuck in the spam filter. It will only be removed from the forum if it breaks the community forum rules, a notification post will be shown stating the reason if it was.

Awards for customer service were from a long time ago and now are no longer relevant. Since the push for the lowest of the lows in price, customer services has diminished from it's once former excellence. They are no longer recommended by me to anyone.

The only Plus are these community forums where you may find help from some of the good PlusNet staff still helping out from the good old days (sometimes in their own time) or other knowledgable PlusNet customers.

[#5]

Cheers for the reply. Looks like it was spam due to repeated edits.  Has been released now.  I still don't think it was a reasonable response even looking at it this morning.

Anyhow... the problem is that pretty much EVERY ISP has a problem these days.  BT, TalkTalk, VM - they all have those that love them and those that hate them. I don't mind paying a few quid extra to get a decent service, but I object to [-Censored-] service, which is why I'm dropping VM like a hot potato. Not even had installation yet and they've screwed things up about 4 times. Doesn't bode well so I'm getting out before I'm fully hitched!

[#6]

@carled

I have been fairly critical of PN on a few occasions in the past but cannot really agree with your comments regarding the person you spoke to.

The job of those taking your call is to get people to sign up to PN and it's quite likely the person you spoke to knew little or nothing about specific problems relating to cashback, it's a bit like you going to the local hospital and asking the receptionist or first nurse you see to give you details about some incidents or feedback you have read online about the hospital.

You are quite justified in asking such questions but the only people who may be able to answer them are senior management and yes I know the chances of speaking to them is next to zero hence the comments you see on line.

Signing up to a isp is a gamble you might get lucky or have loads of problems.

[#7]

@gleneagles

I see your point, but he instantly dismissed it as "non sense" (sic) where it's clear to see that there is/was a problem at some point, even if it has now been fixed.  It was that dismissive attitude of "oh look at all these awards we've won, we're amazing, anything bad you read is nonsense" attitude.

Plus he knew a lot about the corporate line on quidco cashback for someone who knew nothing about it!

PS: And if he knew nothing about it, say so, don't just dismiss it as "non sense" ?

[#8]

Sorry to hear about the experience you've had.

I've ensured feedback has been passed on regarding this and the matter will be dealt with internally.

With regards to Quidco claims there are numerous reasons why these can show as failed from cookies being deleted to , adding a referral and trying to take cashback on offer from us and Quidco (Essentially double dipping)

If any customers have cashback declined by Quidco we advise to raise a transaction query with them first for more details.

[#9]

A warm a warm welcome to the forums.

Invariably people tend to only provided feed back when there have encountered issues, so the many thousands of happy cutomers can remain invisible.

The Cashback process is very dependent on tracking technology using cookies.  With the vast number of "security" products around which can drastically interfere with legitimate use of such technology, it is inevitable that more than a few users will sign up whilst still using blocking software despite the instructions to turn it off during sign up.  The consequence is that the sign up does not 'track' leading to expectations not being fulfilled and the presumption is always that the supplier failled.

[#10]

Kind of. That argument doesn't cover the many, many users told that they'd used discount codes by PlusNet though.  And there are too many of those to claim it as coincidence!

[#11]

Firstly, that CSC chat transcript reads pretty badly. I'm glad to hear PN is taking some action, but I wouldn't expect to hear the conclusion of it here.

Second, a failed affiliate tracking can happen with any vendor. And often the stated reason given by the vendor is wrong. But of course the Quidco and Topcashback forums are overweight with people whose tracking failed. The vast majority of customers with successful tracking never leave feedback.

Here's another n=1 anecdote for you, FWIW: My Topcashback tracked in November and paid out well within the expected time.

[edited to reflect Matthew's reply, which I missed]

[#12]

@richi

You're absolutley right about the weighting of complainants and there's always the other side of the fence. A further google this morning seems to indicate it was a problem that has largely been solved now, but all I really wanted from my experience last night was for the operative to at least take it seriously, be honest, say they didn't know if they didn't know and offer to get back to me - that sort of thing. To immediately leap in with a "that's nonsense" attitude is what has irked me here.

[#13]

Superuser citation

This topic has been cited by one of the Superusers; the purpose of which is to provide a note for information which might help to focus continued discussion (but might not result in a staff response).

[#14]

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@carled wrote:

To immediately leap in with a "that's nonsense" attitude is what has irked me here.

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Yeah, I think you have every right. Even if a rep had cause to think that, they shouldn't say it.

[#15]

I also agree it was a wrong choice of words, guess we are all human and if working under pressure to meet targets it's easy to make an inappropriate comment.

I am not making excuses for the person you spoke to and you can see from some of the replies your comment has been taken seriously.

I hope this incident does not prevent you from considering PN as your isp.