Poor initial experience of Broadband phone (VoIP)
Hi,
I'm only a couple of days into using the Plusnet VoIP service, but already I've had to call customer services multiple times...and in most cases the calls have been long and somewhat fruitless due to the lack of training/exposure to the product that the agents appear to have.
Problem #2
- the initial setup process (within Plusnet) seems to be somewhat manual, and the VoIP team dont work weekends
I signed up at 2pm on Saturday and expected to get an activation confirmation email within 24hrs...in the end (following 2 calls to customer services) I received an email late Monday afternoon.....in the meantime I'd gone off and signed up with another SIP/VoIP provider so that I could test my new phone (that provider had me up and running within 5mins via a fully automated website)
Problem #2
- the intial password I was supplied via email for the service turned out to be incorrect
Customer services were in the dark as to what to try or how to help me, only finding a note in the forums about someone who had a similar experience prompted me to try resetting the password online at voip.plus.net. This worked for me....but I only realised this was the problem after trying to get the service working with the wrong password on a physical VoIP phone plus two different softphone clients on Windows
Problem #3
- getting credit to make calls
I signed up for the PAYG package - no fees other than per call charges, and although I elected to add credit when I signed up, none was added other than a random 50p. Immediately 50p puts me below some low credit threshold so whenever I make a call I get an email telling me I am running low and need to top up....but the topup link on the voip.plus.net page goes nowhere. Customer services were equally unable to add credit to my account
Problem #4
- the voip.plus.net website has an Alpha/launch version look to it and is nowhere near as polished as the rest of the plusnet websites (and required me to set up another password)
It just doesnt look professional and reduces my confidence in the service
Once I get down to it, I can make calls fine and I'm quite happy with those aspects of the service...but with all the other support mechanisms around the service being so poor/failing I'm tempted to just go with the SIP service that had me up and running in 5mins instead of Plusnet....
I'm only a couple of days into using the Plusnet VoIP service, but already I've had to call customer services multiple times...and in most cases the calls have been long and somewhat fruitless due to the lack of training/exposure to the product that the agents appear to have.
Problem #2
- the initial setup process (within Plusnet) seems to be somewhat manual, and the VoIP team dont work weekends
I signed up at 2pm on Saturday and expected to get an activation confirmation email within 24hrs...in the end (following 2 calls to customer services) I received an email late Monday afternoon.....in the meantime I'd gone off and signed up with another SIP/VoIP provider so that I could test my new phone (that provider had me up and running within 5mins via a fully automated website)
Problem #2
- the intial password I was supplied via email for the service turned out to be incorrect
Customer services were in the dark as to what to try or how to help me, only finding a note in the forums about someone who had a similar experience prompted me to try resetting the password online at voip.plus.net. This worked for me....but I only realised this was the problem after trying to get the service working with the wrong password on a physical VoIP phone plus two different softphone clients on Windows
Problem #3
- getting credit to make calls
I signed up for the PAYG package - no fees other than per call charges, and although I elected to add credit when I signed up, none was added other than a random 50p. Immediately 50p puts me below some low credit threshold so whenever I make a call I get an email telling me I am running low and need to top up....but the topup link on the voip.plus.net page goes nowhere. Customer services were equally unable to add credit to my account
Problem #4
- the voip.plus.net website has an Alpha/launch version look to it and is nowhere near as polished as the rest of the plusnet websites (and required me to set up another password)
It just doesnt look professional and reduces my confidence in the service
Once I get down to it, I can make calls fine and I'm quite happy with those aspects of the service...but with all the other support mechanisms around the service being so poor/failing I'm tempted to just go with the SIP service that had me up and running in 5mins instead of Plusnet....
The external provider bit explains a lot....Plusnet should nudge them to improve the website!
I raised a ticket to query the topup done via CS and it has now been resolved, the agent at the time didnt explain that it was a process which could take up to 24hrs (external company again I guess) but the credit is now showing on my account. I wanted to try/use Plusnet Voip for the convenience of keeping all my billing with one provider for broadband, fixed line and VoIP and hoped to have it all done via a simple monthly auto-topup against my direct debit
As for the "topup wizard", when I click on that link from voip.plus.net it takes me to:
Help Wizard
Ask a question or view your answers
with 2 buttons 'Back' or 'Home' ....not much of a wizard...
I raised a ticket to query the topup done via CS and it has now been resolved, the agent at the time didnt explain that it was a process which could take up to 24hrs (external company again I guess) but the credit is now showing on my account. I wanted to try/use Plusnet Voip for the convenience of keeping all my billing with one provider for broadband, fixed line and VoIP and hoped to have it all done via a simple monthly auto-topup against my direct debit
As for the "topup wizard", when I click on that link from voip.plus.net it takes me to:
Help Wizard
Ask a question or view your answers
with 2 buttons 'Back' or 'Home' ....not much of a wizard...
Once set up the VoIP service works well and is reliable but it does sometime feel that the PlusNet support isn’t as good as it could be. I usually find that the best place to go for support is the VOIP support forum.
Bob
Edit – I see you’ve already discovered it
Bob
Edit – I see you’ve already discovered it