Router farce. No bb over xmas

[#1]

It was requested. It was simply an error on our side that meant it wasn't sent.

[#2]

Hi Chris,
Just an observation; but despatching routers that close to the installation date does seem quite risky.
My fibre order was placed on the 9th with installation on the 18th.  The router arrived on the 18th at 12:05pm.  My installation was booked for the morning slot; however the engineer was delayed and did not arrive until mid afternoon.
Thus I was fine; but given that my tickets suggest the router wasn't despatched until the 16th suggests that you are actually aiming for delivery on installation day.
Why not send the routers out at the point of order?  I'm sure people would be happier having the router sat in the box waiting rather than wondering if it will turn up before the engineer!

[#3]

There are a couple of reasons we don't sent the routers out straight away, the main one is that if the router is connected before certain steps are completed on our side then it means the auto-setup of the router simply won't work. There's also a small number of orders that are cancelled after a few days, which would mean sending routers out unnecessarily.
We do see threads from time to time where routers haven't arrived, but generally these are where the order has been placed manually or had manual involvement and someone has forgotten to move the account in to the right status.

[#4]

I don't know whether you do but - if not - why not add a ticket or a reply to the order ticket advising despatch of the router then it would give the chance for the customer to spot errors

[#5]

Jim - thats the irony...i got a ticket and a text on exma eve to say that the router had been dispatched...turns out that was not true and it wasnt sent until yesterday !!!! Grrrrr

[#6]

the plot thickens..
Chris...you have just said that my router was sent yesterday ??  how come I got a support response on xmas eve to say the router has been sent on xmas eve, plus I got a text at 16.30 on 24th saying "your router is in the post". just to clarify
I called on xmas eve and was told router was sent on 19th....INCORRECT
i got a support message on xmas eve saying the router had been sent that day....INCORRECT
i got a text on xmas eve saying router in the post....INCORRECT
are we certain the router you say was sent yesterday has actually been sent ?
I realise its not a perfect world and things go wrong but this is an fail of epic proportions...cant believe after all my contact you didnt actually sent it until yesterday.

[#7]

I've just been back over your account again in case I missed something the first time around. I can still see no record of an router being ordered or dispatched on the 19th, so I'm confused as to why we told you this.
The router that was have dispatched was ordered on the 24th, however due to bank holidays and then the weekend it wasn't dispatched until yesterday.

[#8]

Quote from: geofftswin

Why not send the routers out at the point of order?  I'm sure people would be happier having the router sat in the box waiting rather than wondering if it will turn up before the engineer!

Just my tuppence worth. My router was sent out at least 10 days before my service went live, and I was still in the cancellation period, so it can be done. Whether this is because I had been in touch with Linn through the order process I don't know, but it sat on my dining room table being moved around a few times until we went live. No worrying about whether it would arrive on time, more worried about what to do with it until it could be used!!
Mark

[#9]

Chris - thanks for keeping me updated. .The router has just arrived. It was sent to my wife's work address, which I dont recall giving you but I must have requested an alternative delivery address at some point in the process.
thanks for your help and happy new year

[#10]

Quote

.The router has just arrived.

Excellent, thanks for letting me know. Have a great New Year.

[#11]

@Backhojo
It appears that you are not the only one with this problem, My installation was done 2 days ago and I am still not on line, I contacted customer services and was told they forgot to send me the modem and it will take 3-5 working days for them to post it out. This means, due to new year, I will probably not have internet for another 2 weeks. When I queried this I was told it was just tough luck and there was nothing they could do.
The whole experience did not start off very well when my requested installation date was ignored.
One very angry off new customer. They were very quick to take my money (on the 3rd of December) but I still have no service.

[#12]

The modem is brought by and installed by the OR engineer 
If you are on about the Plusnet supplied router read from the beginning of the thread it's all about connecting your computer direct to the modem before the router arrives 

[#13]

Quote from: brendon

I contacted customer services and was told they forgot to send me the modem and it will take 3-5 working days for them to post it out

Hi Brendon,
A warm welcome to the forums.  For calarity are you referring to a FTTC service or an ADSL service?  If the latter, then Peter's well intened advice will not help you.
Did you chose the OPTIONAL PlusNET router in the signup process?

@CRT,
If the answer to the above question is yes, then referring back to my previous question - http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,135251.msg1185759.html#msg1185759 - in this thread, is there a systematic failure occurring requiring manual intervention / retraining?
There being limited things which can be done when things such as this have gone wrong is one thing, but "allowing" them to happen repeatedly is something else.  Delivery delay over Christmas and new year is predictable; routers could have been despatched earlier with planning.  The complete failure to order a router when requested should have been profiled and addressed when the previous incident was identified.  If that was down to the failure of an individual, then one hopes that all orders they have touched would have been checked for the same processing error.

[#14]

Unfortunately this was manual error by an advisor here, the order was placed manually and the account wasn't put in to the correct state at that point, this meant that our system had no knowledge of when the order was due to complete and therefore didn't trigger the router to be ordered. I'm pulling the details together of this and the other manual failures around this I've seen and will send them on to their line manager.

[#15]

Nice one Chris,
Hopefully this will close off the source of the problem and fix any others still lurking in the system.
I observe a lot of references to "manual orders" which (due to human fallibility) encounter various out of process challenges.  Is there a hint here to some other processing event which is taking these orders out of the business as usual automated processes?
Thanks,
Kevin