Shockingly bad customer services

[#1]

I have been with plusnet 8 years since dialup and have persevered with the slightly geeky style which still shows through sometimes (like the frank explantion to the cocked up maintenance on the email servers last week end)
But I really have had enough now.  I was getting 3.5mb reliably until a month ago. Now about 30 disconnections per day and down to 1.5mb consequently. 
PN Customer services have managed to:
Add unwanted tickets I cant close, blocking me from seeing fault ticket
Close my fault ticket TWICE "accidentally"
send me a BT engineer who didnt turn up (not PN fault), but then tried to tell me he "must have worked at the exchange" (wasted day off work for me, no improvement, no communication, clearly BT nowhere near)
Adopt a patronising offensive manner when clearly I am not a novice (tried new router in test socket for days etc)
Say too many times "we have no contol over BT", they are your contractor not mine.
PN seem to be focussing on getting as many cheap connections as they can and are letting service fall. I'm still having to pay £16/month just to keep my static IP.
I've stuck by them but am prepared to pay £30/month and get 40mb (16 guaranteed) from BT business fibre and only have to deal with one supplier.

[#2]

a couple of weeks ago I would have agreed, but Adam & Jojo who are in here seem to be able to deliver what they promise..
Have to agree on the normal CS Ticket system, average response seems to be about 4 days.. response time is grim..  I would hope they are able to help you the same way thay have helped me, they have been pleasant, absorbed my frustration, but have also pro-actively sorted out the issue..
Hope you give them a chance before you jump ship..

[#3]

Thanks DominicM
Hi themathiesons,
I've one of the faults guys picking this up now. I notice you had initially applied to go on fibre. Is there a reason you didn't wan't to carry on with that?
Jojo

[#4]

Hi Jojo,
Thanks for your concern & efforts.  I stumbled across the fibre trial option on PN and was surprised my fibre enabled cabinet line had not been suggested by PN for the trial before.  The cabinet is just at the top of my road and given the longish distance from cabinet to the Putney exchange, it would have been a no-brainer. I would rather get it for my current £16 from PN than pay BT £30/month, however I am put off by PNs advice that it will take 14 days for an installation, application only through your ticket system (err... no thanks) , 14 days to reply to any fibre fault ticket and no commercial service (with I assume better response rates) available for 2 years( all info from your CS).  Whereas Bt have offered my fibre installation next Thursday with guaranteed 16mb, expected 30+. Given my recent experience, it seems too higher risk with PN.
I did offer to take the PN fibre trial if some one could come back in 3 days and match the BT offer but by the time you responded through your invisible broken ticket system, it was too late.
That is unless you can guarantee it in, working at 16mb+ and 72 hr response by next wednesday of course.  I don't want to have to leave, you have given me no option it seems.

[#5]

themathiesons,
How's things going at present? Let me know if you need one of us to intervene again.

[#6]

Hi Adam,
Two openreach engineers came this morning. They found many errors on the line at the point of  coming into the property and at the top of the pole. They switched over to a new pair in the pole cable.  We will check for reliability over the next day and speed shoud rise from 1.7 over the next 3 days as the DSLAM calibrates if it is a reliable line I guess. 
Thanks
Stuart

[#7]

OK,
Thanks for letting us know. Give me a shout if things don't improve after 3 days.
Adam.

[#8]

Quote from: themathiesons

I stumbled across the fibre trial option on PN and was surprised my fibre enabled cabinet line had not been suggested by PN for the trial before.  The cabinet is just at the top of my road and given the longish distance from cabinet to the Putney exchange, it would have been a no-brainer. I would rather get it for my current £16 from PN than pay BT £30/month, however I am put off by PNs advice that it will take 14 days for an installation, application only through your ticket system (err... no thanks) , 14 days to reply to any fibre fault ticket and no commercial service (with I assume better response rates) available for 2 years( all info from your CS).  Whereas Bt have offered my fibre installation next Thursday with guaranteed 16mb, expected 30+. Given my recent experience, it seems too higher risk with PN.

We're not recommending any customers to take the trial, but we have written blogs about it and would welcome anyone to give it a go.
The estimate for your line comes in around 30Mb, so it looks a good option for you. Joining the trial wouldn't change your product or price at this stage.
Frankly what you've been told by the CS teams is concerning, as it's not accurate. We're breifing the CSC on this to correct this, but the situation is as follows:
- We can't guarantee any speeds and I'd be wary of anyone who does, but we can raise a fault if your sync drops below 15Mb (which is presumably the basis for BT's 'guarantee').
- Fibre faults are dealt with by a specialist team, and are worked daily.
- The commercial launch will be much sooner than 2 years (I'm not sure where that comes from, but would presume it's a misconception based on the rollout plan for fibre going into 2012).

Quote from: themathiesons

That is unless you can guarantee it in, working at 16mb+ and 72 hr response by next wednesday of course.   I don't want to have to leave, you have given me no option it seems.

See above, but I'd be wary of anyone making guarantees on such a new technology which is still dependent on line conditions.

[#9]

As Mand mentions, I really don't know why you were advised that you can't have this. I just need to ask that you raise a new ticket to confirm that you agree to the trial Ts and Cs, it may help too if you reference ticket 38081971 when you do so.

[#10]

Hi, quick update.  BT engineers turned up at second booking for visit 2 and found fault in street pole cable.  I now have a good connection without no droput but after 7 days, the DS connect speed hasn't budged from 2370 when it had been 4400 for years before current problems (despite 2 planned reconnections & 1 reboot over 7 days (not wanting the DSLAM to think there was a problem)),  consequently throughput hasnt moved from 1.5mb when I used to get 3.5.  You booked an engineer for a 3rd visit but I have cancelled this for now as BT may take over service from PN tomorrow to move me to fibre. I'll let you know.

[#11]

I jumped ship & landed ok.  We have no cable here so it was stick with PN, take on a seemingly poorly supported FTTC trial with PN or move to BT fibre.
I am not so niaive to think BT customer services will be better than PN, but after all I'm paying for good reliable broadband, not great CS. So here is just an account of what happened
BT came in the 2 hr slot they said they would (ringing 20 mins before to check)
The new "fibre" connection was working in 30 mins with no ugly changes to wiring needed
PN service in the last month:
£16/month gave me
1.7mb DS
0.2mb US
200+ disconnections
Hours on PN CS phone/Ticket/Forum
BT business fibre since 8.30am yesterday
£30/month - no other costs, 2 yr contract,  think their residential fibre comes in at £20 +£50 setup for 18 months
I got:
35mb DS.
1.6mb US
No disconnections

Today speed has risen to 37Mb DS
I am happy to pay double and get proper BB. When I started with PN dialup and the old "free" numbers ended, we were paying £25 a month then.
The "Business fibre" router BT supply free doesnt have Wireless N, only B/G  but most cable routers will work ok with the BT fibre modem, I just used my old router as a wireless access point and had our server, 3 PCs 3 wireless laptops & 3 smartphones all working without any hitch straight away. The BT email service isn't great (no IMAP supprt), but we just bought our own family domain for £6 a year so we are not tied to any ISP email addresses and we use Gmail which suppports IMAP ok  across all PCS & phones synchronised.
Now I can get back to doing some work.
Good luck to all you PNrs,  If PN sort out their products , ticket system response, some staff attitude (not those who are on here who have been helpful)  and reliability, I might be back in 2 yrs, after all I am from Yorkshire too.

[#12]

themathiesons,
I'm gutted to see that you decided to leave in the end. What led you to go instead of giving things a go on the fibre trial?
PS let us know how things are going with your new provider.

[#13]

I had to do a "double take" on those numbers above from themathiesons... 
This is the fastest I've seen in the last 6 weeks... I generally get 0.12Mb/s !!! 

[#14]

Quick update since I moved to BT business fibre nearly 3 weeks ago
No connection drops, speed still good

[#15]

OK good to hear, still surprised to see that you went over to BT rather than try fibre with us.