Still Not Learned Your Lesson

[#1]

Following on from the issue brought up on 'Off To A Bad Start - No Engineer Today?' I have had a similar issue.
I am an exisiting customer of Plusnet (although for how much longer is still debatable). I have moved home and have been without a phone or internet for 3 weeks now. I was told the only date it could be installed before the new year was Friday 7th December. I have just started my new job but still needed to take a full day annual leave because engineers do not work weekends.
I took the full day off and was at my flat between 7am and 6pm as requested - the engineer was due to arrive between 1pm and 6pm. At 6pm on the dot after hearing nothing I called customer services and was told the appointment was still open and they would contact the engineer. I was furious to then get a call back saying he had been 'to the exchange' and found fault so I will not be having anything installed today. They were unable to tell me what time this was. I asked why I was not contacted immediately to then be told 'Some of the engineers do not carry mobile phones'. I'm sorry I do not believe that. Your engineers work for a telecommunications company and customer services are trying to tell paying customers their engineers do not carry phones!! I know field based engineers driving around all carry work provided phones to collect their calls - and if not they will certainly have a personal phone. I said I should have been contacted to be told there would be no installation today instead of making me waste a whole day at home 'not knowing'.
It then got better. Now it is 6pm there is simply nothing we can do until sometime next week. I 'might' be contacted by Tuesday to say when I can have my phone / internet connected but if I would like to chase this myself then I can ring back Monday. I informed customer services I have already spent an hour on the phone (usually on hold) this last month trying to arrange this installation and now a full day wasted at home and I am not wasting another minute chasing a service that should have been installed today - even though I've been paying for this since the 22nd November on my existing contract.
I am very seriosuly thinking of leaving Plusnet and moving to another provider. How can there not be a system in place in which the engineer contacts Plusnet to say the service will not be installed and to let the customer know who is sitting at home losing a whole day's wages? Also with no landline I am also spending money on mobile phone calls chasing something I shouldn't have to chase. I was also told I would definitely have to pay the £25 fee for leaving - even though I have had no service for 3 weeks. How much more of my money is Plusnet going to take for nothing?
I have found this whole experience completely unprofessional and unacceptable - please do not send me anymore email surveys of your customer services because I have nothing good to say at the moment,
I have 2 questions if I am to remain a customer -  when will I have phone and internet in my home and what recommpense will there be for this inconvenience and my wasted time and money?

[#2]

Plusnet's engineering work is undertaken by BT Openreach.  Openreach still has a monopoly when it comes to engineering work on your telephone line (although some other ISPs install their own equipment in the telephone exchange) and I think the organization retains some of the monopoly mentality of the pre-privatization days.
According to this page http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/making-a-complaint/dealing-with-energy-suppliers/your-rights/ on dealing with energy suppliers:

Quote

These standards state that energy suppliers must pay fixed compensation for things such as power cuts, missed appointments and not responding to queries.

so I don't see why broadband/telephone suppliers should not also be liable to pay compensation for missed appointments.   

[#3]

Quote from: ReedRichards

I don't see why broadband/telephone suppliers should not also be liable to pay compensation for missed appointments.

It would be nice to see one supplier (PlusNet for example) taking a lead on this and the other related issues.
There are lots of things they could (and should) do to make the whole process less distressing for the customer, e.g.:
1. No-quibble MEANINGFUL compensation for customers when things go wrong.
2. Much tighter and proactive management of BT/OR to ensure they don't just "dump on the customers".
3. Absolute priority once there's been one mistake - no feeding back into the system at the start.
etc. etc.
I'm sure these occurences are not actually that frequent and many installs go smoothly, but the sheer unaccountability and lack of comunication when they do fail is something that the "piggy in the middle" needs to (using a topical phrase) "get a grip of". Sloping shoulders, blaming BT/OR and just saying "that's the way it is" are no longer acceptable.
Like many here I've worked in relevant businesses and KNOW these problems do occur but can be managed so much better.

[#4]

Quote from: jessiev

'Some of the engineers do not carry mobile phones'. I'm sorry I do not believe that. Your engineers work for a telecommunications company and customer services are trying to tell paying customers their engineers do not carry phones!! I know field based engineers driving around all carry work provided phones to collect their calls - and if not they will certainly have a personal phone. I said I should have been contacted to be told there would be no installation today instead of making me waste a whole day at home 'not knowing'.

Openreach field staff are issued mobiles phones and the majority of them do not have a personal phones. When they retire or leave a significant number will take they mobile work number with them. Work is not issued by phone but retrieved by their laptops, either by ethernet, WiFi or built in GSM.

Quote from: ReedRichards

so I don't see why broadband/telephone suppliers should not also be liable to pay compensation for missed appointments.

Openreach does pay compensation, believe it's approximately £100 for a miss provide of broadband, but it's up to PN to pass this on.

[#5]

I see on the Openreach web site there is reference to a document " 6292 - SLG payment for failed Engineer Appointment" but you need to be registered on the site to read what it says.

[#6]

Hi jessiev,
Sorry to hear that your services haven't been installed yet, I'm chasing this up and will update as soon as I have further information.
I'll look into the engineer notes and fins out exactly what happened on Friday, I'll also make sure you haven't paid for any of the time you haven't any active services.
Chris

[#7]

Hi again,
I tried to call you today and have left you a voicemail.
I've spoken to our suppliers and it appears to be an issue with the routing to the exchange. I am awaiting an update and will take this further tomorrow and establish what is the best course of action to take to get this resolved promptly.
Chris

[#8]

Quote from: itsme

Openreach does pay compensation, believe it's approximately £100 for a miss provide of broadband, but it's up to PN to pass this on.

Is this why the ISP's are not pushing OR to get their act sorted out, they must be making a small fortune with the amount of missed / failed calls ?

[#9]

I would be interested in a reference to that as I haven't found anything subsequent to BT being split up into Openreach etc. which refers to the £100 for a missed provide
Although I have found this http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/serviceproducts/proactiveslgs/proactiveslgs/downloads/...
But it does appear that OFCOm aren't too happy http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/slg/statement/

Quote

1.9 Ofcom therefore proposed to amend Openreach’s SLAs and SLGs and the main parts of its proposal were as follows:     for WLR, make proactive payments for each service failure such as late provision and late fault repair, with compensation at the current level of one month’s line rental / day of delay;     for LLU, make proactive payments for each service failure such as late provision and late fault repair, with compensation at the current level of £8 / day of delay and £16 / day where a non-operational line is provided;     for Ethernet, make proactive payments (as currently) for each late provision at an increased level of one month’s line rental / day of delay to bring it into line with WLR and LLU and for each reported fault at an increased level of 15% of one month’s line rental for each hour of downtime to bring it into line with partial private circuit enhanced care; and     for all the above products, remove caps and other unnecessary restrictions on compensation payments.

Quote

Respondents’ views 1.11 Openreach considered that the proposals that it had put forward as part of the OTA2 negotiations (Openreach SLA/SLG Transformation (‘the Openreach proposal’)) represented a good overall deal for customers and presented it with a challenge to deliver services within a realistic and balanced commercial framework. Openreach went on to explain that it considered that Ofcom’s proposals went beyond what it considered to be commercially acceptable. The company also added that service has improved consistently over the last year and therefore the justification for action was reduced.

So it looks like there is some compensation but nothing like the £100 referred to

[#10]

hiya....
quick question
who told you engineers do not work on a weekend? its a ton of garbage ive have engineers out on both Saturdays and Sundays... so yea its up to plusnet to make it clear to BT that this is urgent... 3 weeks? and im guessing you have been paying PN for those 3 weeks?
P.s every engineer has a mobile phone... whether it works or not is a different question... ive had one or two with mobile that didn’t work

[#11]

The bosses must have forgotten to superglue the sim card in.

[#12]

well ...it is open reach we are talking about wonder how long their contracted for and if it will be renewed .... maybe someone from plusnet could give insight? as openreach are only contracted last i knew
to what ive heard from bt customers and seen on here they are doing very crap jobs

[#13]

Quote from: Oldjim

So it looks like there is some compensation but nothing like the £100 referred to

It's nothing like £100.

[#14]

What ever it is surely it should be passed onto the customer.

[#15]

Hi,
Your ticket has been updated with the progress that has been made, we'll have a further update within 24 hours.
Chris