After approx. 18 months as a consumer of Plusnet line rental and broadband I've decided to leave, and having had no problems with the line I've not had cause to contact PlusNet until now. As a former call centre worker myself I know the drill so had all my log in details and ready along with dates and my debit card to pay the £30 disconnect fee.
So on Tuesday I called to try and cancel my line rental and broadband, and after listening to the pre-recorded message advising me to go online I couldn't help thinking I'd love to cancel online but since PlusNet deliberately don't offer that service...
With only two options "are you moving house" and "are you thinking of leaving", both of which apply to me I judged that option 2 would be more appropriate, my reasoning being that if i was moving and keeping PlusNet I'd choose option 1; but if I was moving and cancelling or even cancelling outright I'd choose option 2 - cancelling the contract being the important factor, not the house move.
Anyway, after about 2 or 3 minutes I got through to an advisor who to took my details and we got into my account. He asked why I wanted to leave and told him my circumstances, that I'm moving house and will be getting my line rental and broadband plus TV from Sky in my new property, so wanted to cancel my subscription outright - and being well after the minimum term I didn't think this would be an issue.
He said that he'd have to "put me on hold for a moment" - 15 minutes later i was still on hold, and quite angry as i couldn't imagine what he would need to do on my account for this length of time? I eventually had to give up and wasn't impressed at all with the service thus far.
So today, I called again and went through the same options as before, this time speaking to an Ian or Ewan. He asked me why I wanted to cancel and i told him that it wasn't relevant, i just want to cancel the subscription outright. He didn't even take my details before putting me on hold - clearly not willing to deal with my problem and being unable to hang up he thinks it's acceptable to just put customers on hold? Is this the "good honest broadband" advertised? At this point the service received has been far from acceptable.
So, I didn't have high hopes for my 3rd attempt. Again I called and this time spoke with James, I told him that I wanted to cancel but i'd like him to take my details and log in to my account to ensure this communication is registered at plusnet's end. I told him the service i'd received so far hasn't been good enough, and that my circumstances are that yes I'm moving house, but not taking my subscription with me and I wanted to cancel outright - I'm even aware of and willing to pay the £30 charge - so don't see what the problem is? James advised that i've apparently been choosing the wrong option: "are you thinking of leaving" actually means "are you thinking of transferring" and "are you moving home" actually means do you want to cancel outright. James told me on the 2nd line that they can only give MAC codes which i take to mean they can only organise the transfer of the broadband from plusnet to another supplier. This should definitely be made clearer, especially if option one "thinking of moving" is the line with the advisors who can cancel subscriptions outright. He also told me that there's about a 20 minute wait at this point, and that he could transfer me on to that line. I refused as didn't have the time to wait any longer, and thanked him for clarifying the process.
So, in summary, the phoneline options should be changed altogether to better reflect what they actually mean, and advisors need to explain when they are transferring customers and not state they are "putting you on hold for a moment" when they know fine well they are transferring us - different to being put on hold - and when the transfer is likely to take over 15 minutes.
To add further insult to injury, I tried to complain online, after using the search bar I get to this page:
http://www.plus.net/support/service/policies/complaints_code_of_practice.shtml in it it references being able to complain online, so I click on the link provided:
http://help.plus.net/ expecting an option to fill out an online form of some description, however all that does is take me to the exact same page I started from!
Not that it tells you but you need to copy and paste the link into another webpage before it works, and you are limited to 400 words for your complaint - not enough to describe the ineptitude i've been faced with up unitl now, and with a 38hour+ wait for a response (88006494) i'll have to brave the call centre again shortly.
Thankfully I'll be finishing with this organisation soon and even more thankful that i've not had any issues up until now.
