Ticket replies to Forum questions

[#1]

Quote from: DomS

However to get the equivalent of what I'm getting at the moment, I'd be paying four times what I'm currently paying.

I do not want to sound too disbelieving but if I was with AAISP getting what I am getting at the moment, then I would be paying much less than 4 times what I pay now.
Recently, I have had to phone a number of organisations ranging from United Utilities- who have a phone back scheme that works, through to Zen Internet who answer after one ring (plus a few option choices). Don't tell me Zen are expensive, I have a phone service from them and they are much cheaper than Plusnet's phone service (for a one month commitment)
I know Openreach are a pain but a lot of Plusnet's problems are caused by Plusnet. If they got things right the first time they were phoned, they would not have so many calls and the queues would reduce - a virtuous spiral. I had similar problems to HPSauce and his direct debits a few months ago. My problems were caused by Plusnet being slower than the rest of the world to set up a direct debit and not having the gumption to put a warning on the direct debit set up page that they took such a long time. (In those days they told you after you had committed yourself and I bet that is still the case despite lots of people flagging up the stupidity of it.)
You imply that Plusnet's service is good enough given their "low" charges. I do not begin to accept that. It does not take 10 minutes to solve a problem if Plusnet answered the phone immediately and only 5 minutes if they wait 60 minutes before answering. It is likely to be the other way round because the customer will be less incoherent with rage if Plusnet answered quickly. I quoted James further up the thread saying that by Spring all the phone problems would be solved. Why has this not happened. I genuinely doubt that he was being disengenuous - so why?

[#2]

Quote from: HPsauce

Interestingly I have phoned my bank 3 times in the last couple of days (mostly to do with PN's less than robust DD system  ) and each time it has been answered INSTANTLY. And I really mean that, not even time for one ring.

My bank even has a loyalty saver account where those that have been with them a number of years get a higher interest rate.
And my bank also PHONED ME after I emailed them.

[#3]

Quote from: EnglishMohican

Quote from: DomS However to get the equivalent of what I'm getting at the moment, I'd be paying four times what I'm currently paying. I do not want to sound too disbelieving but if I was with AAISP getting what I am getting at the moment, then I would be paying much less than 4 times what I pay now.

For reference I pay around £20 a month for my FTTC Unlimited - I put in a 40Gb/mo usage on here :
http://www.aaisp.com/broadband-prices.html
The quote was £88.50 a month.
Zen are the closest I can find to PN at £30 / month. If I'm ever unhappy with PN then they would probably be my first port of call as they offer a static IP as standard as well. Over the 12 months though it is till £120 a year (50%) more than I'm paying with Plusnet.

[#4]

One big difference between banks and phone/internet/energy providers is that most bank customers are not tied to a contract, and switching banks is a process which the customer can understand and 'manage' with very little mystery, sometimes with a free short-term overdraft, and very often with compensation if anything goes wrong.  If any bank regularly had a 60 minute call centre response time over a period of many months, they would be running the risk of finding themselves rather short of customers.  As I post, I am listening to yet another advert on ClassicFM excitedly extolling the advantages of switching to PlusNet.

[#5]

I think the other thing we have to bear in mind with banks is that the majority of enquiries can be answered in a couple of minutes whereas technical support lines can have calls that last up to hours.
Having helped set up one of the first UK based Windows 95 support lines, I can appreciate this as one call I took lasted 4 hours ........
When you have a non-technical customer at the other end of the line and you're talking them through typing the IP address of the router in the browser, finding the password, reading out the settings etc etc it can consume a lot of man hours.
I did some research on PNs actual costs and margins and it turned out that for my FTTC when I signed up, they wouldn't start making *any* profit out of me until around the 14th month of my 18 month contract. If you bargain on say a minimum of £10 per hour for an employee (at minimum wage + NI etc) then every 15 minutes of employee time equates to a month of profit lost for a customer. Not big margins to play about with here.
The other option would be for PN to put up the cost of their broadband, make more profit on the product, employ more staff and bring down the waiting times. This however would lead to customers moving elsewhere to cheaper providers (TalkTalk etc) and then complaining about their foreign call centres, call waiting times etc etc ......
There is a fine balance between the two and I feel that PN are in the process of trying to find this balance,

[#6]

Quote from: DomS

PN are in the process of trying to find this balance

I would really like to believe that but the honeymoon period has long since expired.

[#7]

Indeed - I'll agree that the golden "we've opened up a new call center" magic is wearing a bit thin but I've seen the waiting times starting to fall a bit although they are still what I would class as rather excessive !

[#8]

Quote from: DomS

For reference I pay around £20 a month for my FTTC Unlimited - I put in a 40Gb/mo usage on here : http://www.aaisp.com/broadband-prices.html The quote was £88.50 a month.

A&A's HOME:1 package might give a better answer. I am on ADSL so I am talking of an area in which I know little but it appears that 80/20 FTTC with a limit of 100GB/month should only cost £40 with A&A. No question that that is more expensive than Plusnet - about twice your present figure and even I think that it is a lot to pay for better customer services if that is the only benefit. It probably depends whether your line is working well and your direct debit being taken smoothly. If so then Plusnet are as good as anybody. It is when things go wrong that better customer service is important. So really, it depends how lucky you feel
Fibre is just arriving in my area and when it is here, I shall be very tempted to go for it. I am staying on a monthly contract with Plusnet so that when fibre arrives I will have the option of changing suppliers to a high quality customer service supplier while the change is made (and a year or more after that I know). Once it is stabilised, I might come back to Plusnet but not if they want me to sign up for a long contract with an undefined level of service (undefined taken to mean "very poor on occasions"). They have a lot of rebuilding of faith to do before then.

[#9]

I've seen quite a few people move to AAISP so they can sort out their problematic lines then move back to a different provider once their contract has expired. Others are that impressed, they pay the premium and stay with them.
I agree that AAISP may stand a better chance of getting your issue resolved in a more timely manner - this is an area they seem to specialise in
Personally I've not had issues with PN so I'm quite happy with that I've got
£35 seems to get you 40/10 FTTC (100Gb) with AAISP  which would be more than enough for many.

[#10]

I've been racking my brain to try and remember who it was had this service, but can't.  However, someone I recently called had a machine that put me on hold for a fairly long time in a queuing system, and once the wait time reached a threshold (maybe 30 minutes) the machine kicked in again with a new estimate of the waiting time and a choice of press 1 continue to hold , or 2 to opt for a call back at a random time later the same day.  I liked that!
I am very impressed with the tolerance shown on this forum, with the only censorship being replacement of offensive words.  Some irate, unthinking rubbish is left for all to see, with no come-back from the staff.  Very commendable!

[#11]

My personal experience (and I have had a lot lately with Plusnet call centers) is that they are hiring people who are clearly friendly, yet definitely under-trained, or too well trained at telling you what you want to hear then completely ignoring your problem, possibly have no typing skills - to actually note your problems on the system, lack of experience seems to be an issue which is a result of having to hire so many new people as they expand or plain old pretending to care and making an apology and we will get back to you statement (which they rarely if ever do) just to get you off the phone so they can run through the same lines with the next caller.
Maybe my view is jaded but my list of problems and complaints with plusnet is well documented and as many plusnet call center agents have told me - completely understandable. Before offering me an apology and a call back - that rarely - almost always never, comes. (In my view a call-back service would be great - I just have no faith that most customers would actually get a call back..)
From what I can tell from the bombardment of tv and radio ads is that they are spending a massive amount on advertising to attract new customers to a service that is already over-capacity for the support system they have in place, and while they openly admit on these forums that the service isn't good enough they continue to make promises and hype up a new call center which may manage the levels of demand at the point they planned it but which is going to struggle just as much due to the amount of new customers they are signing up.
Slow down the advertising, fix the support to a point it can not only cope with the current demand but also the growing demand from your ad campaigns. Then focus on getting more customers.
Otherwise all these awards you won when things worked properly will just fade away and your hard won customers will just leave again.

[#12]

Thank you for all your comments, that are being fed back.

[#13]

@abstruse21 I suspect the Digital Care team are all too aware of the issues and they daily face a tsunami of problems the CSC have failed to deal with in an appropriate or timely manner. However don't expect the management to take a blind bit of notice. I started a poll in January about suspending advertising (see http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,122115.0.html). 75% of people voting thought they should.

[#14]

Jelv, I came across your poll and voted.. you can guess which way from my own comments here and my thread 
I agree, as long as they are gaining more customers they will keep the advertising campaign up to keep the money flowing in. I just voiced my opinion because like you I don't agree with what they are doing.
Plusnet probably know what we are saying and know that it would be the sensible or 'Right' thing to do but cant turn away all those shiny pounds piling into the bank.
Thank you Chris for acknowledging the information and feeding it back however unlikely it is to change things.