Very poor customer service...and still no solution

[#1]

I ordered Unlimited Fibre 38mb at the beginning of August. I am still waiting! 2 weeks ago someone came to install ASDL...close but not what I asked for. Plusnet's customer service promised to sort it out and call me back, a week later nothing has happened. I got an email form the guy apologising (after I phoned to chase him) saying that there was a high volume of calls...what a pathetic excuse, if you say you will call someone back CALL THEM BACK!
They offered me a deal to make me feel better. The deal equates to the same 'offer' they are currently running
The customer service at Plusnet is a joke and after 3 months I still have no solution

[#2]

I agree Customer Services is bad.  I have no phone line since at least 12 October, and I am told it will not be fixed until 18 November, I imagine that is the earliest date they can give me...  a cable fault meaning digging up roads apparently.  In the mean time, they have made no mention of compensation - they debited my account as usual on 8 October, have made no mention about 8 Nov when next payment due.  I need, though dont want an emergency mobile phone in the interim, and have requested they fund it, from the monies that they debited me and will, I suppose debit me in a few days.  If they do not do this I will leave Plusnet, I'm sure there will be better and cheaper options available.

[#3]

Hi timpelling,
Welcome to the Forums!
Sorry to hear that the Fibre service still hasn't been installed. I've had a look at your account and it doesn't seem like you ordered Fibre when you signed up - Unlimited broadband is clearly stated in your welcome email that you received after signing up.
I am sorry to hear that the member of our support team wasn't able to call you back as promised to arrange the deal for your upgrade to Fibre. As there hasn't been an agreement to which offer you'd like to proceed with, your order for Fibre hasn't been placed.
If you can confirm on Ticket: 93200394 which offer you'd like to proceed with I can get this arranged for you and get the earliest available Fibre appointment booked in for you.

[#4]

@ ostrercarey - Having looked at your post on this thread and also this thread - http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,133489.0.html and also this thread - http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,133495.0.html I'm unsure which thread would you care for a response on? Duplicate posting can make it confusing and difficult to provide support.
In hope that this is the thread you wish to receive a response on - I've had a look at your account and can see that there is extensive underground cabling work that needs to be carried out which now involves civil engineers and your local council as parts of a main road need to be closed to allow this work to be completed. Another road also needs to be closed as heavy duty digging equipment is required on site so for safety reasons they cannot let traffic pass by whilst this work is being carried out.
I appreciate the inconvenience caused by this, however, due to the nature of the work required it's not something that is going to be fixed within a few days. Getting your local council to agree to close down a busy main road is unfortunately not a very quick task. Our Faults team are continuing to monitor this on your ticket and they will provide further updates as soon as they receive them. Again, apologies for the inconvenience caused.

[#5]

Note that these engineering works will impact the services provided by ALL CSP & ISP in the area.  Moving away from PlusNET will not deliver a resolution.

[#6]

Lynn K, Apologiesw for posting on more than 1 thread, I didn't realise it would cause difficulties, I was also responding to other people posting there, with my own case.  I have been told about Plusnet's problems re repairing the cabling.  I understand this.  What I would like Plusnet to do would be to offer me assistance,  as you will have read from my posts,  I have no other phone. As you can possibly appreciate this is causing problems.  No offer of help has been forthcoming  in spite of my questions on Help and Support. 
1.  I would have expected to be offered a refund for my October payment for everything but Broadband, and I would have expected to be told that I did not have to pay for November, I am baffled as to why this has not happened, surely that is good business, to be polite and not charge for services that are not available.
2.  Using the refund I could fund an emergency mobile phone, at least people would be able to contact me and I them.  I do not wish for a mobile phone, I choose not to have one,  but this is an emergency, there are also health issues, I need to have contact via phone.
3. Additionally, whilst I have tried to tell everyone that the phone doesnt work, other people have called me  and when they call it  goes straight to answerphone message and because they are not aware that there is no phone line, they have left messages.  They have contacted me later by email, which is how I know this,  but maybe some haven't emailed, and dont know why I am not returning calls.  I feel that there should be a message saying that the phone line is currently out of order.
4.  There has been no response to my last question on Help and Support.  It appears that they are ignoring me!
It is all very frustrating as you will appreciate Lynn K.  I look forward to your response.

[#7]

Linn,
In the situation of a protracted outage from your suppliers, is there anything which can be arranged with them to better manage the 1471 answering service?
As things stand, callers will not be aware that there is a protracted issue on the line, leave messages at the call minder invitation and expect a reply from the called party.  The subscriber has no idea that there are recorded calls and has (I believe) no obvious means of accessing them.
Can a "Line out of service" message be applied to the 1571 answering service to warn callers?
Can the subscriber access the 1571 service remotely from another phone?
Seems something creative and out-of-the-box is required for these rare situations.

Hope BTOR get this resolved soon.
Kevin

Edited to correct phone service identity - 1571 not 1471 - Thanks AndyH

[#8]

Very well put BrighSpark and useful too.  Thank you for giving that extra clarity and talking the IT talk .

[#9]

They should disable the 1571 on your line.
I think given the circumstances, it should be considered to forward calls to an alternative number at no charge (if desired).

[#10]

It's a good idea, Townman.
The problem is that it would require a change to be made at supplier level, rather than Plusnet level. Unless of course, it's a feature that I'm unaware of.
Matty

[#11]

Matty,
With respect this does not help the OP.  These are exceptional circumstances requiring exceptional action from both PlusNET and your supplier.  Looking at what's there us inside the box thinking.  Something different is needed here.
BTOR should have special provisions available for protracted failure of service.  One understands that from time to time there will be MSO events which take time to rectify.  In such circumstances there ought to be standing procedures to help subscribers.
Kevin

[#12]

@ Townman - By OP, do you mean ostercarey? We have agreed some sort of gesture regarding his second paragraph to help him out. I'm hoping that he's managed to get a new emergency point of contact.
I understand your point. And I completely agree with you. The implementation of Openreach carrying out any such provision on a grand scale though seems unlikely. 
@ostercarey - I can remove the voicemail 1571 feature. Whilst it's not a resolution, it may encourage email contact. Would this be better?
Matty

[#13]

Hi Matty,
Yes that is what I meant by OP (original poster).  I did not intend to query any matter of goodwill arrangements to affected individuals.  Rather that operationally between CP and BT* supplier(s) there ought to be standing provisions for mitigating the impact of extended BTOR phone line outages.  Where there is no established answering service, things are not quite so bad.  Where there is an active inaccessible answering service, subscribers are left with no control of their communication service.  People call, leave messages and receive no response.  Imagine the impression created if this were on a business line!
One understands that major network failures will occur however when they do there needs to be the means to manage inbound calls.  Either call diversion (FOC to EU at the supplier's expense) to another number and / or proactive management of the answering service - remote access or temporary suspension as you've suggested.
Clearly this is not going to happen for this OP, but is maybe something that the products team can review with your suppliers to drive improvement.  After all it is when things go wrong that customers need "better care" the most.
Cheers,
Kevin

[#14]

All PN have to do is contact BTOR and take the line out of service. This will then give busy tone or number not available message to caller dependent on whether they ring from land line or mobile.
Or PN could get BTOR to divert the calls to another number.
We often arrange this for our business customer when they get a line fault.

[#15]

One thing missing from this interchange of opinion, is that to the End User Plusnet IS the telephony service supplier.   There is no direct contact between the EU and BTOR for service or fault provisioning.  It is entirely a Plusnet decision to sub contract the operation to BTOR and to include any provision for long term outages in their Service Level Agreement.
BT retail do include suitable arrangements in their land line service.
NOTE.  Diversion to a Mobile was raised as an idea in the Pugit 387 database in Dec 2007 and discussed  in Community on many occasions since then.