Why the delays in answering phone support?

[#1]

What's up with the Plusnet call centre? You always had a good reputation for support (one of the reason that I chose Plusnet as a supplier). However I called the support centre yesterday & delays were 45 minutes & this morning they are 30 minutes. Life is too short & I'm too busy to hang on the phone waiting to get an answer. It's all very well if your online support was responsive but after I gave up on the call yesterday I contacted online but have still had no response.

My problem is that I am moving house & specified a date & morning only for the engineer visit. I now have received the notification of the engineer visit tomorrow 23/3/2016 between 1pm & 6pm when I am at work. I specifically asked for the morning but now cannot get it changed because the call centre is overloaded & the online support is responding either

[#2]

Hi nigelbb,
I'm sorry about the wait.
As the appointment is tomorrow we won't be able to change that now I'm afraid.
Unless you're able to make an arrangement to accommodate that (not that we're expecting this) then we'd need to rearrange the installation for a later date for you.
The mistake appears to have been made by the agent placing the order so I will pass on some feedback and apologies again for the inconvenience.

[#3]

Adam, thanks for the prompt reply. How can such a simple thing get messed up? I have the confirmation email dated 9th March:-

Quote

I have now placed an order to install your new telephone line and fibre broadband service. Both these should be activated on the same day and your installation appointment is booked for 23/03/2016 AM.

I have already provided alternative dates in my response to the support ticket yesterday but have had no reply. Perhaps you can sort this out? These are the dates & times that I can be available. I also need confirmation that the service at my old property won't be switched off until the installation is active at the new property.
24/03/2016 Morning
05/04/2016 Afternoon
06/04/2016 Afternoon
07/04/2016 Afternoon

[#4]

These problems in answering the phone have been going on now for so long it can only be as the consequence of the PN senior management decision to cut the resources provided per 100,000 customers. If it was not a deliberate decision I must question the competence of the PN senior management in not resolving the issues.

[#5]

AlaricAdair +1
But despite promises of improvements things stay the same 

[#6]

I had a message apologising for the screw up in the appointment & a promise that the appointment would be rescheduled for next week & that the cease on the current line would be cancelled.
So why am I not surprised to discover that this morning my broadband isn't working & the light is flashing red on the modem/router? With a sinking heart I called up & was only waiting for a few minutes but spent over 35 minutes on the phone doing all the rigmarole with resetting the modem re-entering my password etc when what is clearly the fault is that despite the promise I have been disconnected. I was asked if I could speak to the Provisioning Team (or was it the Faults Team) but also informed that it would be a 45 minute wait before I would actually speak to them. As I had already been on the phone for 30 minutes I declined. It's been raised as a fault & they will get back to me.
What an utter shambles!!!

[#7]

Still no broadband at either property. Popped round to the new property to find a card from OpenReach saying that they couldn't get access to the property & that I need to contact my supplier to organise a new date.
The support ticket from yesterday (no broadband at original property) was closed with the happy promise that the house move would be completed yesterday.
I called again today (15 minute wait this time) & was told that I would need to speak to Provisioning (to get my broadband reconnected at the old property) & House Moves (to get the broadband moved to the new property) but that there was a 45 minute wait on hold to speak to these departments. I asked for them to call me back but that's apparently not possible. I repeatedly asked that my problem be logged & that Plusnet fix it without me having to queue up waiting to speak to the correct department. Why is this so difficult? Plusnet have screwed up & I am to be punished for this by wasting my time because of Plusnet's internal politics & stovepiped departments. The online support ticket seems to be ignored as I haven't had a reply in nearly 48 hours.

[#8]

I am shocked to read what you write as I too will be looking to move soon.  It's amazing how no plusnet staff have responded to your plight.  It's the same with any new organisation, they make a good start and offer excellent service and then go down hill.  You need to trust companies.

[#9]

I just thought that I would provide an update to this whole sorry saga. After I stamped my foot & got very cross a manager finally took ownership of my problem & even phoned me. However he could only work within the system & it wasn't until after a week without Internet at either property that I had the broadband reinstalled in the old property but with a new telephone number & ADSL not SuperFast Fibre.

I have an appointment for a BT Engineer at the new property this morning between 08:00 & 13:00 & am sat waiting for the visit now (typing this on my phone). It's 10:30 so I have a strong feeling that nobody is going to show up not least because I was called last week by a BT Engineer who was at the property & had turned up on a day when I had not made an appointment.

This whole business is due to poor communication & the Chinese whispers between the customer Plusnet & BT. It's crazy that the customer cannot directly confirm a data & time with the outfit who are actually doing the installation work. The delays involved in the customer contacting Plusnet then the message being passed on to BT is the root cause of all my problems. It's now three weeks since the date that the original move was promised. I live alone & work shifts so visits have to be worked around my availability to let an Engineer into the house which is where the whole mess started. I made a firm appointment for a particular morning & Plusnet or BT messed up by ignoring that I making the visit in the afternoon.

[#10]

Another update. I waited in 08:00-13:00 but of course no BT Engineer turned up. Why am I not surprised? After 10 minutes on hold I spoke to an agent who contacted BT & apparently it was a screw-up on their part in booking the visit but not allocating it to an engineer. However BT aren't prepared to make amends ASAP by doing it tomorrow so I must wait another 4 days for a visit on Saturday afternoon. We shall see. Watch this space...

[#11]

Just another update in case anyone is interested.

The BT engineer arrived this afternoon & spent a couple of hours installing the phone socket & getting a line connected.
However the line speed is only 1/4 of what I was promised
The connection details from the modem are:
Downstream: 54.12 Mbps Upstream: 5.703 Mbps
BUT my actual speed when tested on BT Wholesale Broadband Performance Test is
Download speed (Mbps): 17.95 Upload speed (Mbps): 5.22 Ping latency(ms): 23.63

I contacted Techical Supoprt via Chat but they insisted that this is not a technical issue but an ordering issue & put me through to someone else who insisted that I must wait 10 days for the line speed to stabilise before Plusnett will raise a fault.

[#12]

and what is the Plusnet Current Line speed https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed

[#13]

Here is what my estimated line speed is. Except that it's the wrong telephone number (I think it's the new one at the old property) & the line there for the last couple of weeks has been ADSL not Fibre.

Telephone number:
01205xxxxxx
Phone exchange:
BOSTON
Estimated line speed:
80Mb (This may vary between 78.3Mb and 80Mb) - Checked on 2016-04-16 17:10:50
Current line speed:
19.1 Mb

[#14]

Assuming that the BT IP profile is correct then you need to contact Plusnet - via Chat - and ask them to update their copy of the profile

You can check it quickly here http://www.speedtest.btwholesale.com/PerformanceTesterWS/diagnostics.do

[#15]

I already contacted Plusnet Support by Chat earlier today. Technical Support Dave H told me that it was an ordering problem not a technical issue & assured me that I had an ADSL line he then fobbed me off to Katie who told me that my order hadn't completed but that in any case my line would take 10 days to settle down & Plusnet wouldn't do anything about raising a fault or do anything at all until the 10 days was up

This is what the BT Diagnostics say about my line:-

Download speedachieved during the test was - 17.47 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 37.55 Mbps-53.64 Mbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is - 53.64 Mbps

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 5.05Mbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 20 Mbps