Plusnet support in meltdown

Had fibre installed over a month ago and it's been down 95% of the time - even taken the landline down too on occasion. OK so something's wrong but the issue is that the support guys are out of their depth and getting buried in a system which doesn't work. Obviously Plusnet is part of BT and can do nothing without BT's help but I hadn't realised just how far down the food chain they are - one guy admitted they can't speak to BT but must deal with the call centre online in pretty much the same way as private customers. Maybe because of this, the various BT engineers are tripping over each other, undoing work down by the previous chap. I even wrote to Jamie Ford, CEO Plusnet , (had to write - landline down!) but he just passed it back to the already overloaded and frustrated tech support guys! Going round in circles.... I would avoid Plusnet for the foreseeable future - go direct to the organgrinder, BT. I say this with regret as have been loyal customer for 10+ years when I had ADSL. The six BT engineers I've spoken to during this sorry process have admitted that being split between Plusnet and BT isn't helping them as they can't take ownership of the problem. You've been warned!

I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. All of your references to BT are either BT Wholesale or Openreach and their relationship with Plusnet is exactly the same as with BT Retail, who are the only company you could deal with directly as an end user. I would choose Plusnet support over BT support any day.

Same here!

Yes Plusnet could improve, but they have a long, long way to slip before they are even in the same league as BT's awful support.

Edited by Finguz (Wed 17-Apr-13 20:36:39)

I'm finding it's often taking 36-48 hours for them to respond when I reply to a fault ticket.

The live customer service stats currently suggest an average of twelve hours to respond to a ticket. I've found these stats to be fairly accurate in my experience.

Chasing them after 24 hours was not good enough for me. I now get a reply in 10 minutes, from an ISP that mans the phone at weekends and bank holidays.

In reply to a post by DES8888:

The six BT engineers I've spoken to during this sorry process have admitted that being split between Plusnet and BT isn't helping them as they can't take ownership of the problem. You've been warned!

Those would be Openreach engineers. They have to, are required to, and *ought* to, treat every customer of theirs equally - and the customers are the retail ISPs.

Therefore they shouldn't treat the problem, or you, any differently whether you come through Plusnet as an ISP or BT Retail. It is illegal if they do!

On the other hand... there can be oddities when your telephony provider is different from your broadband provider - and Openreach can get themselves in a fix. If their "admission" is because you have telephony from BT but broadband from Plusnet, I could understand. It is a situation of Openreach's own making, but that doesn't help you overcome it.

Some good points made BUT
- Part of the problem is getting anyone at Plusnet to take responsibility for this
- The BT engineers (yes Openreach, Network and Operate) locally have been great - now talking to each other 'informally' - Plusnet are effectively out of the loop. TG for private initiative!
- A Plusnet support desk chap told me today that if I (anyone) posts a question or comment to a question, it will take 72 hours before it gets attention. NB. BT email Plusnet with updates after an engineer visit and they have to wade through them. It can take 48 hours before the email gets sent! There is NO system in the sense that you and I would expect!

In reply to a post by DES8888:

Some good points made BUT
- Part of the problem is getting anyone at Plusnet to take responsibility for this

Posting on Plusnet's own forum can help this factor *immensely*. They have some good people answering and taking ownership where need be, or banging heads where need be.

- The BT engineers (yes Openreach, Network and Operate) locally have been great - now talking to each other 'informally' - Plusnet are effectively out of the loop. TG for private initiative!

That's my experience too.

It isn't a Plusnet problem though. It is a consequence of the requirement that Openreach act equally to every ISP out there - specifically offering no favouritism to BT Retail.

Openreach have put in place a lot of computer systems to automate interaction between themselves and ISPs over everyone's line. They have some fancy system for allocating engineers to jobs.

The downside of this "independence" is that it makes it very difficult to get *people* talking, and to get continuity on these intractible problems.

In essence, the customers (both ISP and the end user) are dependent on the ingenuity of the engineers at beating their own management systems.

- A Plusnet support desk chap told me today that if I (anyone) posts a question or comment to a question, it will take 72 hours before it gets attention.

True, though fairer to add "up to 72 hours". Can be better to call, or use their forum.

NB. BT email Plusnet with updates after an engineer visit and they have to wade through them. It can take 48 hours before the email gets sent!

I thought entries went into their (Openreach's) database - either on the line, or on their equivalent of the tickets. I haven't specifically seen that it transfers via email - I'd have though more of a machine-machine interface such as XML.

The favouritism-avoidance techniques mean that the only way of getting feedback to an ISP (any ISP) is through this disconnected system.

There is NO system in the sense that you and I would expect!

Well, it is one *I'd* expect, but I'm aware of the volumes involved in this kind of thing, so expect that it is designed to work without human interaction as much as possible. That is what helps guarantee the lack of favouritism, for example.

Unfortunately, it has designed out any flexibility, and seems to have forgotten to use some common sense - and these elements get noticed more when problems become a little less "standard".

Ordinarily, the trick you want from Plusnet's support team - and their experienced technical people - is how to work around Openreach's systems to get your job seen to as fast and effectively as possible. The problem is that Openreach's system is designed specifically to prevent this kind of manipulation.

There *are* escalation procedures that an ISP can use, so long as the issue then fits the requirements for the escalation (even they are tightly controlled). But getting things escalated isn't that fast.

The *only* way to get expedited behaviour from Openreach is to be paying for the higher service levels. But then you wouldn't be on a residential contract, and would be on one of the business ones. They'd still be following the system though... a system where the #1 requirement was to be able to *guarantee* fairness.

Thank you for these useful comments. I will look into the Plusnet forum. I doubt however it'll make much practical difference as my case was escalated three weeks ago having met all the exceptional circumstances. I accept what you say about favouritism (and it makes sense) but Plusnet have been clearly responsible for much of the delays (four days for a callback - even after a few prompts). I know that a BT report was sent to them Tues but have I heard about it from them yet (Thurs) - no. Anyhow, will try the Plusnet forum and see .....