Couldn't agree more. Sometimes, some people can't smell the coffee. I too am more than happy with Plusnet's performance of late on my line for the money I pay. I doubt if moving to any other ISP would improve anything at all. So why pay more?
And sometimes, some people can only smell coffee.
I have two Plusnet accounts, one at home and one for my elderly parents 25 miles away. When I set it up Plusnet advised me to do it all in my name, so as to make dealing with technical issues easier. I have taught my 80 year old mum to use email and facetime and she's rightly very proud of herself. She had never touched a computer in her life until her 80th birthday when I forced her to Skype my eldest bother in Canada. She's never looked back since and is now a serial face time menace. I've created a monster!
Anyway, the point being she now feels isolated without it. and she has been without internet since mid April. OR fitted an FTTC enclosure down the road and things have never been right since. First, I disconnected all of the internal wiring leaving only the main (non BT) master socket. I'm no amateur at this. Data cabling forms part of my business offering.
Other than failing to sync for more than five minutes at a time, the other issue was noise on the phone line. I had a spare Plusnet router and proceeded to test the equipment. I'm a little OCD when it comes to fault finding, through years of experience. So with two routers, two power supplies, their two telephones and 4 filters I tried every imaginable combination and the result was definitive. When you try to connect broadband to the line, the [substanial at times] noise returned.
So I called up Plusnet and got straight through to one of the reasons I originally swapped everything to them from BT. He couldn't have been more helpful or have shown more immediate insight. With all that has followed, I only wish I had noted his name to commend him accordingly.
He listened to me explain to him what I had done, it only took thirty seconds. He didn't try to force me to go through the faceplate test with him; he was listening, not scripting. His immediate guess was that it sounded like there was a filtering problem at the "other end". I didn't ask if he meant the exchange or the new cabinet. On the opposite side of the road from my parents house, there is a pole with approximately 20 metres of cable hanging in a loop. It's been hanging there for a few years. Our feed is from the next pole down, although I thought it worth mentioning for elimination purposes anyway. I've been advised by OR engineers over the years of the "aerial" effect of unwanted parallel cabling; besides any possible truth in that (talk is cheap if you don't have the experience to corroborate it) I suspected water ingress over time on a taped up end, might well have an impact.
Anyway, I was completely shocked when he said "I'm looking at it now on Google Earth and don't think it would have an impact at all, but I can give you BTOR's number if you'd like to report it just in case?"
Proactive, intelligent approach. Brilliant. He arranged an engineers visit. They came out, changed the faceplate to an integrally filtered version, tested and left. From then on in, it's all been downhill.
The report came through on the ticket in the members portal, that there was no fault found but that sync still needed to be investigated. I received another text message to supply three available dates, so I did. Later the next week, an hour before the expiry of the final date supplied, I received a text message that read "Apologies for not getting back to you sooner, I have been out of the office. Please supply another three convenient dates." So I rang and explained [politely] how I found that to be both infuriating and ridiculous. The advisor apologised and continued to explain that what we needed was to organise a "specialist engineer" and told me that he would send me an appointment text again. It came through an hour or so later and I replied accordingly. But then I got a reply telling me that an engineer had been arranged for "Date:" He had forgotten to type in the specific date out of the three supplied, that they had chosen. I had imagined from the beginning that this was a fully automated process, but seeing the apology text earlier, I thought I'd reply; "Which date?" I never received a text in response.
So anyway, due to that uncertainty, one of my brothers rang the following day as he was off work and asked to confirm the engineers appointment. It hadn't been booked. He asked could he book one now and they refused citing the need for account holder authorisation. Now, the original guy I spoke to had put both of my brothers names and telephone numbers down on file, so as to let them deal with faults if I wasn't to hand. Excellent idea. It transpires that they are not allowed to do anything financially with the account, only talk about faults. Fine, I didn't realise that at the time, but do understand. But incredulously, because there is the possibility of an OR visit attracting a recharge, they cannot authorise a visit. So to be clear, "You need an an engineer for the fault you have helped us to diagnose sir, but you will need the account holder to ring back and ask for it." Can you ring him for authorisation? "No, he has to call us."
In the meantime, the appointment formerly known as "Date:" went through. The engineer turned up out of the blue (fortunately there was somebody at home) and proclaimed there were no faults, but he would check down at the cabinet on his way to the next call. They asked him if he could check if the router was syncing and he refused.
So that night I ring Plusnet again and tell them that I'm unhappy. The guy tells me there is no such thing as a "specialist engineer". I told him I'd suspected as much when it was first touted, but wasn't about to tell them their job. I'd simply assumed they would have sent an engineer with a little more nouse when it comes to broadband; I know they exist at least, even if they're graded no differently. Anyway, he told me he would elevate it to the faults team and get somebody to ring me, as this (in his own words) was getting ridiculous. I couldn't speak to them now because they only work 9-5 ish or something similar.
I'd heard nothing and not received a text the next day, so I thought I'd get home early and ring them before they left. I was greeted by an advisor that was better at sounding helpful, than he was at actually listening. I explained to him that I was expecting a date or a call to get another engineer booked. He told me the delay was due to my being unhappy and asking for an elevation of the fault, and that there is a 72 hour lead time for faults team enquiries. I told him that's wasn't acceptable as I'd already had numerous engineers visits at Plusnets own request, and that this was an ongoing fault. He replied in no uncertain terms that there are procedures and a responsibility to all of their other customers as well.
I let that one slide, and told him that I'd come home early to catch the faults team before they left for the day, but I now needed to go and collect my children from the childminders and could somebody call me back later. But they aren't allowed to call you back. I explained my disbelief that the company that supplies my telephone service are not allowed to use it to contact me directly, and that I was not prepared to wait for yet another 20 minutes on the phone later that evening; somebody needed to take ownership of this debacle.
"You've already been on the phone for 10 minutes. You could have picked your kids up by now if you'd have let me talk to faults for you in the first place, to see if I could make an exception for you."
I don't want an exception.
I don't feel I was asking for special treatment.
I shouldn't have to explain customer services 101 - never blame the customer.
I did receive a text a day or so later. It said there were no available appointments until the 31st May. So if you happen to get a jobs worth, and he doesn't like being blinded by reason, you go to the back of the queue. I haven't been in touch since and will try again on Tuesday. But if I have the brass neck to dare to be too busy to hang on the phone for repeated 20 minute intervals during working hours, I shouldn't expect to get what I'm
paying for.
Oopt north, maybe that is what they call good old fashioned service, but somehow I doubt it.
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