Further downgrade of C/S

I received an email this morning from PlusNet to say the are cutting the Live Chat time to 12 - 4 Wed/Thur/Fri with no weekends. How much further down can the C/S go before customers start leaving?

That does not tell the whole story. This is the full text of the email:

As you'll be aware, our Live Chat facility has been unavailable for a number of days. We're really pleased to confirm we'll be switching this back on but for reduced opening hours. Chat will be available 12-4 Wed/Thu/Fri this week but with no availability on weekends. We'll be reviewing performance to make a decision on Thursday and will communicate that decision later this week.

We apologise for the continued degraded service and assure you we're working incredibly hard to get this back up & running ASAP.

Edited by kasg (Thu 31-Aug-17 12:36:14)

The email at the end seems to indicate this is an unexpected issue???

Is that possible??

Does Plusnet have to have an agreement with a software holder of something to operate online chat system or is this just a load of rubbish to put in the email?

They ran out of staff to answer phones seems the most likely reason

In reply to a post by GeorgeLloyd:

How much further down can the C/S go before customers start leaving?

Just 2 more weeks for me. though my reason for leaving is due to the way that they charge much more at some exchanges.

In reply to a post by GeorgeLloyd:

How much further down can the C/S go before customers start leaving?

It was one of thee reason why i left, not the only reason but it was a factor

All1

Update:

Posted: Fri, Sep 01 2017 at 11:44:55
Subject: Live Chat - reduced opening hours - UPDATE

Since the Bank Holiday we've been reintroducing live chat for periods of the day, to help us understand the impact on call wait times, as well as our ability to handle the number of chats coming in too.

With this in mind we've taken the decision to operate chat over the following times next week:

Mon - Tue: 12:00 - 16:00
Wed - Fri: 11:00 - 17:00

Please note that we do also offer support via the Facebook, @plusnethelp on Twitter and our Community forums at community.plus.net

Kind Regards,

Plusnet Support

All via broadband, which is little help when it is down. Less on-line support and more telephone support would be better.

I looked at PN - you do get what you pay for. This is true. I wanted a way to see what I use every month but without the hassle of having to mess with a router - I wanted something the ISP end.

Plusnet's stats are no longer accurate and they class IPTV as Netflix - so this is not counted, so a waste of time considering them really. That was before this latest CS drop - which makes it even more.

All via Internet yes - but a pretty good proportion of the population have smartphones these days so have an alternative method at getting at online support other than their main broadband line. Phone is still needed for those that don't have this option or would prefer direct conversation but Internet access is a good option for many even when their broadband line is down.

In reply to a post by ian72:

All via Internet yes - but a pretty good proportion of the population have smartphones these days so have an alternative method at getting at online support other than their main broadband line. Phone is still needed for those that don't have this option or would prefer direct conversation but Internet access is a good option for many even when their broadband line is down.

I tend to use my mobile more than my Mac anyway - and so I have shifted my money to give me unlimited on the mobile instead.

In reply to a post by ian72:

but a pretty good proportion of the population have smartphones these days so have an alternative method at getting at online support other than their main broadband line.

"Car broken down? Most folk have public transport available, so the dealership won't hurry to fix that car problem..."

You can't use 'most people' as a reason for non-service. I don't have a mobile phone at all. I have a land line.

You seemed to ignore this bit of my post:

Phone is still needed for those that don't have this option or would prefer direct conversation but Internet access is a good option for many even when their broadband line is down.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

You can't use 'most people' as a reason for non-service. I don't have a mobile phone at all. I have a land line.

If you are running a business I'm afraid you can. You are an increasingly rare breed. I should think the number of people without a landline now far exceeds the number without a mobile phone.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/facts

6% of the population who don't have a mobile is a hell of a lot who are cut off when the landline fails!

Edited by jelv (Tue 05-Sep-17 18:14:57)

The other significant figure is "Proportion of adults who live in a mobile-only home" at 18% (up 4% in one year), which I think supports my assertion.

In reply to a post by kasg:

The other significant figure is "Proportion of adults who live in a mobile-only home" at 18% (up 4% in one year), which I think supports my assertion.

No landline here. Well we have one in the cupboard for "testing" purposes.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

In reply to a post by kasg:

The other significant figure is "Proportion of adults who live in a mobile-only home" at 18% (up 4% in one year), which I think supports my assertion.

No landline here. Well we have one in the cupboard for "testing" purposes.

Handset you mean, You have a landline of course unless your on FTTP?

University students are also adults. Those living in Halls of Residence or similar no doubt use the supplied wifi. As far as they are concernrd, no lsndline.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

University students are also adults. Those living in Halls of Residence or similar no doubt use the supplied wifi. As far as they are concernrd, no lsndline.

I assumed by "we have one in the cupboard" meant they have a handset for testing and so must have a line to plug it into for said testing?

I was also taking into account the Ofcom definition of a mobile-only household in the earlier link. "Note 4" of the expanded section on "Landline and mobile statistics".

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I was also taking into account the Ofcom definition of a mobile-only household in the earlier link. "Note 4" of the expanded section on "Landline and mobile statistics".

okay

So all those people with no mobile phone should spend money to facilitate a third party's lack of service?

...or they can change ISP.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

So all those people w

Not necessarily. There are ways of obtaining the service. A mobile phone with Internet access is one of them.

I have been without fibre for over 2 weeks, so the online chat would be no good to me and to be honest I do not like these online chat things anyway.

My main problem with plusnet customer service is getting through to them in the first place, 20-30 mins is fart too long to be waiting for someone to answer the phone, but i must admit once through to them the service was ok. some things could have been done better and it did take far too long to get the service up and running again, but a lot of that is due to BTOR and the fact that the hybrid antique system we have in this country is falling apart and BTOR is just a useless inefficient company

I was looking for a better deal from another network before all this happened, but to be honest there is not much different in any of them and if this fault had happened if i was with Talk Talk I may have had far more problems as their customer service is awful.

Anyway, I have got a better deal , new modem router and a month free due to not have fibre for 2 weeks.

I had to borrow my neighbours BTOR modem as for some reason mine have given up, something must have happened to knock the line and the modem out. Saying that i have better speeds now than ever had.

My father has problems with his PN connection tonight, looks like the PN supplied router is not working. At the moment, a Sunday around 4PM, there is no online chat and waiting times on the phone is 45 mins. Very bad.

Don't think I've ever gotten much sense out of the chat facility anyway.

I've had 80/20 with BT and TTB for years - I move to Plusnet and using the same gear (Billion 8800NL) I can't get more than 64mbps.. The line rate is crippled too.

Going to migrate to BT for the black friday deals and I hope get my speeds back. PN seems to be the bargain bucket in every way and I hate that.

Trouble is when you get to this price point the ISP's are fairly similar in what they provide. I'd love to go back to IDnet but I don't know if I'll be able to realistically afford to do so. After all the trouble I had with TalkTalk years ago I would not touch them with the so called proverbial. That means I'm limited to say BT with their overseas call centres and that feeling that sorting anything is distant too. There's Sky which I've never been happy with when I've spoken to them - they always come across to me that DelBoy is running them (I have no idea why).

I'm not sure if I've covered all the largest UK ISP's but there's that other level (well there used to be ) before you reached the likes of Zen/Idnet/AAISP. Companies like NewNet I think filled that mid to higher tier, but I'm not sure who is in that bracket now and if their pricing and reliability is good?

In reply to a post by Vorlon:

Trouble is when you get to this price point the ISP's are fairly similar in what they provide. I

Bt Infinity wipes the floor with PN over speed and reliability as they dont seem to have this stupid gateway system.

Both around £29-£39 depending on the tier you choose.

Same system as you can use a BT hub on PN and vice versa

"You get what you pay for" generally. I follow that motto. While annoying it's usually unfortunately true.

I've never been with Plusnet but from what I read and hear it looks like it's slowly degrading into a provider that may be worse than TalkTalk Retail. I was with Zen who used to be fantastic but their customer service seems to have degraded after also suffering a line fault that was never truly fixed and slow single threaded download speeds which were never completely resolved either. I went to AAISP, but granted they are expensive and are a top tier provider as such, but was worth every penny for sure and I wouldn't dream of moving to a cheaper provider again unless their service also degraded later on (which I highly doubt it would haha).

But yeah, when prices get to the point they are at on ISP's like Plusnet then service quality is bound to drop sadly. Ofcom encourage competition and keeping prices down than actually thinking of the future in terms of technological advancement.

In reply to a post by Vorlon:

...mid to higher tier, but I'm not sure who is in that bracket now and if their pricing and reliability is good?

Check out Pulse8, a TalkTalk Business reseller (n.b., not TalkTalk Retail).

Small but very responsive when I was with them a year ago (I switched to a ridiculous Sky Black Friday deal because of cashflow).

In reply to a post by Ixel:

"You get what you pay for" generally. I follow that motto. While annoying it's usually unfortunately true.

I've never been with Plusnet but from what I read and hear it looks like it's slowly degrading into a provider that may be worse than TalkTalk Retail. I was with Zen who used to be fantastic but their customer service seems to have degraded after also suffering a line fault that was never truly fixed and slow single threaded download speeds which were never completely resolved either. I went to AAISP, but granted they are expensive and are a top tier provider as such, but was worth every penny for sure and I wouldn't dream of moving to a cheaper provider again unless their service also degraded later on (which I highly doubt it would haha).

But yeah, when prices get to the point they are at on ISP's like Plusnet then service quality is bound to drop sadly. Ofcom encourage competition and keeping prices down than actually thinking of the future in terms of technological advancement.

Agreed, The main reason I came to Plusnet was also to get some idea of usage. Everything in this house is streamed so I needed to see if my usage would fit with say AAISP (who was my next want of an ISP)

Month reset on the 13th and last week was 196GB mainly streaming Netflix and IPTV, SO if it stays like this then AAISP might well be the way to go.

BT Infinity was good - I was also with Zen but never again for reasons not of normality i'm sure.

I had NowTV which is basically Skys network - it's really not good around here - Virgin Media was OK until you went past 70mbps and then the network here is strangled and in the end I walked away without penally as my Tivo was being starved of enough juice to power it - let alone the other services.

Virgin Media Business on a 30/30 line for £149 a month looks viable and I know there wouldn't be a problem with that.

I wanted EoFTTC but AAISP just stopped selling it - and TTB do it from £100 a month but I prefer something with an SLA and stuff (better than it can offer anyway)

But yes - Plusnet was mainly for the stats. At £33 a month it's not really a cheap ISP - BT is £29,99 if I just had the 55mbps speed (and then £39,99 if I don't)

Edit:: I forgot to say that to be fair Plusnet preformed the same as the ISP before it - until the 10 days were up and then it just went into meltdown. Also it was right after I added a static IP, coincidence i'm sure.

Edited by deleted (Mon 20-Nov-17 11:44:16)

I see, yeah I used to be on some kind of BT Infinity package, though it was with BT Business. I found their support wasn't amazing however, I remember leaving them a negative but truthful survey as to how an issue I had was handled and I had a call back a few weeks later asking about it. Was a waste of a phone call though as they weren't going to convince me to change my feedback as they still weren't going to help me with the issue I still had at the time. The service itself, outside of a line issue, was fine though.

Later on I moved to Zen and was with them for a few years I believe. Initially a great service but now a poor one. Now I'm with AAISP as Zen failed to provide the support I needed which instead AAISP (via TalkTalk Business) did without any hassle or hesitation, credit to Shaun and Stuart. My line's still a bit odd but it's greatly improved (getting 80/20 at about 450m distance) from what it was before the SFI engineer visits I had. Wasn't charged for any of those visits and rightfully so, my line works fine as long as I use a long shielded RJ11 to BT LJU cable direct into the test socket and my DrayTek, any other combination of cable/filter/modem seems to produce excessive downstream errors and I have no idea why haha.

I went for their SoHo::1 2TB package which is via TalkTalk Business, probably overkill though as it looks like I use around 500-600GB a month. I would've gone for a 1TB option had there been one but it was only on Home::1 and I need multiple static IP adddresses. Plus there's a quota bonus system now so I can get up to a 4TB monthly allowance depending on how I use my current allowance. The new TalkTalk Business network I'm currently trialling is also amazing, I've never had a ping of 5 to 6 milliseconds to YouTube before.

Just seems like once an ISP becomes too big they appear to lose their quality, maybe not all but certainly most. Such a shame.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

I see, yeah I used to be on some kind of BT Infinity package, though it was with BT Business. I found their support wasn't amazing however, I remember leaving them a negative but truthful survey as to how an issue I had was handled and I had a call back a few weeks later asking about it. Was a waste of a phone call though as they weren't going to convince me to change my feedback as they still weren't going to help me with the issue I still had at the time. The service itself, outside of a line issue, was fine though.

Later on I moved to Zen and was with them for a few years I believe. Initially a great service but now a poor one. Now I'm with AAISP as Zen failed to provide the support I needed which instead AAISP (via TalkTalk Business) did without any hassle or hesitation, credit to Shaun and Stuart. My line's still a bit odd but it's greatly improved (getting 80/20 at about 450m distance) from what it was before the SFI engineer visits I had. Wasn't charged for any of those visits and rightfully so, my line works fine as long as I use a long shielded RJ11 to BT LJU cable direct into the test socket and my DrayTek, any other combination of cable/filter/modem seems to produce excessive downstream errors and I have no idea why haha.

I went for their SoHo::1 2TB package which is via TalkTalk Business, probably overkill though as it looks like I use around 500-600GB a month. I would've gone for a 1TB option had there been one but it was only on Home::1 and I need multiple static IP adddresses. Plus there's a quota bonus system now so I can get up to a 4TB monthly allowance depending on how I use my current allowance. The new TalkTalk Business network I'm currently trialling is also amazing, I've never had a ping of 5 to 6 milliseconds to YouTube before.

Just seems like once an ISP becomes too big they appear to lose their quality, maybe not all but certainly most. Such a shame.

I agree with the TTB network - Talk Talk Business was my last ISP and the warrington based service was good. I do regret moving and might well move back if my usage goes over 1TB - I didn't know that TTB does not block the IPTV network when there is a football match on - Plusnet does. and although I have a HH5A with LEDE on it - I can't get the VPN to work

The router TTB gave me was solid - and I would use the LEDE for AAISP too when/if I get there.

I'm going to wait for a PN price rise which will surely come and then move somewhere else - possibly just go to AAISP - like you said at the start, you get what you pay for.

Edit - Oh [censored]. I forgot Netflix is no longer included in the usage figures - so that 200GB a week would be just the 4K and the TV - Hmm, Might well have to look at the 2TB myself maybe

Edited by deleted (Mon 20-Nov-17 15:21:13)

In reply to a post by 23Prince:

I didn't know that TTB does not block the IPTV network when there is a football match on - Plusnet does.

How can Plusnet describe the service provided as "Unlimited" if they are doing this?

In reply to a post by jelv:

In reply to a post by 23Prince:

I didn't know that TTB does not block the IPTV network when there is a football match on - Plusnet does.

How can Plusnet describe the service provided as "Unlimited" if they are doing this?

If that's all about this then they don't seem to have had any choice.

If that is what was being alluded to then correct - Plusnet had no choice.

Perhaps 23Princes statement needs amending to insert the word "yet" - if they are not blocking such streams now they will do in the not to distant future!

Maybe it is TalkTalk Retail that is covered, but not TalkTalk Business.

In reply to a post by jelv:

If that is what was being alluded to then correct - Plusnet had no choice.

Perhaps 23Princes statement needs amending to insert the word "yet" - if they are not blocking such streams now they will do in the not to distant future!

It's not footy they block it's the whole thing. Even the freeview channels. I don't watch any football anyway but any EPL game results in this. I am considering dumping it anyway as I am going to give Virgin another try and if they block it - or the speed is finally decent the TV might follow.

Bob, TT Business don't do this, It was not until I moved from them that it started to affect me. NO idea on TT retail but I would assume so.

In reply to a post by 23Prince:

It's not footy they block it's the whole thing. Even the freeview channels.

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me. What on earth are you talking about?

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by 23Prince:

It's not footy they block it's the whole thing. Even the freeview channels.

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me. What on earth are you talking about

I thought some Freeview and Youview channels were IPTV?

In reply to a post by awontroba:

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by 23Prince:

It's not footy they block it's the whole thing. Even the freeview channels.

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me. What on earth are you talking about

I thought some Freeview and Youview channels were IPTV?

Fair enough, many Youview channels and a few Freeview channels are delivered that way, but to suggest that Plusnet blocks them when there is a football match on is preposterous, of course they don't.

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by 23Prince:

It's not footy they block it's the whole thing. Even the freeview channels.

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me. What on earth are you talking about?

The EPL have a court order so the ISP's block the server, that means it blocks ALL the channels on the service, not just the football channels.

In reply to a post by awontroba:

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by 23Prince:

It's not footy they block it's the whole thing. Even the freeview channels.

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me. What on earth are you talking about

I thought some Freeview and Youview channels were IPTV?

On this service we get ALL the channels, freeview, Sky, Worldwide, Movies, PPV etc..

When the EPL games are on - the server does not connect, but now I have managed to sort the VPN out - it's no longer a problem.