WOW, WOW, and WOW

Didn't see this one coming....

But, in a nutshell PlusNet, as a small but fast-growing company, made the classic mistake of putting its shareholders before its customers. As a result behaviour in the company often focused on fixing the symptom rather than the cause. This applied to the number of customer support staff we had, the whole approach to customer service, the amount of bandwidth available in the network and the product designs we had. But rather than coming to terms with *why* two customers were waging war in our forum, the two customers were told in no uncertain terms to leave. A terrible, terrible mistake which we are still paying for in more ways than one.

http://community.plus.net/blog/2008/01/24/flashback-to-the-dark-days/#more-8427

Plusnet standing up and admitting the Wadev 4 was the wrong decision made by them.

I am glad to see that Plusnet can now speak about this and perhaps now, some of those posters who gave us rebels so much grief, can now see the reason why the posts were there in the first place.

That to me is one of the best explanations ever given by Plusnet and may "The Gerald Ratner way of running a business" never ever happen again.

That must have taken a lot of guts Neil, but at last it all came out in the end.

Good luck in the future, rebuilding the once great Plusnet Empire, hopefully you will get it back, the signs are looking good so far.

In reply to:

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"Inviting customers to leave, kicking them off the service altogether or squeezing their bandwidth until they get fed up and leave might seem like simple short-term solutions..."

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Wow indeed. That is quite an admission, and one that describes exactly how I felt upon leaving Plusnet a year ago, throttled to death and an 'unwanted' customer.

Well, if Plusnet would like to refund my account that I had, in the form of an account credit for a few months, I will move one of my accounts back to them, to see for myself if infact they have really changed.

After all, it is a fair request seems as they have now admitted that they forced us to leave.

My Newnet account is due to expire soon......

It isn't brave to admit it at all. Most people knew exactly what was happening, but were vilified, hounded and eventually summarily thrown out. What strikes me are some of the staff responsible are still sitting happily in their highly paid jobs.

The people who denied the throttling, the people who sacked customers and the people who lied constantly when asked questions on various forums are still employed by Plusnet.

I agree things have changed for the better since the buy out, but I don't believe for one moment that all the problems were down to one man.

The fact that Neil felt he had to go over old ground is maybe an indication that he didn't feel happy with what was happening at the time. However as I recall he played his full part, as did others.

I don't want this to turn into a slanging match, but wanted to have my say. I can't forgive dishonesty just because 12/13 years later someone wants to unburden themselves. What was happening was morally wrong and possible legaly wrong.

End of rant, my last word on the subject.

In reply to:

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Sure Plusnet made a lot of mistakes at the time but I don

In reply to:

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That must have taken a lot of guts Neil, but at last it all came out in the end.

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I'd take most of it with a pinch of salt. I don't believe for one minute they've got substantially more CSC staff. In fact, the webcams lead me to believe they've got less. Back in 2005 so many changes were made to the network (heavier throttling introduced, migrations to Tiscali) that the CSC fell over through the volume of calls.

There have been other "dark days" for PN and this incident isn't unique. The Great Friaco Turkey Shoot was the method of dealing with people who 'abused' dial up. I think most providers are guilty of firing sections of their customer base at one time or another. The question is, how will they deal with the next access techology when it goes mass market and price breaks from the dominant network provider are withdrawn? They'll do exactly the same again because the market will dictate it.

TT

The Tom Ahonen blog about the decline of Sprint Nextel, referenced in Neil_A's blog, makes for very scary reading - especially to anyone in marketing or PR, and even more especially to anyone in marketing or PR who has disposed of unwanted customers in the wrong way. Scary enough perhaps to drive such a marketing or PR man to make a confession and thereby to seek absolution for himself and his company.

I find the timing of today's blog interesting, if only because it seems to have been prompted by nothing more than another blog about a different company. Perhaps that's reason enough to suddenly hang one's dirty laundry out to dry... But of course I can't help wondering whether the corporate BT PR machine had something to do with it. I thought that the blog was extremely well written... better written by far than any article or post that I have seen from any member of PlusNet's staff.

And yet it still doesn't hit the mark. The Tom Ahonen blog begs Sprint Nextel to apologise to the 1000 customers it offended for there was no other route to absolution. Neil_A expresses regret and confesses mistakes but makes no apology; and as far as I know, PlusNet has never even attempted to apologise directly to the customers who it now admits were wrongly dismissed.

So the blog seeks absolution without rectification. It cleanses without curing. It says the right things so that it can be seen to be saying the right things. But the question remains: can PlusNet do the right thing rather than merely talk about it in a theoretical and somewhat superficial way?

Another of the companies referenced in the Tom Ahonen blogs made good its past mistakes in a the kind of concrete way which proves its conversion to true customer service. JetBlue Airways published a "Customer Bill of Rights" which set out in stone what level of financial compensation would be paid to any customer who suffered poor service in the future. And it spelled out specifically what service failings would qualify for compensation.

PlusNet needs to go the extra mile in order to convince its own staff as much as its current and potential customers, that it is genuinely committed to a new way of life. Now is a good time to do that, when service levels are better and product descriptions and expectations are more realistic than they have been in the past. It's only common sense really: if PlusNet loses a customer's email then it must undertake to pay compensation. How many apologies need to be made before they become completely meaningless?

So, here's hoping that Neil_A's fine words will shortly be backed up with some fine deeds. We've been there before of course, in discussions, but there seem to be too many people at PlusNet who don't understand that actions count, not words.

Simon

The question I ask; Are Plusnet a better company now ?

Yes several 100% better.

Thanks