Hi there,

We are growing our support centre at a massive rate (the CSC now has more people than the entire business did 18 months ago). I don't think it's fair to say we're not recruiting at the right speed, cos we're recruiting a little ahead of the curve.

Those people need training though, and I personally think it takes approx 6 months to get to a point where an agent is technically able and confident enough to handle all queries they get.

We do have problems at the moment, particularly in the faults and prov sections, but these problems are not entirely our own doing (there have been a larger number of faults on 21CN for instance, Openreach have had engineer availability issues, and there are some problems around number porting at the moment).

Not only do these issues result in more contacts, but they reduce the efficiency of the CSC as we have to spend longer dealing with each contact.

We are working through this, and we are implementing system changes over the next couple of months which will help massively. Obviously these changes also carry a training overhead as well, and require extensive testing, so it's not a magic fix for all problems.

Employing even more agents right now will not help, nor will stopping signups. Whilst I don't doubt that your suggestion was serious I don't think you'd honestly find any business saying we don't want more customers, especially not in this industry.

In reply to a post by jelv:

Don't you find it significant that nobody from Plusnet has responded?

Yeah, sorry about that.

You may have noticed we've been a bit busy lately, what with the monster thread over on Community and the associated work.

In reply to a post by mand_beckett:

You may have noticed we've been a bit busy lately, what with the monster thread over on Community and the associated work.

Would that be anything to do with the ACS:Law debacle and unencrypted transmission by Plusnet of personal details via email?

Another sample:

In reference to community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,89738.0.html:

My Plusnet Telephone and Broadband package was supposed to start on 26th September but apart from a few days of unreliable and intermittent service using my previous providers router I have had no Telephone or Broadband service since that date. I am having to post this from my public library.
I think I have been exceptionally understanding and patient up to this point. I am EXTREMELY unhappy at the lack of customer service I have experienced and unless I get some satisfaction very soon I will be terminating my relationship with Plusnet.

One of the team is looking at that post, however you need to remember that there is no context behind what's actually been done to rectify the issue, when it was actually raised to us nor any actions/appointments that have happened.

I understand you're trying to point out issues where support haven't acted as swiftly or as well as expected, however it's worth noting that this happens with nearly any company you deal with. We're making a number of internal process changes, along with extra on-shift coaching/training to eradicate as many problems as we can.

Thanks.

All you've said emphasises the point I'm making:

Don't move to Plusnet - at the moment

Until you've got back on track with response times where they should be and all the new support staff working as they should, if anything goes wrong people can expect delays in getting it sorted.

The recent ramp up in advertising (the new television adverts) BEFORE the support issues are resolved is utter madness. If the campaigns lead to an increase in rate at which people join Plusnet things are going to get worse before they get better!

I take it you'll be equally quick to ensure customers when the all clear sounds, and they can consider Plusnet as a viable option once more?

Quick isn't the word I'd use to describe me giving the warning - I've posted about this previously on the Community forums and in hindsight I think a much earlier warning would have been appropriate.

Time will tell when (if ever) it's appropriate to rescind the warning. It's obvious BT want Plusnet to compete directly with the likes of TalkTalk and the bean counters have sway. At the moment they seem intent on competing with them on price, speed and time to resolve problems. Long gone are the days of Plusnet being a quality provider for the technically astute to compete with the likes of Zen and A&A.

Personally I'm subscribed to the A&A newsgroup and their forum on here to get a feel for what they are like. Being without broadband for any period would be disastrous for me so I'm keeping everything crossed that I don't suffer a fault.

And still they keep coming:

In reference to community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,89746.0.html:

My line was connected on the 17th of Sept and I have been completely unable to connect to the internet through the Thomson gatweway.

Since the beginning I was adamant that the problem lay in my account details, but a combination of telephone technical services and question support staff think its down to the hardware.

The router I was originally sent me would not let me connect to the internet when I entered my [email protected] and my password stating an "authentication error", a friends spare router had the same issue, so I was sent a test router which had the same problem as the others.

I think it must be related to a problem that the other user had mentioned in his thread as an..."authentication at the exchnage with BT" but so far no one from the Plusnet team has mentioned this.

The plusnet team has responded that they are contacting BT as "When we test using the plusdsl.net "realm" our supplier tests fail, so I am passing this fault to them to resolve. I am very sorry for any delay so far in resolving this."

To be honest I am unsure why it has taken them this long to test this as the issue was raised on the 21st of Sept and I have maintained that the problem does not lie in the hardware. Could someone please just confirm that this is the correct course of action to take as the other user was told by a forum administrator that she would his fix the issue (which is exactly the same as mine) on same day nd I dont want to wait another 3 days to be told that the issue is still not resolved!

Latest update was that it was reported to BT TODAY! Nearly 4 weeks for Plusnet to get on top of a realm/authentication problem. JoJo of the Digital care team is now on the case so it will now probably be sorted quickly - but it shouldn't be needing the Digital Care team it be constantly following behind CSC picking up the poo!

Twas tongue in cheek by the way.