Obviously I hadn't tried any of them, hmm, oh yes I hadm the telepohne was the only option where I couldn't be ignored.

Wrong again, everytime through an automated system and then either use the secure portal or disconnected.

See my other thread for how long my question has been going on for.

I can admit that when I started with PlusNet the ticket system and customer service was a lot better, but then it went downhill and quickly at that. If they still worked in the old way, I wouldn't have migrated or took court action against them.

The Premier package is about

I've noticed that anyone PlusNet customer who posts here, admits they are a customer, and doesn't just slag them off is attacked, or feels that they are being attacked.
-----
I agree that would be shocking but I haven't seen it happening. Could you post links to a couple of examples?
-----
This forum has become like certain Usenet forums full of trolls as far as I can see from my recent browsing.
-----
It is certainly full of (often constructive) criticism - but that's PlusNet's responsibility. Criticism isn't the same as trolling, otherwise you would be guilty of trolling yourself when you said: "It seems as though Plus have got it wrong again, and that Tiscalli retail is beginning to look attractive."
-----
I think I'll remove my notification of PlusNet forum posts, in case I'm tempted to come back.
-----
Hopefully you will change your mind about that. Prospective new PlusNet customers who come here would appreciate your balanced viewpoint, especially as the PlusNet reps have run away. But I think you would have to accept that this isn't a dedicated PlusNet support forum, unlike the other places. General PlusNet discussions take place here, sometimes between disenchanted customers or ex-customers. That's life.
-----
If any customers want to have problems solved, the best forum is PUG.
-----
It seems strange to me that the official community support forum on the PlusNet portal isn't the best place to get problems solved. It certainly is the most logical place. But it is true that anyone with a specific CS issue to raise would be better off in the forums where PlusNet staff sometimes post.
-----
Unfortunately nobody is permitted to have a good word to say about PlusNet.
-----
That's simply not true. But there do seem to be growing numbers of complaints in all the PlusNet forums - even those where disenchanted ex-customers are excluded.

Simon

I'll reply to one part of this post, as it is relevant to customers who want help.

In reply to:

---

If any customers want to have problems solved, the best forum is PUG.
-----
It seems strange to me that the official community support forum on the PlusNet portal isn't the best place to get problems solved. It certainly is the most logical place. But it is true that anyone with a specific CS issue to raise would be better off in the forums where PlusNet staff sometimes post.[.quote]

The official PlusNet forums are the logical place to post.
There are still plenty of complaints, but I see the company actually doing something to solve them.
CS agents can't be everywhere and if they're reading and posting on forums they're not answering tickets or the phone. So the fewer places to go if you want to bring a long-standing problem to the attention of the experienced CS people, the more chance of your problem being seen and answered.

But the official forums is where customers help other customers. Post a technical problem there, one that somebody with the knowledge may be able to sort without access to CS equipment, and you'll probably have several people doing their best to help.

Of course LLU is another story. PlusNet has problems with the supplier and if a fault is caused by Tiscalli LLU there is nothing that can be done other than pushing Tiscalli. Tiscalli won't even agree to lower SNR profiles, although 12 dB is too high for many, and Tiscalli won't remove interleaving. They also take far too long to even look at fault reports and have been known to lose them.

That's why most people opted out, and why PlusNet puts everyone back on IPStream at their own expense if they either opted out and were moved anyway, or if they've had a long time with no connection.

It's nothing to do with ex-customers. If you walk you've turned your back on that company.
Every ISP has a large number of unhappy ex-customers and I'm an unhappy ex-customer of some of them. But I've never posted on their forums saying how useless/terrible/incompetent they are.

This is also the only forum I see that is full of ex-customers and non-customers with hardly any present customers.

PlusNet could become the best ISP on the planet and the disgruntled ex-customers would still be talking as though the situation when they left was still going on.

If I started posting in the BT forum, say, complaining about all the problems I'd had with BT, which led me to leave, what point would there be in that?
BT giving at least three people the same email address was just one minor complaint and it was impossible to resolve. This was particularly bad as the other two identical addresses were businesses and orders went astray. I became very tired of forwarding business mail to these people on a regular basis.

In fact I'd say that what BT did was illegal.

So why don't the ex-customers feel that they have a mission to warn everyone away from PlusNet? Because that is the impression I get, reading this board. I do see a few posts from PlusNet customers, and they are far more positive than the negative ex-customer postings.

An example of what annoys me, people rubbing their hands in glee because a few certificates were out of date. Those things happen sometimes to just about everyone and are easily corrected, as that one was. So why post it as though it's a good thing, same as posting never-ending streams of share prices...providing the value is dropping.. never posting any increase. That is negativity at the very least, and I could call it more than that..

<Quote>

There are still plenty of complaints, but I see the company actually doing something to solve them.
CS agents can't be everywhere and if they're reading and posting on forums they're not answering tickets or the phone.

</Quote>

I think that you'll find that the likes of James Bailey are actually paid to answer questions on these such forums under the fact that they are marketing based people and not CSC staff members.

What they do on the forums does not have any effect on the phones not being answered, this has been outlined and agreed by James in the past.

It has been confirmed by Plus.net that the fact that even the Plus.net COO is having to "put in a couple of hours" of support himself tells you how deep seated the problems at Plus.net are.

Edited by caesar_salad (Mon 21-Aug-06 09:27:25)

"But the official forums is where customers help other customers. Post a technical problem there, one that somebody with the knowledge may be able to sort without access to CS equipment, and you'll probably have several people doing their best to help. "

Its nice to know the distinction, can you tell me where it says that on either of those forums, so that customers do not go to the wong place?

Nice of other customers to "do their best". Pity that the technical people at PN can never find the time to do though.

The forums at PUG have areas where only customers can post, the portal forums are almost exclusively for customers to post, the "guest forum" is for basic questions about Pn others are blocked or locked (have no issues with that). So how many forums exclusively to PN customers do you want?

And if PN want more I guess if they offered that 3million they have to ADSL guide they could own and moderate this forum in the same sharp shooting from the hip way they do their other two.

Don't you also feel you have a duty to warn unsuspecting customers that BT operate, in your words, "illegally" ? If you know that situation I think you do, IMHO. But if all the issues have now changed and you are simply harping back, then that does not help a lot, but if you were talking about issues that were still current or new current issues and had some worthwhile knowledge of the legal position, that is valid comment.

If you read these forums, very few posts, if any, refer to past issues unless those issues are still current and some of the ex-customers on here have the detailed information about those situations and they have detailed information about newer situations. Now I think those people have a duty to new and present customers to share that.

What would be a trolling position is if they simply trolled other ISP's that they have no connection with (and never had), which is what you seem to want to be done. In other words you are encouring people on here to become trolls. But that perhaps gets them out of PN's hair, allows customers to continue in the dark about issues where PN is being lesss than open and IMHO honest about issues like selling non-products, (a court case just won on that ols potato), which is where you seem to want to put the long suffering PN customers.

Finanly, if they get some of the serious outstanding items sorted, appologise for their continuing harrassment of pr100, you might get your wish

1. If you want to stop non/ex-customers from posting here - I believe you will fail

2. The staff from PN who reply or post on any forum are from the marketing team and not technical support. Their role is damage limitation. If people could get through to support and get a proper resolution in the first instance then posts for help would be rare and not the norm. If you look at the posts asking for help they usually refer to an open ticket that hasn't been answered for over 3-4 days in most cases hence technical support is failing to resolve the issue or even deal with them..

3. I am sure some people get replied to fairly swiftly but it is not the norm and hence the concern and even outrage from existing customers.

4. You chose not to post on the BT forum, that was your choice and people are individuals and will not copy your behaviour all the time. However you are intent on imposing your wishes on everyone else when instead you should be accepting that different people will react differently. You question the motivation of those that still post here but the same could be asked of you and why you don't post on the BT forum and make others aware of the problem but people don't do this because they know it is a choice you made and respect it. Can you do the same?

5. This is a free country and people can do as they please as long as they abide by the rules, the pertinent rules in this case being those of ADSG forum posting rules.

6. The only people who have started arguments here over the last month are existing customers claiming vendettas and personal attacks. Not one has been able to show this to be the case even when asked for proof. If anything I suggest you read the PN portal and tell us that people aren't angry or even getting personal against PN.

7. Criticisms, observations and discussion of a negative nature are not personal attacks or vendettas. If a company keeps making errors or creating blunders you can hardly blame the observer and writer for stating the obvious but that is what you are doing.

8. The reason the PN fora are as busy as they are compared to others is because of the state of play. I don't have first hand knowledge of other companies but it seems that PN's customers have had and are having major difficulties in relation to service and support from their ISP and hence it is natural for more negative posts that reflect that.

9 Your claim that 90% of existing customers are happy and satisfied - can you actually prove that?

10. I am sure that there are some customers who have had no problems, no connection issues etc. with PN and I am happy for them. I don't expect them to ask for a MAC code and leave since they have no reason to.

11. Either you or someone else mentioned about Eclipse and how we should go help them with their LLU problems but I have no relationship to Eclipse and hence I won't post in that forum. I had two people contact me in relation to the legal aspect to the contract with Eclipse and I am indeed helping them but via PM.

Edited by rsharma (Mon 21-Aug-06 12:37:37)

The official PlusNet forums are the logical place to post.
There are still plenty of complaints, but I see the company actually doing something to solve them.
-----
As was the case here, the PN reps pick off the ticket-type complaints and do something about them. That's good PR rather than good CS because up to 95% of complainants never find their way to the forums.
-----
CS agents can't be everywhere and if they're reading and posting on forums they're not answering tickets or the phone.
-----
Not so. The reps who post in the forums are not the same agents who man the phone lines or respond to tickets.
-----
But the official forums is where customers help other customers. Post a technical problem there, one that somebody with the knowledge may be able to sort without access to CS equipment, and you'll probably have several people doing their best to help.
-----
The same is true of the unofficial forums, including this one. But it still seems illogical to me that PlusNet are telling customers to take their questions out of the official portal forum (which they own and manage) and post instead on the PUG forum which allegedly is neither owned nor managed by PlusNet.
-----
Of course LLU is another story. PlusNet has problems with the supplier and if a fault is caused by Tiscalli LLU there is nothing that can be done other than pushing Tiscalli.
-----
PlusNet have admitted that they were responsible for some of the LLU mistakes. And of course there is plenty that PlusNet can do to resolve and/or mitigate these problems -- including offering customers subscription refunds which step has belatedly been taken. And stopping the LLU migrations which has also finally happened. They should also have notified all LLU victims that they could encounter serious service problems and they should have kept to their word about giving advance notification and opt-outs to all those customers. So, despite what you say, most of the LLU mess is PlusNet's own doing.
-----
That's why most people opted out, and why PlusNet puts everyone back on IPStream at their own expense if they either opted out and were moved anyway, or if they've had a long time with no connection.
-----
Is it a fact that most people opted out? I would be grateful to see that data. My impression was that while most of the forum regulars may have opted out, the great majority of folk (95%) who don't visit the forums were not given any notice of the opt-out facility, despite PlusNet's promise to email them all in advance. And when they now complain that they weren't given the promised opt-out option and ask to be put back on IPStream, PlusNet are not helping them unless they are experiencing serious downtime. The inescapable conclusion is that PlusNet did not want people to opt out because it was profitable for PlusNet to migrate as many as possible to Tiscali LLU.

No doubt both Tiscali Wholesale and BTw have contributed to the LLU problems but only PlusNet are responsible for them to customers. No customer should be putting up with an unsatisfactory LLU experience on the false understanding that PlusNet aren't responsible for it.

Thankfully, it looks as though Ofcom have reacted to the complaints of PlusNet (and other ISP) customers and are now proposing regulations which will put a stop to PlusNet's game.

Simon