In reply to:

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I have to admit that I would be tempted to drop the priority of action for a abusive customer to the back of the queue!

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Having had a job in the cs industry for 3 and a half years, it's this kind of attitude that makes CS departments bad. You would be instantly sacked for gross misconduct, and any CS rep that did this should have exactly the same treatment.

A CS department is there to resolve customer difficulties. Most times customers will be irate with a situation having exhausted every other avenue for resolution. Whilst abusive behaviour is not appreciated or generally not tolerated, a simple "The customer support staff at x company are paid to provide customers with support. The tone of your e-mail is abusive and will not be tolerated. Please refrain from using abusive language."

It's all it takes, and you calm the customer down by such language and provide clear answers to ALL of their questions. Additionally, any decent CS department would have a clear and well defined escalation process. If you have an irate customer, put them on hold for a few minutes and have a supervisor take over the call. Most times the customer will be happy that they are finally being listened to and the cooling down time gives them time to reflect on their behaviour.

I should also admit that I consider myself socially unsuited to working in CS at this level. I fully accept your view of how to deal with such situations but I contend:

a) that no CS agent should have to put up with abuse in the course of his/het work

b) as a customer, I am likely to get better service by being well mannered and pleasant.

....that's all, no more, no less ....

I am in violent agreement with you last statement. We are buying a SERVICE from an ISP and not a commodity. Unfortunately, most of the discussion on the desirability of an ISP revolves around bits, bytes and pennies. There is absolutely no point in paying for a service unless the delivery of that service meets your requirements.

With Broadband, there is no SLA and you can only remedy poor service by taking your business elsewhere. Fortunately, for IPStream customers, the switching process is fairly painless and a poorly performing supplier will soon find itself devoid of customers. It is not out of some sense of benevolence that PlusNet are working to resolve the problems caused by their change of policy to customer service.

In assessing PlusNet, I have looked hard at comparable suppliers capable of meeting MY needs considering MY priorities for service. The only reason that I am still with PlusNet is that they are serving my (modest) needs. During the time that I have been with PlusNet, I have switched Gas and Electricity suppliers three times and Telephone service providers four times. Yes, I am a "tart" in this respect bit not just a "rate" tart.

I consider PlusNet to be a Low-Cost supplier catering to the needs of users with low to moderate data transfer usage and non-critical continuity of service. I don't think that PlusNet would (publicly) agree with me but their recent changes in direction have convinced me that this is true. For example, the level of project management and especially change control discipline practiced falls far short of that that I am used to when supplying the Banking and Financial Services industry. However, I don't run such a business on my BB connection and if I did, I would probably find a more suitable supplier.

Finally, I would agree that PlusNet seem to have a lot of inexperienced people who do seem to drop some incredible clangers! In stark contrast, they also have some very highly motivated and extremely competent people who I believe will turn around the company if only the suits would listen to them.

R

Edited by deleted (Fri 25-Aug-06 21:46:07)

I am truly happy to see that you could see my post for what it meant and even agree with the shortcomings. Personally I rather not complain about PN or any other ISP for that matter but PN keep behaving in a way to alienate its customers. There will always be companies that don't provide service but even the most laid back will learn and move on but with PN a number of cusotmers seem to be locked in without choice.

The problem here is that they used to be able to provide a service but I genuinley do not think they will ever be able to anymore. I also sometimes forget when I claim that