Plus pit

I have just made the mistake of signing up my umpteenth client to Pluspit! I swore a month ago I would not recommend anymore, but being stupid I have!

Applied for broadband Tuesday (15th) last week, followed the tracker and informed it would be active after twelve midday this Tuesday (22nd).

Had an email Monday afternoon at 2pm saying it was now active. So yesterday I drove thirty miles to setup the connection only to find it is not active! I have used two computers, two filters a modem and a router. I have left it plugged direct into the BT master socket.

I rang Pluspits and they only allowed me to leave a message on answer phone, saying they would call back within eight hours Ha! Ha! It

Who are pluspit?? I think you must be on the wrong forum.

No, I got the right forum. Plusnet are supposed to be the provider and pluspit is my pet name for a company that I think is the pits!

Well your really quite the wordsmith arent you.

Not really, just totally fed up with Plusnet. I am now trying to get a Mac key to migrate, and even that seems like it is going to take forever.

I have the feeling I will be better off just cancelling the account and applying to some other ISP.

Cost you

Yes I know, but at least I might find an ISP that is willing to sort your problems or at least talk to you.

WhenI posted this morning I had aPM within minutes from an employee of Plusnet offering help. Told me to PM me details back, so I did. Not heard a word since. I think I'd sooner gamble on another company and loose 47 quid!

As it is, I think it originally cost around

Are you helping an existing customer or are you here to [censored] off anyone who has anything negative to say about their experience?

If this is a new connection then you can use PN's refund guarantee. If the connection has never worked you won't be affected. Raise a ticket and ask for a MAC code if you migrated in or cancel the connection and sign them up to someone else.

http://www.plus.net/switch/index.shtml

Edited by rsharma (Wed 23-Aug-06 16:06:24)

I going to close my plusnet account, as it happens I hardly pay anything monthly for my account because of referrals. All I am asking is if anybody can tell how to either get a new account active that plusnet say was activated on Monday, or get the account closed and my customers money refunded!

That is what I have replied to above. Raise a ticket and ask for a MAC code. You could ask them to fix it but it seems you have tried that already. For a MAC code you do have to raise a ticket, that is the only way they generate one.

rsharma,

Thank you for the advice, that is just type of thing I wanted to know. Sorry if you think I have had a rant but, i really am just totally fed with this supplier.

I`m sorry, if the existing customer had titled his post with the correct name of the supplier, I might have been inclined to help him.

You are welcome and I do understand.

Without getting into an argument with you I want to state the obvious here. If someone is at the end of the tether and has tried everything possible to resolve it then a little rant or venting frustration is fairly normal. Either you can help him or you can't but to post what you did in no way helped his position. If you want this forum to be for help to customers you too will have to act in the same way that you ask others.

If someone wants genuine help, then labelling the post "Pluspit" is not going to acheive anything. The people able to offer real help will simply assume its yet another plusnet rant and skip it. In my opinion. I also find it odd that for someone who has so many customers with plusnet, and has had problems in the past, this as his first ever post on ADLSguide.

Why are you trying to put a username and password into the router if it has no synch?

>>I have just made the mistake of signing up my umpteenth client to Pluspit! I swore a month ago I would not recommend anymore, but being stupid I have!


Was it greed for the referral that made you make this mistake ? Even tho you swore a month ago that you would not recommend plusnet to anyone . Its the only explanation i can think of to why you recommended plusnet, when you obviously hate them so much

This is just my humble observation .

I believe as long as you keep your account as a dialup-PAYG only one, then you should get all your referral credit still, transferred to you into your bank account.

In the event that the router does get a sync then it will start "just working".

I`m curious as to what make router it is, from my experience, you can input a username and password without it having synch.

That's correct, although Plusnet originally told me otherwise.

After my account was changed to a Pay as you go dial-up, following broadband migration, I then input bank sort code/account details to allow referral payments to be made monthly (if under

Footys,

First I apollogise for my rant, I have been with plusnet for around six years. I would not have stayed that long if I had not been satisfied, which for five years I was, very much so! Hence that is why I have never had need nor felt it necessary to appear on one of these forums.

Having said that, I now find that since around March yhings have gone on a downward spiral for me and my customers. Yes, you probably right part greed but also hoping things would improove. Better the devil you do know then the one you don't. I will leave, and no I do not know where to, but cancelling seems for me to be my personal option.

Once again, I take your point nand sorry if your upset by my comments.

I wasnt upset at all, and I thank you for clarfying those points.

It never used to be this way, in fact it only changed in the last couple of months and yes you do get the payment when the balance reaches

Now I understand. There are TWO Plusnets. The one you call Plus pit and the other one that I have had 3 yrs excellent service with.

So which one is the real Plus.net, whill they please stand up? [lol]

Of course there will always be problems with any companies, whether large or small and yes, even the best companies sometimes screw up!

That is excellent news but when is the last time you had to contact them?

If you haven't had the need then you are very fortunate and in fact are receiving a service that most would want but this is where it falls down. I don't "want" to contact my ISP if I can help it because I would much more prefer to have a stable connection but if I do get a technical problem but can't contact them, don't get a response or it never gets fixed then I too would be unhappy.

The point I am trying to make is not about connection issues but rather that an ISP shows it's worth when you have to contact them for a problem and by this standard PN are failing miserably amongst other things and well documented too. Perhaps you could try and call them or raise a ticket and see if you get though? All these people posting here having problems aren't the exception, you are, and it should be the other way around.

With the greatest respect, it is now some time since you were a customer of PlusNet and as a current customer of PlusNet, I can tell you that my tickets raised in the past month have ALL had replies posted within a few hours of posting. Many replies are received within two hours.

I would add two observations:

1) PlusNet agents seem to cherry pick the tickets, replying to the more straightforward questions quickly to keep the number of outstanding questions low. Also, any question requiring referral to another department or the wholesale supplier take longer though the referral is visible to the customer on the ticket.

2) PlusNet agents are human and they do react to bad temper. I would advise anybody communicating with customer service agents (anywhere) to mind their manners and avoid venting their frustration on the person. 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!

Remember also that it is only the bad experiences that get aired here. People with good experience rarely ever come here.

R

Edited by deleted (Fri 25-Aug-06 16:50:59)

I have no doubt about what you say and you have first hand knowledge but I would like to pick up on the last point.

1. It is of course true that people generally post here when they have problems but the frequency and amount of complaints combined on here, PUG and PN's own fora clearly demonstrate that these problems are not isolated and if anything are disproportionate for the number of customers that they have. Would you agree?

2. Would you also agree that the tickets that do get answered after being cherry picked still suffer from too much inaccurate information or missing the issues altogether?

3. Are the response times you got on the tickets indicative of the majority or are you in the minority?

PN, like any other ISP will have their fair share of problems but the lack of good CS will cause many more problems. This is the most fundamental issue. If someone experiences a technical issue they would no doubt be patient as long as they could actually get hold of CS and feel that they were being taken care of but this is exactly what is lacking and hence when they don't hear back the customer is starting to get frustrated and angry and why their next response is more than likely an angry one. People don't just pay for a connection, they also expect good customer service and technical support.

In reply to:

---

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!

---

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