Worst Business Support of any UK ISP

PlusNet, we'll do you proud.

Unless you're paying more for a "business" connection, which has an issue.

In which case we'll be utterly unhelpful to the point where as a customer you lose it.

The claim:

"Unrivalled phone and online support from our dedicated 24/7 UK-based Business Support Team. You can self-serve your account too."

You can't "self-serve" most things at all - so that's nonsense. You can't change most settings, set reverse DNS, configure Annex M and so on - indeed you can't with the partner portal either if you're unlucky enough to be a "partner.

24/7 - yes, they (eventually) answer the phone, but every time I've had to deal with them they cannot actually help at all and just say it'll be looked at 9-5.

"At the heart of Plusnet is our Business Support Team. We hand pick our most skilled staff and train them to deliver unrivalled levels of customer service. They're on the same floor, all under one roof in the UK."

Except that they can't actually do anything - they're not empowered. The issue I have apparently needs the "network" team - who are on a different floor, and apparently can't be spoken to on the phone (by us as customers or even by them as fellow employers) - gotta have a ticket for that.

"We'll make it easy for you to get in touch"

You haven't at all. It takes ages to get through, and then you're just told whatever it is isn't supported, or the person has no idea what you're talking about but is not empowered to escalate it to someone who is.

"We'll take ownership"

Also a blatant lie - nobody has taken ownership, everyone has passed the buck.

"We'll explain things on your terms"

Well no - you don't - you say you'll talk technical, but thus far I've failed to find anyone who can talk technically at all - given I've been told they don't support "port forwarding" (when what I want fixed is them blocking incoming connections at network level).

"That's why we set ourselves target response times."

Really? A fault that means an incoming service on a connection simply does not work (because it's being blocked), means you can expect to spend a whole day getting anyone to let you log a ticket that they'll send to networks (if I'd played the plusnet game the "there's nothing we can do" would have ended it).

It took all day to get someone to actually log the damn ticket to networks (and took me getting pretty irritated having wasted an entire day on a simple issue).

And now... I have to wait up to 2 days for someone to actually look at the issue that in theory has the power to actually fix it.

For those who are wondering what's wrong... it's really not difficult.

PlusNet are blocking incoming TCP/21 connections to our Static IP range. The "broadband firewall" is off, and so on, and it's absolutely 100% not my config or my kit, if I change the port to another, it works but that's not practical for other reasons as an actual fix. If I take the same router, and change only the WAN details, it all works (eg on another ISP).

If for some reason you're insane enough to think Plusnet Business is a good choice, I cannot suggest strongly enough that they are far from "good". I've had many dealings with them for myself and other people, and none of them have been good.

The front line staff have absolutely no ability to do anything, cannot speak to anyone that has any power to fix anything and are utterly incapable of comprehending the problems most of the time - and on the odd occasion they can, unfortunately the artificial barriers they have to live with prevent them providing any sort of good service.

PlusNet is absolutely not to be recommended for any sort of business connection, avoid!

sadly anything not covered by an SLA you cannot rely on at all, e.g. the response times target will simply get lengthened when they dont get met (as what happened with support tickets last year).

Move to another business provider like BT business or aaisp.

Plusnet Business Support is less than ideal for contactability and speed, but for me they have been very tenacious in sorting out ADSL Annex M and FTTC installation problems.

My BT Local Business were unbelievably incompetent. I left as soon as I got a "you can leave us as we are putting up our prices" letter.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

sadly anything not covered by an SLA you cannot rely on at all, e.g. the response times target will simply get lengthened when they dont get met (as what happened with support tickets last year).

Move to another business provider like BT business or aaisp.

Yeah, that's not an option for reasons beyond my control. The simple fact of the matter is they haven't made any effort to fix a trivial issue.

In reply to a post by awontroba:

Plusnet Business Support is less than ideal for contactability and speed, but for me they have been very tenacious in sorting out ADSL Annex M and FTTC installation problems.

They've been incredibly tenacious in doing absolutely naff all in my case. over 48 hours now, no progress - the only person to take ownership of my case (you know like they promise on the web site) is "Automated Script Pool User" or whatever it is called.

In reply to a post by awontroba:

My BT Local Business were unbelievably incompetent. I left as soon as I got a "you can leave us as we are putting up our prices" letter.

BT Local Business are incredibly incompetent. They're also not BT. They're also not able to do anything about pricing or billing. They're just third party reseller puppets allowed to use the BT name.

Sorry to hear that you've had a poor experience with the business support team.

If you can PM me your username I'm happy to get your account reviewed and see what's happened/hasn't happened on there and make sure it's in the best possible hands to get resolved.

Hi Chris,

I will do - although in the interests of transparency:

(a) This issue has not been resolved, and so far I have had no meaningful updates. In fact, the only "person" to seem to take ownership thus far (which is not what you claim!) is the "Automated Script Pool" user.

(b) I was pretty irate the last time I called because I had called SEVERAL times before and nobody is taking any ownership of this issue.

It's really a simple issue that the people who have access and the technical clue to read a ticket should be able to resolve within a few minutes.

It's been DAYS now.

In reply to a post by chrisparr:

Sorry to hear that you've had a poor experience with the business support team.

If you can PM me your username I'm happy to get your account reviewed and see what's happened/hasn't happened on there and make sure it's in the best possible hands to get resolved.

I had a call this afternoon.

I was given a test login.

I've tried it.

It is actually worse, because now nothing incoming works.

What precisely does it take at PlusNet to get someone with a technical competence sufficient to move this forward?

Alternatively, perhaps you could just arrange to cancel the account early from the contract and I'll connect this to a more competent provider that is capable of doing something as simple as troubleshooting a fairly basic fault.

In reply to a post by chrisparr:

Sorry to hear that you've had a poor experience with the business support team.

If you can PM me your username I'm happy to get your account reviewed and see what's happened/hasn't happened on there and make sure it's in the best possible hands to get resolved.

In case anyone else was thinking of using PlusNet, and were reading the information and advertising that they provide on the PlusNet Web Site in the business section, I can assure them that the advertising is not representative of my experience in any way.

Below is copied my latest response to the inaction by PlusNet, as follows:

===================

Dear PlusNet

Since you appear to be incapable of fixing this issue, may I suggest you update your web site, which suggests a number of reasons that I should use you. My experience is that this is entirely fictional and I believe you're making a false claim in your advertising.

My claim is based on these factors:

Your Claim:
"We'll make it easy for you to get in touch"

My Experience:
Actually you insist on tickets, so there is no point in phoning, and indeed when you do phone, you're given inaccurate information and just told you need to raise a ticket to get things progressed, and have to fight the staff to actually get a ticket raised whilst on the phone.

Your Claim:
" you do need help you'll be in the hands of someone who takes ownership of your problem. We'll call you, text you, or update you online until your problem is fixed"

My Experience:
"actually nobody has taken ownership, after all I submitted this ticket on the 18th (after calling more than once without you logging a ticket so there is of course handily no record) and being given incorrect information. Thus far absolutely NOBODY has owned my issue - I've had several useless replies and one phone call, which resulted in no progress as your test account doesn't actually work properly to test this issue.

Your Claim:
"We won't stop until we fix your issue"

My Experience:
I would wager you haven't really *STARTED* to fix the issue - you sit on it, you don't update me, and I find it very difficult to believe that you cannot get someone with sufficient clue and access to the right systems to fix this in less than several days. It's a trivial issue to the right type of engineer but is obviously beyond your "hand picked" business support team.

Your Claim: "From guiding you through things in simple, plain English, to discussing more technical details when it's needed"

My Experience: ... not true either. Your team has shown absolutely no ability to talk at a technical level. Mostly because there is no way to speak to a technical person. You make everyone go through this abhorrent ticketing system, and your front line people as nice as I'm sure they all are absolutely incapable of resolving the issue (you don't empower them to fix problems, you don't let them speak to people who can, so it is a mind bogglingly slow resolve).

Your Claim:
"When you need help you need answers fast - to keep your business running smoothly"

My Experience:
I've had no answers at any speed, frankly. Which also brings me to:

Your Claim:
"That's why we set ourselves target response times. We go the extra mile to deliver the very best turnaround to your queries"

My Experience:
...which you are long past.

Your Claim:
"Every member of the Business Support Team is multi-skilled, so you won't get pushed around or constantly put on hold in search of an answer to your query."

My Experience:
Again I have to say that this is also a complete fabrication. You've pushed the ticket around (well you've not really pushed it anywhere), your "script pool" automated user has been more helpful and you've some how failed to fix this issue.

Have you contacted Chris? Not clear whether you actually did contact him as he suggested or whether you are still working through the "normal" channels.