Another missed opportunity?

Another news letter yesterday from PN and nothing about refunds for down time.

"To reduce the number of incoming questions and faults we temporarily paused our 8Mb upgrade programme (both BT Max and Tiscali LLU) - more on this below. We've also had some major outages or problems with email, connectivity and some CGI websites which has generated even more demand in our customer support centre.

Over the last few months everyone at PlusNet has been working over and above the call of duty to cut down waiting times for calls and questions. A lot of hard work is paying off and we've got the number of questions awaiting a response down to something approaching normal levels.

I've already said thank you to everyone at PlusNet for their extra commitment during this time. I'd also like to thank you for bearing with us during the last couple of months whilst we have been working to reduce wait times for calls and online questions.

We know that PlusNet can continue to provide you with a quality service. We

What is the purpose of this post?

Once again, PlusNet seem to be ducking and diving. It looks as though they don't want anyone outside the online 'community' to be alerted to the LLU refund scheme. Omitting it from this newsletter looks like more of the same disinformation for the userbase at large. The only possible explanation for omitting what would have been a piece of excellent PR for PlusNet is that they don't want anyone to follow Alistair Wyse's advice - which was to chase CSC if the automatic refund wasn't, er, automatic.

No doubt, in time, we will find that only a minority of those entitled to a refund get one automatically. Others will have to beg for it. And the majority won't even know about it.

A disgraceful omission imho which shows PlusNet's true colours all too starkly.

Simon

In reply to:

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I've already said thank you to everyone at PlusNet for their extra commitment during this time. I'd also like to thank you for bearing with us during the last couple of months whilst we have been working to reduce wait times for calls and online questions

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Trouble is, it's no better now (gut feeling - I don't have the stats to back it up, and the stats published on the portal now aren't as good as they used to be) than it was months ago. The only time the wait times have improved, was when every member of staff (including managment) were able to be there all day during a bank holiday. As soon as that ended the tickets seemed to return to the abysmal/unacceptable level that they were at previously.

So I certainly hope that PN/Carol Axe aren't considering things to be improved now, as if we've gone through the couple of months and "everything's ok" now...? Because I certainly don't feel everything is ok, and I think there's a long long long way to go.

Sorry, Footys, if you don't think that a newsletter should contain .....news. And I would have thought that it would have been of interest to lots of readers who have had a great deal of downtime that they could claim a refund.

Can you tell me if you don't think that is a piece of news worth knowing to those who are affected? or is it that the chance of getting some money back for bad service is not news at all? Well I can tell you if it were my money I would be glad if it had been included.
Sorry, I see, because it does not affect me, you don't want me to comment. Ah yes that spurious arguement, please read the PN stickies.

Shame on you RogN. The only people your post could possibly help are a) those customers who may not know that they are entitled to a refund; b) those customers who might otherwise think that PlusNet's newsletter contained all the major news stories which were relevant to them; and b) anyone who might be labouring under the impression that PlusNet are open, honest and trustworthy.

Simon

You forgot:

c) Those bitter ex-customers who have no other hobby;

d) Those who enjoy trolling for the sake of it.

Hmmm... email sent to 200,000 users.

Titscali LLU failures - let's put them at 10% for round numbers sake.

10% of 20,000 = 2,000 = 1% of the total user base (it's that 1% again - that's spooky! ).... which means 99% unaffected.

Seems reasonable not to mention it to me - so long as they are made aware somehow.

Seems reasonable not to mention it to me...
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Hm, probably more people affected by LLU problems than by some other recent hot news stories in the newsletter, eg the PlusNet shop, voip, etc -- plus it would have made PN look good, which ain't easy at the moment.
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.... so long as they are made aware somehow..
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How? And when? Weeks have passed, customers have moved on or passed away without this knowledge....

Simon

In reply to:

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Seems reasonable not to mention it to me - so long as they are made aware somehow.

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Or, as it appears to be such a small number of people, from a publicity point of view it would be a great idea to let 99% of your customer base know that you're giving cash back to the one per cent that have experienced a problem with their connection.
From every negative you should be able to find a positive