Rock and a hard place

Hi
I am increasingly dissatisfied with the standard of customer service from my my current ISP (Plusnet) and have finally taken the plunge and got my MAC, thinking I might try AAISP or Zen. I emailed both last week with a query about a possible problem on my line and whether this is (a) something that they would consider a problem and (b) something that they would be prepared to deal with. I was a little surprised that I haven't heard anything back from either. I also contacted Pulse8 and did get a reply, but it didn't respond to my specific query and tried to upsell me FTTC, which I do not really want.
Has anyone any suggestions based on their experience? I have an adsl line which seems to manage download speed of 5.5 Mb and manage to get through around 200GB per month.
The thing is, I *may* be beginning to make some progress with getting Plusnet to take my problem seriously and don't want to spend considerably more only to find that the new provider is no better...

Have you got anything about it on the Community forums we could take a look at please? Some knowledge of the problem might help us with suggestions, or even towards a diagnosis.

In reply to a post by ajpn:

Hi
I am increasingly dissatisfied with the standard of customer service from my my current ISP (Plusnet) and have finally taken the plunge and got my MAC, thinking I might try AAISP or Zen. I emailed both last week with a query about a possible problem on my line and whether this is (a) something that they would consider a problem and (b) something that they would be prepared to deal with. I was a little surprised that I haven't heard anything back from either. I also contacted Pulse8 and did get a reply, but it didn't respond to my specific query and tried to upsell me FTTC, which I do not really want.
Has anyone any suggestions based on their experience? I have an adsl line which seems to manage download speed of 5.5 Mb and manage to get through around 200GB per month.
The thing is, I *may* be beginning to make some progress with getting Plusnet to take my problem seriously and don't want to spend considerably more only to find that the new provider is no better...

Adam at Pulse8 has jumped through hoops to sort my flaky line. They replied, where the other two 'TOP' suppliers did not. At the end of the day, a line problem is usually down to BTO to sort, so it is down to how hard an ISP pushes them. What exactly is your problem?

Thanks for the reply, professor973. Yes, it must be said that at least they DID reply! Maybe I need to contact someone other than the Sales people - do you have contact details for anyone in particular?
The problem is not major - more annoying really. I get a burst of CRC errors when the phone rings, which sometimes results in the broadband connection dropping. This doesn't happen often � mainly because I very rarely get phone calls on the landline, but I may need to use that line a great deal more in the near future. More details are on the Plusnet forum: http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1357...
My frustration reached a peak this week after Plusnet seemingly seemed unable to understand what the problem was - seemingly thinking 'ah, problem', test line, download fine, not many disconnections, no problem. Or worse, spotting a problem that wasn't there and resetting my line...

Hi
Yes, see http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1357... for details of the problem on my line, and http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1354... for another recent frustration.
In the plusnet forum post about my line problems I give a link to post on the Kitz forum which I think my shed some further light - if only I could get plusnet to understand what the problem is!

A phone call that results in your broadband dropping, should really be seen as a possible line fault by any decent ISP, as could be a high resistance fault.
Contact details for Pulse8 are [email protected] or 01803 864545 select option 1 to get through to technical support instead of sales. Give them your postcode and number and you should be pointed in the right direction. I have an intermittent noise problem here that is a devil to nail down and will be switching to their fibre in order to bring my 2k of flaky copper down to 300m, but realise that is an expense you may well not wish to run to. As for anyone in particular, Adam Fullalove is the person that I usually deal with, though they may be a little limited from a line test point of view if they don't supply your line.

Edited by professor973 (Tue 13-Jan-15 19:43:40)

Thanks, that's really useful. Will try getting in touch with them again.

Neither of those look very impressive . My opinion for what it's worth is that all ISP-based email is a pain anyway, which I realised when planning my second migration. I moved to hosted email before instigating that migration.

From what I see on these forums all ISPs regard it as a free extra we should be grateful for, rather than an included paid-for service which is what it is in reality to anyone using it.

Re the broadband problem, has anyone suggested the Quiet line test? If not, dial 17070 and take Option 2. Preferably using a corded phone into the test socket of the master. It should be silent to all intents and purposes. No clicks, crackles or buzzes.

Thanks for the suggestion, but yes I have tried the quiet line test and found no discernible noise.

Sadly, I do think PlusNet's customer service has gone seriously downhill since I joined nearly 4 years ago. I really don't expect there to be no problems, but I do expect a little more professionalism from the team when I do have a problem.

One of the problems with CS is caused by the huge increase in customer numbers over that period. For instance, I joined in February 2012, and IIRC on the bottom graph the maximum number connected over a 24 hour period was around 670,000. Now 803,000.

That's ~24% increase and is bound to cause havoc in the support services. Where the additional hardware required is typically on about 90 days lead time, recruitment and training of the CS staff needed is a far more protracted process. In Plusnet's case also requiring additional premises in Leeds. Why Leeds, rather than Sheffield, I don't know, as it wasn't long ago they moved into new offices in Sheffield.

From what I see happening on these forums, (I rarely visit the Community ones), a lot of the poor service of the kind you are receiving arises from getting a less experienced member of staff. If Plusnet had opted to change the first-line support entirely to script-monkeys as with BT and many other ISPs, we would all be far less happy. Unfortunately, inexperienced people are bound to have to follow a few ground rules while they grow into the job. A process that takes years, (not too many if they have brains), rather than months.

I'm not trying to excuse the undoubted fall in professionalism, just explain it. The remedy is in removing any anxiety in relatively new staff of referring upwards things they can't quite cope with. They will inevitably feel this reflects on their competence, and we all know we don't like to give that impression to our line manager.

Removing that anxiety requires an exceptional line manager, who is under the same self-pressure with respect to their own manager. By definition, the "exceptional" are few and far between. It also requires an appropriate number of Level 2 and Level 3 support staff - even more difficult to create.

From the point of view of a customer like you with a non-simple problem the result is frequently unsatisfactory .

Yes, I think your explanation fits my experience well. The trouble is, as Plusnet has increased its customer base and, in line with that, its customer service team, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get through to a more experienced member of staff. So far, with my current problem, I haven't managed it. Even the plusnet forum, which used to be a good alternative to phoning in, is no longer coping.
I notice that they are currently advertising for Customer Support Advisers at a salary of £16,000 with a possible bonus of 'up to' £400 a month. I can't help wondering whether the way that bonus is structured is part of the problem (numbers dealt with or solving the problem?), and whether it could be used to help solve it. Plusnet occasionally send me a link to a surveymonkey 'satisfaction' survey after I have dealt with their staff - the last two times I got this, I couldn't complete it because it told me I already had...
In a slightly different setting, I have always been very happy with Amazon's customer service team, even though they are off-shore - but then they ALWAYS ask for feedback.

I notice that your stats, on plusnet, showed ADSL2 G992.3.
Have read of subscribers having similar problems when router changed from G992.5 to G992.3
Maybe more experienced could advise whether requesting return to ADSL2+ would be of benefit.
This assumes you are on CN21 and router stats still showing ADSL2
Also read of AAISP resolving a similar Plusnet problem. Related to ADSL Max Premium and Marconi DSLAM.

If your statement on wages are true. Then IMO peanuts and monkeys applies. The software company I worked for paid 3 x that for support engineers.

They are first line telephone support not "support engineers". When you have a large customer base then paying significant wages for what is effectively a telephone answering service is a no-go. Generally first line call centre are low paid and not overly technical - second line are more technical and might earn double that but not until you hit 3rd line and above would you start paying those sorts of wages in most larger IT organisations.

ADSL2 mode (G.992.3) is only available on 21CN

If property prices in Sheffield are cheap then almost tempted to move.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

If property prices in Sheffield are cheap then almost tempted to move.

If you go to Dore and Totley which border the Peak District, you will find some very nice and very expensive properties. Mind you compared to London I suppose they are cheap....