Extremely disappointed with Zen :-(

I have been a Zen customer for over 20 years since running a campaign to get broadband for our village which zen helped us with. I have always found them to be a reliable ISP with good technical support who answer the phone promptly and I don't need to go through several layers of 'script reading droids' to get through to someone who can actually help. Recently the support has been getting a bit slower to get through to, but still better than most. So generally good.....

But today something happened that means I will be leaving Zen. We have a business account with VDSL and phone services to our office using Zen, and I was in the process of cancelling our BT ISDN lines and porting them over to Zen VOIP. We also pay for several of our staff also have phone lines and VDSL so they can work from home. Today I called Zen to upgrade one of the staff service to FTTP and was told I could not order a residential FTTP line with a business account !?!

So rather than £44 for a 300/50 service I was expected to pay £75, when I questioned this I was told I could set up a separate account for the residential service but that will result in a separate invoice to process each month and I will loose the 'one portal' to manage them all.

I really don't see why I can't order a domestic service for my staff through our work account. Yes a business account might have a better SLA but I don't need that for the home workers and don't see why I should pay more for something I don't need.

We also use Cerberus as an ISP as they were one of the few ISPs to offer FTTPod, which we had installed at our offices, and they have also been very good for reliability and support. Their 300/50 service was £48. So to keep the 'single bill' and 'single portal' to manage everything, I will be moving all our services over to Cerberus (Total 4 VDSL/FTTP lines, 3 POTS lines and the VOIP services I was porting).

I will be sad to leave Zen, but when a company starts telling me I can't order particular services they have got too big for their boots and it's time to move.

Edited by MarkLeman (Tue 26-Jul-22 15:03:31)

Hi Mark

Out of interest was the broadband service you was trying to upgrade to FTTP an existing Residential or Business service through your companies business account?

Hi Dect,
I am not actually sure, it is an old ADSL line which was installed in 2004. In the Zen portal it is described as 'Unlimited Broadband'.

We also have some 'Unlimited Zen Fibre 1' and 'Unlimited Zen Fibre 2' services, some voice lines described as 'Line Rental ' and some 'Business Line Rental'. The only one of these that is clearly a 'business' product is the last one.

The point is I should be able to upgrade or migrate it to my choice of product and not have an artificial restriction placed on me by Zen.

In reply to a post by MarkLeman:

The point is I should be able to upgrade or migrate it to my choice of product and not have an artificial restriction placed on me by Zen.

Totally agree, this crazy restriction is imposed by Zen (not their providers), there should be nothing stopping you as a customer ordering a new residential or business service (or upgrade) linked through your existing account. My question was trying to determine if they once allowed it but have changed their policy.

I was told on the phone this was a recent change

Once the sales person switched in to defending the restriction on the grounds of better SLA I stopped paying much attention, it was clear Zen had lost the plot and I was going to take our business elsewhere.

Computer says no!

Personally I'd raise a complaint to Zen and see where it gets you.

If it's a "recent" change, why was this not communicated to relevant customers who maybe affected?