Signup - and are Zen Customer services good?

Hi,

I'm with BT but thinking about moving to Zen.
Couple of questions:

1. I noticed during the sign up process that they don't give you a choice of install date, they have to do that manually after you sign up and pay. This doesn't give a great first impression, compared to say plusnet or vodafone, who let you choose an install date on their website.

2. Are the Zen customer services as good as they say?

TIA,

Zebs

I left Zen some while ago. The customer services were terrible. No answers/contradictory answers.

Others may have a different take, but I would not use them again.

Been with Zen for a number of years now and never had an issue with either Customer Services or Technical Support. I’ve used both several times and found them to be very good. I have a fair understanding if the tech, and it helps if you can talk similar or the same language.

If your line is run by Openreach or a 3rd Party, the install date will also depend upon that suppliers availability, although for the three installs I’ve been involved with and manage, the dates have been pretty reasonable. My current line is leased via Zen which means they gave to talk to Openreach when issues arise. That part can be frustrating but is out of Zen’s control, and they cannot be blamed if OR aren’t getting on with things.

The router they provide (Fritz 7530) is pretty good, and way better than many other ISPs offer. They provide full connection settings should you want to use your own (I do on one line).

Nothing but satisfactory service from Zen. 6 years ADSL/VDSL/Landline/DV via OR. Then last 12 months Fibre 900/900+DV via CityFibre. Only issue was an admin error in transferring the landline from OR to CF, 2 days outage. Fibre BB worked perfectly on installation day. Customer services always helpful. Latest supplied 7530AX, includes WiFi6, and is excellent for anything I need.

In reply to a post by zebsyzebs:

2. Are the Zen customer services as good as they say?

They seem to have gone downhill as they've grown. I left them in 2021 -- initially for IDNet, then I moved on to a local AltNet (nothing wrong with IDNet, but the local AltNet could offer me a symmetrical gig which understandably IDNet could only do as a leased line).

So you've had a number of replies, 2 good 2 bad, isn't that something to do with Match of the Day Not really helping you decide are they?

Yes, thanks for all the replies!
Still not entirely sure what to do at the moment.
Probably toss a coin at some stage and see if I like the answer ;].

You haven't said what is driving you to leave BT and what you hope to achieve by going to Zen.

Good question.

I did agree to renew with BT and they messed something up (forgot to post the router), then their customer services were somewhat rubbish.
I was told by the complaint handler that I'd been lied to by previous people I'd spoken to. I thought this sounded a bit harsh but she repeated it over and over. I was glad to get rid of her, it was passed on to someone else.
It was pot luck when I called whether I spoke to someone who knew what they were talking about, or just seemed to make stuff up, or refused to help me ("I'll email the complaint handler to ask them to call you" - they never did).

The actual FTTC service has been good, and I'd renew with BT if they offered me FTTC renewal at a reasonable price, but they won't.
So going over to full fibre, and with the poor recent customer service, I am looking around for a new provider.
But if the conclusion is that they're all as bad as each other, I wouldn't rule out just staying with BT.

Edit: Forgot to say that renewing with BT was somewhat painful as they kept waffling about EE. I wasn't interested in EE, but couldn't work out whether BT and EE are effectively exactly the same thing for broadband, and/or whether I'd be told in a year that I have to move to EE, involving another change of router etc. It was a bit of a mess really IMHO.

Edited by zebsyzebs (Sat 06-Jan-24 23:37:18)

If you want good customer service, look for smaller ISPs. I can recommend Aquiss and Cerberus through direct experience. AAISP is reputedly the very best. IDNet seems well regarded too.

It depends on how much you are prepared to pay. Aquiss pricing is fair IMO: in addition it's only a 12 month contract, first 6 months half price and no setup fee, so it's not a big commitment. No price rises in-contract or at end of contract either. But you do need to provide your own router.

Each ISP has their pro's and con's, I have recently switched to Plusnet and am more than happy with the broadband and the customer service. Each time I have spoken to customer service they have been very helpful although I haven't had an outage to see how they respond to that, appreciate people here may have different views of them. Zen wasn't on my consideration list when switching due to them using their own backhaul which doesn't have a good track record. Some of the smaller ISPs are more expensive and if paying more is OK for you then they should be a consideration as their customer service is likely to be very good but virtually all of them are resellers so are limited on what they can do when the backhaul owner says no.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

Each ISP has their pro's and con's, I have recently switched to Plusnet and am more than happy with the broadband and the customer service. Each time I have spoken to customer service they have been very helpful although I haven't had an outage to see how they respond to that, appreciate people here may have different views of them. Zen wasn't on my consideration list when switching due to them using their own backhaul which doesn't have a good track record. Some of the smaller ISPs are more expensive and if paying more is OK for you then they should be a consideration as their customer service is likely to be very good but virtually all of them are resellers so are limited on what they can do when the backhaul owner says no.

You seem to be majoring on backhaul -- why? There's more to an ISP than just the backhaul between the telephone exchange and the core network.

In my mind not being a backhaul owner is generally an advantage. You say you're with Plusnet -- they'll exclusively use BT Wholesale for backhaul as they're part of BT Group. If BT's backhaul is congested then you'll be waiting for them to resolve that. Other ISPs use a variety of backhaul providers (e.g. I know A&A uses BT Wholesale and TalkTalk Business, pretty sure IDNet use BT Wholesale and Zen) -- this means that the provider might be able to move your line to an alternative backhaul if there's congestion.

Being part of BT Group, Plusnet are keen to "double dip" and charge content providers for sending content to their customers (see BT Group's submission to Ofcom for more details). This may or may not be something that concerns you -- but the result is likely to be a more limited form of internet -- e.g. see Twitch pulling out of South Korea.

Each to their own, personally unlike yourself I am not interested in those edge cases including if Twitch are pulling out of South Korea. If and when I see a limited form of internet over my home broadband connection I will react accordingly but until then I will enjoy my extremely cheap and cheerful connection

In reply to a post by behuk:

You seem to be majoring on backhaul -- why?

A number of Zen users on this forum have reported degradation of service when they were moved from BT backhaul to Zen backhaul. You'd think that if they'd found the underlying problem they would have told people, so best guess is that the problem still exists.

(To be fair, with a few users they tried *very* hard to find the problem, including shipping out custom routers. But in the end the only solution they had was to move them back to BT backhaul, and most customers don't get this choice)

I've been with Zen (on CityFibre) for nearly two years and have had no issues with them. On the two occasions that I've had to call tech support the call handlers have been interested in their work and helpful. They understand tech-speak.
Previously I was with PlusNet for quite a long time, probably more than 20 years, and never had any problems with them. I only moved to Zen because they could give me FTTP and PlusNet couldn't.

Always been spot on for me. I left them briefly to save a couple of quid but went back to them in the end.

I was on Plusnet for a long time, and they were also good both from network reliability and for fault handling, especially for the price.

I moved away when I got FTTPoD, and I haven't moved back because they still don't do IPv6 - although apparently they've started to trial it (again).

I was with Zen until September. Had been with them for years. Service had been decent until upload speed just went [censored] a lot. They wouldn't or couldn't fix it so I left. Tech support didn't answer the phone within a reasonable time and they wouldn't offer support via email either.

I switched to Andrews and Arnold. The broadband side has been pretty good but the VOIP has had a few hiccups that I could do without.

Most ISPS are mixed bags.

In reply to a post by behuk:

You seem to be majoring on backhaul -- why? There's more to an ISP than just the backhaul between the telephone exchange and the core network.

In my mind not being a backhaul owner is generally an advantage. You say you're with Plusnet -- they'll exclusively use BT Wholesale for backhaul as they're part of BT Group. If BT's backhaul is congested then you'll be waiting for them to resolve that.

I've not seen a BT Wholesale complaint about congestion for quite a few years now.

The issue is Zen ARE a backhaul owner and they are growing and expanding their own backhaul.
They are migrating current customers off of BT and Talktalk backhaul on to the Zen backhaul.

The Zen backhaul is absolutely s*** particularly for anything 500Mb+
There's constant complains here and elsewhere over many months (maybe even a year now) from Zen users who have been moved from a perfectly functioning, full speed 24/7 backhaul on to the Zen backhaul.

Zens backhaul doesn't even seem to be congested. It's a configuration issue somewhere. Most of the complaints are of low throughput immediately upon the change of backhaul and it's all day everyday.
Zen seemed to make genuine attempts to fix this, even sending technical guys from their team to some customers homes.
That attempt to fix things has failed and the issue still exists to this day, with zero communication from Zen on it.
Their fix? Move customers back to BT Wholesale or let them leave. A few months later they migrate them back to Zen backhaul and the cycle starts again.

It might be area specific or a hardware specific issue that only affects a sub set of customers, so others might have a perfectly good connection over Zen backhaul. I don't know because Zen either hasn't gotten to the bottom of it or hasn't communicated it with customers. The only comment I ever seen (on here from Zen staff) was they thought it was an Openreach issue.

I wouldn't take my broadband for free from Zen now. I closed the last account I maintain with Zen around 2 years ago when 3 emails over 6 days went unanswered.

IMO Zen are a shadow of the company they used to be. I highly recommended them for many years but now warn against using them.

I've been with ZeN since December 2002 after they were proactive in the local campaigns to upgrade to ADSL (anyone remember them!). I did move to another ISP for a period (BeThere) on the promise of slightly faster speeds, they went bust, I came back to ZeN and have been more than happy since.

I'm now on FTTP having been on ADSL, FTTC also with ZeN.

Think this is my first post on these boards in quite a long time - hi!

I am leaving Zen now after almost 4 years with them (on FTTC). The service is overpriced for the quality they provide IMHO.
I experienced a serious download drop 2 days ago, chatted with the support, they could not help, so for me it was the last straw.
Maybe they are good for someone, unfortunately not in my case.

In reply to a post by zebsyzebs:

Hi,

I'm with BT but thinking about moving to Zen.
Couple of questions:

1. I noticed during the sign up process that they don't give you a choice of install date, they have to do that manually after you sign up and pay. This doesn't give a great first impression, compared to say plusnet or vodafone, who let you choose an install date on their website.

2. Are the Zen customer services as good as they say?

TIA,

Zebs

Iv'e been with Zen now for 23 years and in all honesty iv'e always had excellent service.
I know of Zen well and to this day have not put my finger on why others find the service poor at times.

What I will say in that if you find the customer service poor or not to your liking, you need to file a complaint so that the staff member involved with your query gets a chance for their input as to why you the customer are struggling to get the service you desire.

That's the correct procedure for Zen.