Plusnet technical support poor quality

[Graham J]

Mary is a typical user. Can barely use a computer, does not understand
her internet connection. Her landline has recently been so noisy as to
be unusable but this was fixed about 10 days ago.

Thursday 14 June Mary complains her computer does not work.

Judy goes to help. Laptop is OK, but the ADSL broadband is rubbish:
1000 kbits/sec upload, 285 kbits/sec download.

Judy rings Plusnet. Plusnet support get Judy to send photos of the
master socket and extension sockets, showing correctly connected
filters. Plusnet agree there is a problem, say they will send one of
their own technicians out on Monday 17 June.

Plusnet's technician arrives as planned. Knows nothing, but agrees
broadband performance is useless. Rings his boss - is told to ring
Plusnet. Rings Plusnet, who say they will get an Openreach technician
to attend. No appointment date/time agreed with Judy.

Wednesday 19 June Openreach technician arrives un-announced. Sees
problem immediately: there was a speed cap configured some weeks ago
when there was a faulty line for over a week in the whole area. Said
technician gets the cap removed: download speed increases to about 5,000
kbits/sec.

Surely this information should have been available to the Plusnet
support person on 14 June? And resolved immediately?

What is going wrong with Plusnet?

[Theo]

Post by Graham J
Surely this information should have been available to the Plusnet
support person on 14 June? And resolved immediately?
What is going wrong with Plusnet?

It sounds like an Openreach problem not a PN problem. I'd never heard of
Plusnet having their own technicians who do callouts - usually ISPs just
call out OR.

Do PN have some kind of service where they help customers with their
computers, rather than fix broadband? Perhaps PN have decided it's a
computer problem not a BB problem and sent out their repair person?

Theo

[Jason H]

Post by Theo

Post by Graham J
Surely this information should have been available to the Plusnet
support person on 14 June? And resolved immediately?
What is going wrong with Plusnet?

It sounds like an Openreach problem not a PN problem. I'd never heard of
Plusnet having their own technicians who do callouts - usually ISPs just
call out OR.
Do PN have some kind of service where they help customers with their
computers, rather than fix broadband? Perhaps PN have decided it's a
computer problem not a BB problem and sent out their repair person?
Theo

It costs Plusnet (and BT) to get an OpenReach engineer sent out. We had
bad problems with our upload speed approaching zero a couple of years
ago and BT went out of their way to avoid sending someone out. This was
just a couple of months into a new contract. An OpenReach engineer was
eventually sent and identified a bit of faulty equipment* in the cabinet.

* As a reminder of the perils of listening to strange people on the
Interwebs, one broadband internet forum had me attempting to find
sources of interference within the house, using an FM radio!

[Andy Burns]

one broadband internet forum had me attempting to find sources of
interference within the house, using an FM radio!

If it had been an AM radio, it wouldn have been reasonable advice ...

[Andy Burns]

Plusnet agree there is a problem, say they will send one of their own
technicians out on Monday 17 June.

Do Plusnet have any technicians that can visit houses?

Plusnet's technician arrives as planned.  Knows nothing, but agrees
broadband performance is useless.  Rings his boss - is told to ring
Plusnet.  Rings Plusnet, who say they will get an Openreach technician
to attend.

Would Judy/Mary know the difference between OR and PN?

What is going wrong with Plusnet?

gimmicky marketing wank?
<https://www.plus.net/perks/#service>

[Graham J]

Post by Andy Burns

Plusnet agree there is a problem, say they will send one of their own
technicians out on Monday 17 June.

Do Plusnet have any technicians that can visit houses?

I've certainly seen this before, some years ago. User calls Plusnet
about a problem with ADSL, Plusnet send out one of their own
technicians. Actually somebody contracted to them - and on a Sunday
afternoon!

The person who turned up was Polish, with a very limited command of
English and just enough technical knowledge to recognise that there was
problem that would need the attention of Openreach.

I suspect this is Plusnet's way of ensuring that there is a real problem
before they call Openreach. If Openreach were to discover that the
problem was with the user's wiring Plusnet would have to pay.

[snip]

Post by Andy Burns
Would Judy/Mary know the difference between OR and PN?

Judy certainly would ...

[Theo]

Post by Graham J

Post by Andy Burns

Plusnet agree there is a problem, say they will send one of their own
technicians out on Monday 17 June.

Do Plusnet have any technicians that can visit houses?

I've certainly seen this before, some years ago. User calls Plusnet
about a problem with ADSL, Plusnet send out one of their own
technicians. Actually somebody contracted to them - and on a Sunday
afternoon!
The person who turned up was Polish, with a very limited command of
English and just enough technical knowledge to recognise that there was
problem that would need the attention of Openreach.
I suspect this is Plusnet's way of ensuring that there is a real problem
before they call Openreach. If Openreach were to discover that the
problem was with the user's wiring Plusnet would have to pay.

I wouldn't be surprised that if you present to PN first-line support with an
'it doesn't work/what doesn't work?/I don't know' kind of problem, they
might send somebody to resolve customer equipment problems onsite rather
than call out OR in the first instance, OR claim no fault found, and have a
customer whose fault wasn't fixed and now has a large bill. If you present
to first-line support with 'my SNR is negative' then maybe they'll pass you
through to second-line who can just call OR straightaway.

What is ironic is PN and OR are both part of BT, so PN is spending extra
real money to avoid being charged by OR, but that charge is just passing from
one part of BT group to another.

Maybe somebody needs to practice their shibboleet?
https://xkcd.com/806/

[NY]

Post by Theo
What is ironic is PN and OR are both part of BT, so PN is spending extra
real money to avoid being charged by OR, but that charge is just passing from
one part of BT group to another.

I've seen it even between different departments within the same company
that I used to work for, rather than the slightly more arms-length
relationship between BT and OR and PN. The concept of needing to
transfer funny money between departments to get cooperation induces
cognitive dissonance (a Dilbert phrase) when my ethos is "we should
cooperate because we all work for the same company".

Post by Theo
Maybe somebody needs to practice their shibboleet?
https://xkcd.com/806/

If only that were true. Getting past 1st-line support to talk to someone
knowledgable is a nightmare. PN are actually quite good (they used to be
outstandingly good) - at least most of their staff speak English as
their first language, with a UK accent. Sadly most companies (especially
ISPs) outsource their technical support to India, and then you have
language/accent problems and then the cultural problems of their need to
stick to a script and a procedure, to be offensively obsequious, and
their apparent dislike of saying "no", so if you ask "are you going to
refer this to your technical department" they will reply "yes of course
- it will be done by tomorrow" meaning "no it won't but I must not
disagree with you". A clash of cultures as well as a clash of accents.

When I speak to a technical support line, I take a few minutes up front
to brief the other person on what doesn't work, what still *does* work
(which is often useful diagnostic information) and what I've tried and
what the results were. Anything to try and short-circuit the first few
pages of their "technical support for clueless punters" section of the
script. I expect to be able to speak to the other person as an equal -
and preferably for them to know more rather than less than I do about
their specific field of expertise. I'm not interested in "have you
rebooted it to see if that clears the fault" - of *course* that's the
first thing I tried before admitting defeat and calling for help.

A lot of ISP technical support can't be hurried. If they tell me to do
something (eg rebooting) I don't need or want precise instructions
(though some people would) - it's a case of building a rapport so the
support guy knows which bits to go through in detail and which to give a
top-level instruction and let me get on with it. No two customers are
the same, and we don't *all* need to go at the pace of the slowest.

What really winds me up about non-UK support desks is their combination
of being patronising and yet clueless at the same time, and their
grovelling Uriah Heep fawning and their need to address me as "Mr <first
name>" at every sentence end. "May I humbly beseech you, if it is OK
with you, to reboot your esteemed router" is guff that went out with the
19th century standard of business letter writing "I beg to inform you",
"thank you for your esteemed letter of the 21st ult", "assuring you of
our good intentions at all times" - makes you want to puke!