Plusnet music on hold = “Don’t you want me baby”

In the big consumer ISP world I would think people expect to have to listen to music on hold whilst waiting for their ISP support line to answer.  Usually it’s why a business will pay that little more for a broadband line – just to make sure of the better level of support.

I’ve been quite surprised however at the range of telephone response times when calling consumer ISPs. ISPs with pile it high sell it cheap reputations don’t necessarily live up to the poor support reputation of such an ISP. At least when it comes to how long you have to wait before answering the phone. TalkTalk for example normally answer in less than a minute whilst BT can take anything between 10 and 20 minutes. Both use Indian based call centres.

The mere fact that the call centre is in India would stop me using the services for business. One wonders perhaps whether business customers get onshore customer care. However if I was considering having a second broadband line in as a backup to my main business one then using a low cost consumer service seems a no brainer to me.  Consumer broadband is ridiculously cheap and there are even offers around a the moment that give you free Fibre Broadband for one year as an incentive to sign up (eg Sky).

And not all the consumer players use Indian call centres. Both Sky and Plusnet are UK based. Plusnet seem to have a reputation for great music on hold. The problem is that you have to spend time on hold to them (seems to be the norm)  in order to find out. I’ve seen more than one Tweet that mentions the fact that they have heard “Don’t You Want Me Baby” as  music on hold whilst waiting for Plusnet. Their customer services director must have a sense of humour 🙂

If I was a business I’d definitely consider getting a low cost consumer broadband line in as an insurance policy for when my main one fails, which it inevitably will at some stage. Internet access is mission critical these days.