PLDT Network Issue No Internet for 5 Days, Insist to Talk With Supervisor

This is the longest we’ve been without PLDT DSL, we are on the 5^th day today na may issue ang internet connection. Sana naman PLDT HOME will restore normal service come Monday.

We work online, without internet, ang dami ng napapabayaang trabaho.

We’ve called PLDT broadband hotline 172 multiple times this week.

A colleague from Cebu called in our no dial tone issue last Tuesday, July 25, 2017. He called to report in behalf of us since we had no dial tone to contact PLDT. Ticket No. 1

Wednesday, July 26

Around 3 pm, a field technician came for a visit regarding the no dial tone issue. It was perfect timing for we have been experiencing intermittent internet connection since early morning Wednesday.

The field technician loaded speedtest.net to check upload/download speeds. When he saw that even speedtest.net website does not load properly, he called up his coordinator using our landline.

At the end of his talked with his coordinator, he said that the best they can do at their level is to give us 2 mbps. Our plan is P1,699 5 mbps speed.

We asked why what is wrong? He said that it is PLDT itself which is having a server and network issue.

We’ve agreed to the proposed limiting of our dsl speed package, since 2 mbps is better than nothing.

*Before the technician left, dial tone is back to normal, internet was slow but steady.

Thursday, July 27

Whole day with no PLDT DSL internet.

9 AM – We called up the hotline, talked with a csr who keep talking about back-end issues, that they are having lots of call from North Luzon (almost telling us that things are okay since a lot other are experiencing the same downtime like we do), that our case from Tuesday is still an open case, and that if you see 3 lights on the PLDT modem it means it’s a nationwide issue. Toinks.

During this call, the CSR said ‘I’ll put you on hold for awhile while I talk with your area’s coordinator’. She also mentioned the name of the field technician who made a visit the previous day.

I waited for maybe 5 minutes before this csr came back on the phone. She said that she has reported our case and that a field agent is already assigned to check on our connection.

We thanked her, and with full of hope, we waited for internet to be back up.

However, it was already late afternoon, still no call or visit from a technician or even a call-back from the customer service rep.

5 PM – We called the PLDT broadband hotline 172 again. We talked with another csr. We asked for feedback on what we reported early morning. Alas, she said there is nothing recorded for our account, that there is no report from that morning.

This made us mad. We waited 18 minutes to be able to talk with the csr that morning and she did not even put-in any notes or that we reported an issue. Nakakainis.

So we made sure to get a new report number from the afternoon CSR. Ticket no 2. 

Friday

No internet again.

We called up 172 ulit. We entered our area number and telephone number like usual. The system informed us that we already have a ticket open, and that here is your ‘open repair request number’.

The auto voice on the line dictated a string of characters, after the 20^th characters, di na mahabol sa bilis ng dictation. We called up again, inputted our landline number, reached up to the point where the auto-voice will dictate a stringful of characters. Di pa din mahabol, ano ba bakit ang haba ng reference number?!.

On the 3^rd try, di na namin sinulat but binilang nalang, 42 characters open repair request number, nangloloko ba kayo?

The worst thing was, the system did not give us an option to talk with a csr. Walang option na binigay, after the string of characters, wala na, end of road. It was our first time to encounter such when calling 172.

How can a customer follow-up on previously reported issue, if they can’t talk with a csr? No access to a staff?

Then we had an idea, why not use another PLDT number when the system asked for us to input the area code and telephone number? We did that, and voila, we were able to get through a csr after 10 minutes of waiting time. We used someone else’s PLDT landline as front, as dummy number to get through to csr.

Alas, wala pa ding progress on our reported issue, our internet was still down. Not even intermittent connection, but totally no connection for days now.

We requested the csr to also mentioned in his report the missing ‘talk to a csr’ option when calling 172 broadband for those with open tickets.

We also requested to talk with a supervisor, in a meeting daw, so dead-end there.

We asked for the telephone number of the closest PLDT office to our place. The csr we talked with said that they don’t have a telephone number of their business center, what she can give me was only the office address.

A telecommunication company and your hotline staff don’t have access to the telephone number of your offices and business centers? Que horror!

The agent also said that they don’t have any info on the accredited service contractor for our area. So how come, I was put on hold during a previous call while the csr ‘talked’ supposedly with the coordinator for our area? Sinabi pa nga ang name nung field technician? Does it mean nagsisinungaling talaga some hotline CSRs ng PLDT, is that it?

Saturday, July 29

Whole day no internet, 4^th day of issue.

We called in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening.

During Saturday morning call the csr said that no field technician will be deployed to check on our home connection because “malapit na”. Lol. Anong malapit?

*The internet light on the modem is blinking at this time, but internet is LIMITED status pa rin.

The Saturday afternoon call, the csr said that ‘we already now have a date for fixing, it’s on the 28^th’. So we put down the phone na umaasa na talaga. Until we realized yesterday was the 28^th.  Today, is the 29^th already.

Saturday at 5:30 PM, the 3 lights on the modem remains steady, unblinking. Power, DSL, Internet. No connection.

Based on their notes, 28^th daw matatapos ang work as indicated on the records for our account. Pinarepeat pa namin ang date, 28 daw. Eh 29 na ngayon, wala pa ding nangyayari.

I really hope that there will be a connection by the time we wake up tomorrow. We need to work.

*In case you are curious, the house across ours is NOT experiencing issue with their PLDT DSL connection. Just us, and no progress for 4 days now. No field technician showed up, no call or text from PLDT to update status or give feedback.

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ESCALATE THE CALL TO THE ON-DUTY SUPERVISOR!

We called again Saturday at 6:30 PM using our real landline number. Good thing we were able to connect with csr, unlike our previous attempts wherein we have to use a dummy landline number.

The csr mentioned ‘back-end, network downtime’, ‘waiting for system restoration’, etc.

We requested again to talk with a supervisor, wala daw ang supervisor. Lol. Maniwala ba kayo na walang supervisor on the floor? We insisted that we want to talk to an escalation officer or a team leader, engage daw.

I finally told the csr na we will not put down the phone until we can talk with a supervisor, an officer, or anyone in-charge above the first-line agent.

6:45 PM –  I was put on hold, so am now waiting for the csr to get back on the phone or a supervisor to speak with.

6:50 PM – first line agent back on the phone, saying he can escalate and give us feedback but told him we no longer believe in an agent saying he will escalate and will give feedback. Napaso na kami ilang araw na yun ang sabi, hanggang 6 pm pa daw ang duty and magbibigay ng feedback. Nag intay kami sa wala. Kaya di puede na, we want to talk to an escalation officer kahit hanggang midnight pa kami mag-antay. Wala din naman kaming ginagawang trabaho, kasi di maka-trabaho walang internet.

6:55 PM – supervisor still engaged. Waiting for him to take the phone.

7:00 PM – still on hold, waiting for supervisor.

7:03 PM – agent back on the line, “still engage po yung supervisor ko pa, stay on the line po muna, coordinate ko ulit eto”. So we continue waiting.

7:12 PM – agent back on the phone, stay on the line po muna tayo, mina-manage pa nung supervisor yung kausap nya ngayon.

7:15 PM –  the supervisor is on the line.

*For this round, it took 25 minutes before we were able to talk with a supervisor.

The PLDT supervisor escalation officer assured us that he will coordinate with their network system team to ask for feedback on our case. He asked us until what time he or his assistant can call, told him 12 midnight, we’ll still be awake by then.

So now, another waiting time if really PLDT will call back to give feedback to customer.

8:56 PM We got a call from PLDT! Hurray! First time they actually contacted to give feedback.

We are glad even if there is no good news yet, at least they took time to dial our number and give update, even if to only say there is no update yet from the network systems guys.

Sunday, July 30

No dsl internet still, 5^th day since issue was reported.

9:45 AM – Finally got connected to a csr after 22 minutes of hearing the spiel “…Your call is important to us. Please hold while we connect you to the next available agent…”

We used our real landline number when the system asked to enter the area code and telephone number. It looks like the previous issue of not reaching a csr if there is an open ticket has been addressed. Good. Now if PLDT can restore our internet connection, that would make our day.

Alas, no progress still, wala pa ding internet.

Di na nagpaliguy-liguy pa, we asked to speak to an escalation officer. Told the agent we will not put down the phone even if we have to wait one hour for an officer to be on the line.

Agent acknowledged. I’m on the line right now waiting for a supervisor.

10:00 AM – Still waiting on the line. While we wait, we also reported issue to the official PLDT facebook page.

10:01 AM – Agent back on phone, saying the manager or team leader is still engaged. We told him that we will request for change port for our line to a port that has internet connection. Since our neighbors have internet, therefore, there are ports or lines in our area that is not experiencing server downtime. And we want to be moved there.

The agent said that there was downtime advisory for Laguna from 26 to 28, then 5 AM today there was another downtime advisory. And that he can facilitate the request to move ports.

I guess he was trying his best to deter us from talking with a supervisor. Told him that we are not budging with our desire to talk with a supervisor. He said that he will coordinate with his supervisor again.

10:09 AM – The agent is back on the phone, trying to assure us that he will be on top of things and ‘promise I will give feedback’ and saying as added assurance, that he will give his name and ID number so we can make a complaint in case he won’t call back to update us.

Told him that sadly we no longer believe a PLDT agent promise of calling back. Pasong paso na kami sa ibang agent who have also promised and committed to give feedback yet nothing happened. We will wait for a supervisor. Since we can’t work anyhow, we can wait.

10:13 AM – Agent back on the line, still trying to discourage or stop us from escalating the call. Maybe that is the hotline support work flow in PLDT, for an agent to try his or her best to keep the call from being escalated. You can’t really blame the agent if this is the SOP.

He said that he has mentioned our case to his supervisor and the supervisor promised to give us feedback and will definitely call us back for an update. The agent said that he will give his name plus his supervisor’s name, plus ID number. I am sorry but no, we want to talk with a supervisor.

We really want to talk with a support officer and nothing he can say will change that. The agent pushed saying we can make a complaint against him if we get no update from him per his promise, told him we have no plans of making a complaint against any particular support agent, we just want to talk with a supervisor.

I reiterated that we can wait for 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, whole day until we can talk with his supervisor. He said that the call will be terminated if we wait that long. Told him we don’t care, let the system auto-terminate the call, but we will never put down the call ourselves. If we get forcibly cut off by PLDT system, then we will just call again and explained we got cut off.

We can’t do the work that we ought to do for 5 days now, so yes, we can waste our time calling the support hotline and waiting on the line.

The agent advice that we can dispute the no service days with their billing department. Told him, we are not concern about rebates or billing discounts. What we want is the internet service which we paid for.

Not budging. We will wait.

10:23 AM-  Finally, the supervisor is on the line. It took  close to 30 minutes before we got patched to the supervisor on duty.

Since it’s our 5^th day of dealing with the no internet issue, and considering that our neighbors on PLDT have internet, then there is a line or server in our area unaffected by their system down time.

We requested to have our line moved to a new port with working connection. The supervisor acknowledged and said that after our call, she will call the area in-charge right away, and will give us feedback regarding if there is still an open port in our area that our line can be transferred to.

I asked for confirmation ‘Are you going to call us back within this morning for update if there is an open port that we can be moved to?’ Yes daw. Plus, she will call daw the area officer right after we put down the phone.

So now we wait if this PLDT supervisor will deliver on a promise.

2:06 PM – Someone from PLDT called us up, he said he is not from the support group but from the network group. We give him a case background, so inulit namin kung anong nangyayari, na noong Wednesday pa kami nagka intermittent connection tapos beginning Thursday wala na talagang internet, at anong anyo na. Hello.

We asked him when will PLDT fix our net connection for good? Ang sagot wala pa daw definite time frame.

So we asked what about our request to change port, at least yun very doable if there is an open port. Di pa nagagawan ng action yung about sa port transfer. Suma total matatapos ang araw ng Lingo, wala pa din kaming internet.

Day 5 of facing the network issue and no resolution in sight. Ang galing galing ng PLDT.

Update 7:06 PM – The supervisor from last night’s call just called us to give an update. Now, as a customer that is something we totally appreciate, knowing that someone is looking after our case and took the time to call. There is still no resolution to the issue but a promise is being fulfilled, that of giving us feedback, and for that we are grateful.

Monday, July 31, 2017

12:48 PM – We called 172 because no update coming from PLDT this morning. It turns out our tickets were closed by the network engineer 9 PM last night! This was relayed by the CS rep we talked with.

Why close the ticket when the issue is not yet fixed!!! We still don’t have internet and it is the 6th day of us facing connection issue!!!

We requested to speak with a supervisor again. Currently engaged (as usual). Told the customer service rep, we can wait, we will wait. Eto na naman tayo.

Agent explained that she will coordinate with the dispatch team, the one in-charge of our area. Please do, but we still wish to speak with a supervisor.

1:16 PM – Still waiting for supervisor to get on the phone.

1:20 PM – Agent back on the phone, saying that she is now in direct contact with the dispatch team while we talk. She asked about the modem light – power light is steady, the dsl is blinking, no light on internet, wifi lan has steady light.

After a few minutes, she asked again about the lights and finally we can see the dsl light on the modem steady and the internet light blinking like normal!

1:33 PM – Finally!!! The connection is back! Hay salamat!

*We forego the request to speak with a supervisor since the connection is back. But we requested the agent to advise the dispatch team not to close the ticket for at least 24 hours so we can monitor.

NOTES WHEN ENCOUNTERING PLDT NO INTERNET or POOR SERVICE ISSUES

What should you do if you can’t reach a csr because the system stops you on your track, since you already have an open ticket? We suggest that you input your landline area code and telephone number except make the last digit different. This way you can bypass the ‘no option to talk to customer representative’ restriction on your account. Once you are on the phone with a csr, give him or her your real landline number and your report number, if you already have one.

What if you have no dial tone so you can’t call the hotline? Check ways of reaching PLDT customer service.

Can you ask for rebate from PLDT for the days and times you have no access to internet? Yes, you can. Call 172 and talk with the Billing department. Prepare your report number(s), it’s one of the basis for the computation how much your rebate will be.

As for us, our main goal is not rebate, what we want is good service and internet connection. We are losing not only money, but our good reputation with online clients every time we can’t work. And we can’t work because we don’t have dsl connection.

*We need secure lines for our work, so working in an internet café or via public wifi is not an option for us.

Despite the issues, try to still be considerate to the csr.  We are guilty that at times our voice is a notch higher during the conversation with a support person. We have to remind ourselves that usually these csrs are only feed what they ought to say and have really no power except to take down your list of complaints and forward the same to appropriate department.

Even if you are mad because you are paying for a non-existent service, try to be considerate to the person you are talking with. Sometimes it’s very difficult to do that, but try.

When I feel that I am heading to beast mode because it feels like I am just talking to a wall during a call with PLDT support hotline, I give the phone to someone else to continue the conversation. I have relatives working in the BPO industry, and chances are you also know of one who works the hotline numbers. I keep that fact in mind, in helps to reign in my frustrations.

I know some CSRs may lack in empathy department, or that some dishes out very scripted lines, others you even feel are downright dishonest. But remember those manning the support hotline is not at fault when there is no PLDT internet.

INSIST ON TAKING YOUR CONCERN TO A SUPERVISOR of PLDT

Ask to talk with a supervisor or to escalate your issue to an officer. Prepare to wait a long time, but it’s always recommended to talk with a supervisor. The agent can only do so much. At least a supervisor has higher access and stand in better position to coordinate with other departments’ officers. So insist to talk with a supervisor. Inform the agent that you will not put the phone down until you can talk with an escalation officer from PLDT.

Chances are the first-line agent will inform you that his or her supervisor is in a meeting, in engage, or out of office. Insist still to talk to an officer, a team leader, anybody with higher clearance than the first line customer service.

It is impossible not to have someone in charge on the floor during a shift. If you have relatives or friends working for a BPO company, they will tell you the same. So wait until you are able to talk with a supervisor.

PLDT, PLDT, PLDT, Hayyyyy

PLDT is reputed to be very quick in cutting off a customer’s connection once you miss a payment date. When we applied for this line, we were also told the same, that a miss payment will result to stop in service asap.

Yet, when the reverse happen, the customer can’t do anything when the internet service sucks, except call the hotline. Wait for a long time before you can get connected, and often than not no immediate resolution.

Now, you maybe thinking, why not just leave PLDT for good. Don’t give them any business. I wish we can do that, but we can’t. We can’t afford any new lock-in period since we will be moving house in a few months.

Plus, you very well know that there are only 2 major internet service providers in the country, and it’s PLDT and GLOBE. Globe does not have good coverage in our area when we asked last year. Although, lately we’ve been seeing Globe tarps about Fibr so we might look into that after this stressful week with no internet, especially if there is a repeat to this looong network downtime.

*Smart is under PLDT, and so is SUN Cellular.

This is the negative thing about duopoly. The Philippines really need another, strong quality player in the telecommunications industry. We can’t have just the PLDT group and Globe to serve the Filipinos. Kawawa ang consumers in the absence of real, open, robust competition.

iSensey will update this post tomorrow, Monday. Hopefully things will be back to normal by then. Please lang PLDT.

Update: Monday July 31, our internet service was restored in the afternoon. Finally!

Are you also affected by this server and network downtime of PLDT this July 2017? How many days did you wait before getting back your dsl signal / connection?

*No featured image on this post yet because we are only using mobile phone tethering to upload and publish this post.  Once we get normal dsl connection, will upload an image to go with this post.