Switch ISP! HEXUS teams up with Zen

[Nomadd]

Customer service is what you get from the moment you decide to choose...

So, finally, we are all agreed: if you want a blindingly fast ADSL2+ connection, at an excellent price, with customer support that is as good as ANY ISP in the UK (check Thinkbroadband customer feedback), no traffic limits, and no traffic shaping, then go...O2/Be.

Glad that's all over.

Nomadd

EDIT: ...and if you are unfortunate enough to use an exchange that hasn't yet been enabled for O2/Be yet, think of using Zen in the interim.

[Robert]

I just passed the phone interview with these guys...got to the final stage (assessment day).

Only trouble is I would struggle to get there everyday (4 hour commute per day).



I need a car!

[Blitzen]

Customer service is what you get from the moment you decide to choose Zen.

It's everything from when you go to the website for information, place an order over the phone or online, talk to our sales team or billing, be notified of work we do on the network, receive technical support, have our staff spend time with you as a customer and not get you off the phone as quickly as possible because they have to meet a silly call target for statistical purposes etc. etc. There’s hidden things that customers never see like the technical work we do with manufacturers like Speedtouch or where we highlight issues like many saw with the AR7 chipset recently, we always look at everything we can that improves a customer’s experience.

Nothing at Zen should be difficult for a customer.

Are we perfect? No, I don't believe we are and I don't think any ISP can ever claim that but for me and my staff and Zen's entire business ethic we focus on trying to be the best, customer service and quality, we have a very focused mindset in work that's based upon some key values which are.

1) Allow our staff to do their jobs - You'll never see 80 calls a shift mentality or scripted staff in Zen.
2) Continuous Improvement - We always look at what we do today as having to be better than what we did yesterday.
3) Plan for the future - This includes our growth (Network) and products and service improvements.

We are always looking to better what we do and that attitude won't ever stop in fact we know there’s so much more we'd like to do and we will strive to achieve that but not at the expense of it impacting on our customers deliberately just to make a pound or two extra.

We price sensibly based upon what it costs to provide a good, sold reliable product and service and that will not change. We don't tie our customers up with confusing traffic shaping, limited usage on/off peak based upon protocols, FUP, or tie them in to 18 month contracts (It's a month at Zen). We let them decide and if they like us they stay and if they don't they can have their MAC's and leave at their convenience.

Products we sell are clear - what you see is what you get and that delivers choice to a customer and the pricing is up front from the outset.

Before I joined as an employee I was a customer for 5 years and that's a long time to be with one ISP esepcially when you consider the fact I was working for other ISP's at that time ;-)

Regards
Gary

So you think that £34.99 a month, for what these days is average speed, is good value? Regardless of whether your CS is excellent or awful?
Not to mention capped.

I dont.

However good your service is, on face value, and speed, its poor value for money.

So, finally, we are all agreed: if you want a blindingly fast ADSL2+ connection, at an excellent price, with customer support that is as good as ANY ISP in the UK (check Thinkbroadband customer feedback), no traffic limits, and no traffic shaping, then go...O2/Be.

Glad that's all over.

Nomadd

EDIT: ...and if you are unfortunate enough to use an exchange that hasn't yet been enabled for O2/Be yet, think of using Zen in the interim.

Or SKY (for less cash)

[Zenops]

So you think that £34.99 a month, for what these days is average speed, is good value? Regardless of whether your CS is excellent or awful?
Not to mention capped.

Personally I think it's exceptional value for money as we don’t have traffic shaped connections, fair usage, rate limit your http, Usenet, p2p traffic and tell you when you can/can’t use them, call centre’s offshore, scripted staff who can’t help you beyond what the script tells them to do etc. etc.

We invest in our network and ensure its fit for purpose and that it's not over stretched. Some of our competitors have yet to see the pain that growth is inevitably going to give them.

I'm not the best person to ask if it's value for money our customers would have to answer that however as a user of Zen for 5 years prior to being an employee I would have said Yes anyway and when you consider I have never had any downtime in 5 years and used Zen over the ISP's I worked for at the time then I guess for me it would re-affirm that perception.

What we do is set out our stall out with the product and pricing clear from the outset - No need to trawl through pages of T&C's to see what you’re going to have to do to use our service.

As a Business ISP our customers want reliability not liability and that's what we aim to provide.

Gary

[Zenops]

I commute to Zen 160 miles round trip each day which is the shortest daily commute I've done in the last 8 years.

Zen is an amazing place to work - if anyones looking for a career check out our recruitment page on the Zen website (Hope that doesnt break the forum rules).

Regards
Gary

[Nick]

Sky isn't an option for me as I DON'T want Sky... I have freeview and that does me fine.

Cable is out as, despite being only YARDS from houses that have cable, our little close doesn't have it and won't be getting it.

BT BB? Well it's an option, but they don't do they're 'just BB' service anymore and tried like buggers to force that BT Homehub crap on me, so they were out too.

Which left Zen or Pipex or somesuch other as being the alternatives.

Why'd I go with Zen?

Well in asking them about bandwidth, rate capping, usage caps, DNS servers, contention ratios, line training and static IPs, Zen were the ONLY guys who actually KNEW what I was talking about without refering to someone else or to some crib sheet.

I highly value being able to ring someone up, tell them what I want and them give me an honest appraisal of which of their products would suit me best... rather than just being pigeon-holed into some ready made package that they want to flog me.

Like I said, the line training was a real PITA but overall I'm happy with the service and even happier that I don't spend 20 minutes on a national rate number waiting in a queue when something goes wrong...

But hey, we all pick an ISP for whatever reason appeals to us, so let;s just say that there's loads of guys out there and plnety of deals to be done.

[kopite]

Further to a point Gary has made I know of a lot of people who work for other ISp`s in the country yet use Zen because they know how good the rep is. For a home ISp they are a bit more expensive that the other options out there but if ya pay the extra the quality is very good.

Plus something that I havent seen mentioned yet is that Zen have their own newsgroups which whilst not as huge a retention as the paid for service are still decent and also have good completion.

[Blitzen]

Im not saying that Zen are bad.........they are probably a very good ISP.

Just for a home user, its poor value for money. £20+ per month extra for good customer support just isnt worth it.

[Nomadd]

Im not saying that Zen are bad.........they are probably a very good ISP.

Just for a home user, its poor value for money. £20+ per month extra for good customer support just isnt worth it.

£20? Try again - their prices don't include VAT. A basic 8Mb line - which is STILL CAPPED at 50MB - costs a whopping £35 / month. That's an utterly insane price to pay for broadband. EDIT: Yes I see they do cheaper deals on their website, but those are even poorer value for money.

With O2, an 8Mb line, uncapped, with class-leading Customer Service is £12.50. And for not much more you can double your linespeed, providing you have a decent connection to your exchange.

Zen may have good customer service, but the price and the stupidly low caps just don't justify the price - especially when there are such good alternatives.

Nice try, Hexus, but I think I'll continue to "partner" elsewhere!

Nomadd

[Zak33]

It's only when things go wrong,, with your other ISP, and then when you move to Zen, like I did, for a one month, no strings attached trial, that it all makes sense.

I was on Virgin, at 1 meg. They upped me to Max...and it fell over. Every night, for weeks. Their support line was hard to get through on, dropepd me, was costing a lot of money, and was half way useful, but seriously scripted.

I moved to Zen. It fell over, the first night, which I was used too, I reported it, did all the things Zen asked (this bit IS scripted, though the chap I was dealing with knew I was close to intelligent and was asking me to be properly patient). After doing all the dtuff asked of me, he booked a BT engineer,

Niothing amazing about this? Nope....prolly not. Except my neighbours were on the same issue, with Wanadoo (not yet Orange at this point....god help them now)

I had a BT engineer within 3 days....they have still never had one, even after months (now years!)

Zen must have a relationship allowing them to spend my extra money (£24.99 instead of my previous £18) on a BT engineers appointment. I won't leave. Not now.

Their web hosting is FAST too. Very very fast file download

[kopite]

Its not scripted as such zak but there is certain information that is needed to pass over to BT before a fault can be raised to them.

That is one thing that sets zen appart from a lot of ISP`s is that when they raise a fault to BT they give BT the answers to any question that they could possibly have about a line before BT ask for it

SPeeds up faults so much

[menthel]

I love ADSL24- they are an ENTA reseller and my service has always been great!

30gb peak/300gb off peak downloads for £19.99.

Also friendly and quick c/s in this country!

[Zenops]

-snipped-
Zen must have a relationship allowing them to spend my extra money (£24.99 instead of my previous £18) on a BT engineers appointment. I won't leave. Not now.

Their web hosting is FAST too. Very very fast file download

Hi Zak,
Glad your fault was resolved. We definitely don't have scripts and never will, although the DSL diagnostics asks a set of questions so that when we submit to BT it reduces the risk of them coming back with the standard responses of Right when tested (RWT) or Fault not Found (FNF). This is sometimes mistaken as scripted.

We do have a good relationship with BT as much as we can do with the regulatory compliance they have to work within but we don’t give up when we are certain a fault is not within our domain or our customers.

I also hold regular service reviews and weekly calls with BT where we progress service and operational issues etc.

We have our own DSL diagnostics training program that we ask our partners to attend also so we can ensure our high standards are delivered to their customers also.

I know it’s a pain at times to go over the speed testing etc but it does help reduce dwell time and try to get a first time fix where possible.

Regards
Gary

[moogle]

Or SKY (for less cash)

if you have sky tv.

[Moby-Dick]

One of the things I liked about the Zen guys was always their ability to gauge the person on the other end of the line's technical know-how - as a sysadmin, I dont nessesarily need the same guidance through an issue that a domestic customer might, and I was always happy to speak with the Zen staff on a techie to techie level

In the same way when my 70 year old father phones them , he has an equally smooth experience

[kidzer]

They also have cool vaccancies, do you think this post will be open in 2 years time; Help Desk Support | Job Summary | Careers | Zen Internet



And cool ones to aim for - Senior Network Systems Engineer | Vacancies | Careers | Zen Internet, Zen - keep a job open for me when I graduate, I'll move down and work for you if you will! (computer networking student )