BBC News Scotland Highlands: BT apologises to Scottish customers over slow broadband

BT have apologised for the problems in the Highlands since Thursday and seem
to have confirmed that it was the BT Community Forums that alerted them to
the fault.






7 February 2011 Last updated at 14:03

BT apologises to Scottish customers over slow broadband

BT has said its broadband services in the north of Scotland were disrupted
at the end of last week.

...........




http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...lands-12383787

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, (E-Mail Removed)
says...
>
> BT have apologised for the problems in the Highlands since Thursday and seem
> to have confirmed that it was the BT Community Forums that alerted them to
> the fault.
>

Yes - but only after a customer emailed the CEO.

The "MD, BT Retail Customer Service" took personal charge of this and
posted regular updates and apologies in the forum. This is the first
time this has ever happened - which rather suggests the CEO had lit a
fire under his customer service fellow. I guess his bonus this year
(paid in April) may be at risk....

"Gaius" wrote in message news:(E-Mail Removed)...

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, (E-Mail Removed)
says...
>
> BT have apologised for the problems in the Highlands since Thursday and
> seem
> to have confirmed that it was the BT Community Forums that alerted them to
> the fault.
>

Yes - but only after a customer emailed the CEO.

The "MD, BT Retail Customer Service" took personal charge of this and
posted regular updates and apologies in the forum. This is the first
time this has ever happened - which rather suggests the CEO had lit a
fire under his customer service fellow. I guess his bonus this year
(paid in April) may be at risk....




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I did not see anything to suggest that it had come down after an EMail to
the CEO. It fitted exactly with what I saw online. There were messages on
the Community Forum - locations matched the places named in the news item.
A moderator saw these and spoke to their network control centre who did not
know anything about the fault so presumably started investigating, the
moderator asked some people to contact him direct and some received calls
from BT. Later in the day the Community Manager answered that he had taken
it up, presumably after being contacted by his moderators. He seems to have
escalated the response. He has been reporting back and is promising a live
session next week with the Manager of Networks.

No mention has been made of anything coming down from the CEO and everything
indicates the flow of information was going the other way but if you don't
believe he is telling the truth then perhaps you should ask next week.

Apart from a major failure in their network monitoring, I think what most
people want is the call centre sorted because at the moment they only seem
interested in trying to persuade customers that the fault is their own and
not passing reports on.

In article <8Z-(E-Mail Removed)>, (E-Mail Removed)
says...
>
> I did not see anything to suggest that it had come down after an EMail to
> the CEO. It fitted exactly with what I saw online. There were messages on
> the Community Forum - locations matched the places named in the news item.
> A moderator saw these and spoke to their network control centre who did not
> know anything about the fault so presumably started investigating, the
> moderator asked some people to contact him direct and some received calls
> from BT. Later in the day the Community Manager answered that he had taken
> it up, presumably after being contacted by his moderators. He seems to have
> escalated the response. He has been reporting back and is promising a live
> session next week with the Manager of Networks.
>
> No mention has been made of anything coming down from the CEO and everything
> indicates the flow of information was going the other way but if you don't
> believe he is telling the truth then perhaps you should ask next week.
>
> Apart from a major failure in their network monitoring, I think what most
> people want is the call centre sorted because at the moment they only seem
> interested in trying to persuade customers that the fault is their own and
> not passing reports on.

Read the thread again starting at post 104. Then read post 107. You'll
note that at that time WB didn't have any information to give but "CEO
of BT Group is aware". In other words, he was just on the case. Given
the timing, I'd say it was post 104 that kicked things off.

You may not be aware of the way the CEO's office operates. There is a
senior duty officer there at all times. If something like this comes in,
it is actioned instantly - emails and phone calls to the key board
members, and other senior managers as appropriate. The Duty Officer
appears to have judged the problem described in the email as
sufficiently serious as to require a call to the CEO. (We don't know the
contents of that email!)

The moderator is a BT Retail employee. He WILL NOT have direct access to
the BT Wholesale Network Operations Centres as you suggest. This is
forbidden by OFCOM's Business Separation rules. The moderator - with all
due respect - is fairly junior, and will most certainly not be inclined
to contact his Managing Director out of hours. If you've ever worked in
a large corporate, you'll know why.

The key question is why this problem was dealt with so effectively this
time, when previous and equally serious ones have dragged on and on with
no visible presence of any BT manager - senior or otherwise.

It would be great to think that this signals a new approach to BT Retail
customer fault handling. We will see.

"Gaius" wrote in message news:(E-Mail Removed)...


The moderator is a BT Retail employee. He WILL NOT have direct access to
the BT Wholesale Network Operations Centres as you suggest. This is
forbidden by OFCOM's Business Separation rules. The moderator - with all
due respect - is fairly junior, and will most certainly not be inclined
to contact his Managing Director out of hours. If you've ever worked in
a large corporate, you'll know why.




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I gather the moderator would be quite a lowly minion, even if he had no
access to Network Operations then I am sure he would have means of passing a
message up through their chain of command. I used to work for a big
organisation and we had to deal through a centre but it was not unknown to
bypass them unofficially and further in the past even more so. We were not
supposed to deal with other organisations directly but we did.

"MB" wrote in message news:(E-Mail Removed)...

BT have apologised for the problems in the Highlands since Thursday and seem
to have confirmed that it was the BT Community Forums that alerted them to
the fault.

7 February 2011 Last updated at 14:03

BT apologises to Scottish customers over slow broadband

BT has said its broadband services in the north of Scotland were disrupted
at the end of last week.

...........

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...lands-12383787

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BT's MD Customer Service answered questions about this last night in an
online Live Chat.