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[roseway]

Watchdog is just an entertainment program. Anne Robinson does her smug "I know best" thing, but nothing is ever dealt with in depth and properly covered. Personally I think it's a waste of television space - there's certainly a job to be done there, but Watchdog doesn't do it.

[Black Sheep]

For those who may wish to watch it again, or who missed it …………. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Episode_7/

[Black Sheep]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Episode_7/

[burakkucat]

The only thing that was new to me me was how old Anne Robinson now looks and surely someone could have suggested that she adjusted her false-teeth before filming commenced? Most off-putting! 

[kitz]

Im afraid to say, I started watching it last night and fell asleep.   I seem to have a vague recollection of waking briefly when the TV went 'tick' indicating a time out. Although I think I saw most of the relevant stuff. 

From what I did see, it would appear to that a lot of  the problem is because of the chinese wall situation & that we as EU's cant contact BToR direct.
I think its going to take someone much higher than Ann Robinson to get that fact sorted.

OK one of the problems which took down a whole estate, would appear to have been a major fault somewhere, but the lack of feedback to the residents was pretty appalling.

One of the other major gripes is of late there seems to be a lot of BT 'no-shows'.  There should be some sort of EU interface for the appointment side of things. I dont mean to book a 1st appt.  But when your ISP has recognised a need for a BT appt it would be helpful if they could perhaps pass on a reference no to the EU whereby they could track appt times - kind of like what some delivery companies use.

From this an EU would at least be able to see their time slot.    One of the problems thats not going to be overcome though, is if the visit before yours runs over and the engineer then decides to call it a day :/

[kitz]

PS..  Ive just merged both threads together.

[snadge]

agreed, I use many forums and the biggest complaint is ...NO SHOWS WHEN THEY SAID THEY HAVE ...

BTOR need to hire and train more staff and allow some direct contact between OR and EU...Ofcom need to impose stiffer limits and bigger penalties to ensure they do comply.

at the end of the day BT have bitten off more than they can chew....basically!

one of the Broadband Engineers that was here said they are under pressure to "patch up and p*** off" and get to the next job ASAP - he was here 4 hours replacing a line and his supervisor called him every 30 minutes to see how long he would be, when (like i said would happen and he said it wouldnt) my broadband was still too pot after a new line install he tried to say it was normal for up here and that because of pressure from above he had to leave - - i asked him to be honest and said that if time & pressure was of no essence what would you do...and he admitted he would go to the PCP and test from there and so on.... this was 4th engineer to my house

I have to admit back then (summer last year) they were here the next day on all 7 occasions... obviously thats all changed

[c6em]

To be honest I get a bit fed up of the "we can't contact BTOR direct" moan.

Contractually it is quite clear BTOR is a subcontractor to BT retail and the other ISP's
There is no contract between the end user and BTOR.

Now I come from a background of bespoke B2B and this is one industry where subcontracting manufacturers and end users and their consulting engineers do sit round a table and talk.
Even then it is totally forbidden to contact or deal the subcontractor direct without the main contractor being aware of everything.
In most cases the main contractor will insist on being present.

In a consumer field it is perfectly normal not to contact the subcontractor.  Your disk drive packs up and you might either contract the retailer or say WD/Samsung/Seagate and the rest.  If you tried to contact say the disk drive motor manufacturer you would be ignored.
Orr for another example: clutch/gearbox packs up - good luck in contact the likes of Borg and Beck in pursuing your complaint - you'll need it as they won't answer.

Anyway BTOR do not have all the call centre and back office infrastructure to support interfacing with the public direct
All this would cost - a lot
Do we all want to pay - no we don't.
Do we want more BTOR staff to handle faults properly with sufficient slack in the system in terms of "idle staff"  waiting to jump into maintain the schedule when some job goes wrong - yes we do
Do we want to pay - no we don't.

What I suspect lies behind this "we want to contract BTOR direct" is that really these people want preferential treatment over everyone else.

[kitz]

You make some very valid points there c6em and when its put like that, then in most industries we never do have direct contact with the wholesaler and can only speak via the retailer. 

I can see that openreach engineers are under a lot of pressure to get the job done in their allotted 2hr time slot.  I myself recently had 2 'no shows'.  The second time I was apparently booked as the last afternoon time slot, and the inevitable happened that the engineer ran over on the job prior to mine so come 5pm and he was still working on his 2pm appt.

Now thats damn annoying for the person whose taken a day off work so I can see that side too.   The problem here was the engineer was what I would call a damn good one, because he likes to get to the bottom of the fault, but from the 'next customer booked' hes probably awful if he constantly goes over the 2hrs.

When he turned up at mine the next morning at about 9.30ish from what I recall he was here a good portion of the day,  he didnt even have a lunch hour, just went to the back of his van, ate his packed lunch in about 5mins,  nattered to me for 5 mins whilst he had a smoke and a brew in my garden and then straight back to the job.   
I saw his report (PN supply them) of the work completed that day.. and when our friendly black ovine saw what he'd done Im sure he wont mind me quoting "That guy must have worked his butt off".   See so Im happy because he got my problem fixed finally..  but no doubt the higher bods wont have been because he ran over time again, and if it wasnt for the fact that a double slot had been allocated, then there would have possibly been 2 no shows for someone else that day.

So...   back to the no shows.    I fully agree that BToR cant provide a service desk for the EU, but I still think some form of tracker should be available that updates if the engineer is going to be late or turn up the next day, at least it would save some grief. 

[c6em]

Yes,
I agree that something really needs to be done about the no shows
What I have noticed from my faults and talking to the BTOR people is the variability of the load.
By this I mean one day its umpteen faults they are being submerged by and the EU waiting time goes up - a week later and they are on your doorstep the next day.
Added to which the nature of the job is totally different from many other repair jobs which are more "controlled" in their extent and can be costed up timed up to produce an accurate estimate.  So to go back to car examples, changing brake pads is a known job size as is the list of possible problems that may arise and the extra time required to sort it out.

With a dial tone fault it could be a fault in the PCP - 0.5hr to find and fix or it could be a fault somewhere along a multi-pole string of dropwire - well that ain't going to be a 2 hour max job to replace is it
It's just so variable..........

Its almost as if BTOR are trying to run a JIT system and they just run out of time.
Unless the process is VERY controlled and predictable these sort of systems have to have slack or contingencies built into them - which cost money.
Here is an example - I visited a car manufacturing plant some years back and was discussing how accurate the various sub suppliers needed to be in their timed deliveries to ensure everything arrived exactly when it should as it was required in the right order straight off the lorry onto the production line and no wharehousing/storing prior.
We asked what about the inevitable artic-lorry cab breakdowns which would happen sooner or later.  We were told yes your right and the sub-supplier has several reserve front cabs parked in strategic locations en-route doing nothing all day just waiting for the inevitable breakdown. - that's a lot of money sitting around idle 99% of the time.

[Black Sheep]

Yes,
I agree that something really needs to be done about the no shows
What I have noticed from my faults and talking to the BTOR people is the variability of the load.
By this I mean one day its umpteen faults they are being submerged by and the EU waiting time goes up - a week later and they are on your doorstep the next day.
Added to which the nature of the job is totally different from many other repair jobs which are more "controlled" in their extent and can be costed up timed up to produce an accurate estimate.  So to go back to car examples, changing brake pads is a known job size as is the list of possible problems that may arise and the extra time required to sort it out.

With a dial tone fault it could be a fault in the PCP - 0.5hr to find and fix or it could be a fault somewhere along a multi-pole string of dropwire - well that ain't going to be a 2 hour max job to replace is it
It's just so variable..........

Thank you c6em ….. that there, is the problem in a nutshell !! We are not running a production line with known variables, every single job is bespoke. My very own personal observation, is that 'we' kicked ourselves in the nuts some time ago, when bonus-related pay was introduced.
Not only did our network suffer enormously, but the task times were slowly being eroded, as the stats were gradually showing we could erect 30-spans of drop wire, combined with a 10 socket internal installation, in just under 12 minutes !! Obviously, I've pimped that up slightly, but you get the idea. We were running around like headless chickens trying to achieve the extra £200 a week bonus, and when it was finally announced the scheme was to stop, the historic data (i.e.: task times) was then implemented into every day working, but without  the carrot at the end.

It doesn't take a scientist to work out in certain sectors, bonus related pay just doesn't work. Some might say the global financial meltdown, was a result of such goings-on ?. What I do know is, all our sub-contractors are paid in this way, and we can all see the results of this.

So, regarding 'No-shows' …….. this is down to the ridiculous task-times afforded to each job (as I say, unfortunately driven by us), and the 'systems' subsequently seeing 'free time' to book extra EU slots. We do have a KCI indicator (Keep Customer Informed), that sometimes see's our 'Controllers' ring the EU if it looks like the appointment can't be met. But, I'm not sure how often this is used ??   

[HPsauce]

But, I'm not sure how often this is used ??

Based on the sort of comments I see in, for example, the PlusNet forums, the answer is almost never.
Does that KCI apply on installs?

From the customer perspective this is an ESSENTIAL part of customer service and its absence just says "We don't give a sh**".

[Black Sheep]

KCI is predominantly used on installation tasks.

[HPsauce]

every single job is bespoke.

If that is true then the "timed slots" booking mechanism is totally inappropriate, and that's just plain terrible management from so many perspectives.
Probably time to accept reality and apportion "sensible" slots for a "quick fix" and be prepared to accept that a follow-up appointment of a more appropriate length (maybe different skills too) will be needed in a proportion of cases if a "quick fix" isn't possible.

As a customer I can accept that at least the engineer turned up, looked for and fixed (if found) the obvious/common problems and needs a follow-up to tackle something tricky. Much more acceptable than a "no show".

[c6em]

From what I've been told by the operators themselves Transco gas have a escalation route when a job starts going bad.
This is done precisely to avoid the general team being delayed onto the next job.
So they have a 'simple team' which if it find itself unable to cope either though lack of experience/qualification level or equipment the job then gets ramped up through the levels to appropriate teams.

The snag so I'm told is the management want the job to be progressively elevated through each of stages 1,2,3,4 etc until it gets fixed.  The operators tell me what they would like is an ability to declare a specific job a disaster level 3 and get the job jump/skipped to the appropriate level by the first team.
As each level comes with a lot more people and equipment (and hence expense) you can see why management don't want too many level 4 and worse call outs and would rather escalate it gradually and hope that a level 2 response would be sufficient.