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[Black Sheep]

Obviously, every job is bespoke, not just the layout of the premises or the network, but even the EU's themselves. Some want to tell you every single second of what's happened, some just about manage a grunt, then there's elderly, disabled, and mentally challenged EU's. All have to be handled differently and with the respect they deserve. This can see 10-15 mins of the task time eaten up before you've lifted a spanner.

I'm not defending our 'Appointment booking' systems, (far from it if you read above), but I do understand it must be incredibly hard to manage such a system, due to the very bespoke nature of our business.

I was chatting with Kitz a while back, when she had been the recipient of 2 missed appointments. I told her of the day I spent in an 'Awareness event', whereby we were given a desktop 'map' spit into hours of the day from 0800-1800, with different engineering skill sets down the left hand side (CAL, OMI, CSE, DSL, UG, Hoist etc). We were then given a pile of 'Tasks' (Installation, UG fault, OH fault, CSE fault, Broadband fault etc) written on card, and had to place them on the board so as to meet all the appointments. After 10mins, we sat back chuffed that we had completed the task.

Then, the facilitator says, 'Hold on, engineer A has just extended his job by another hour. This then meant the 'Tasks' had to be re-adjusted. Another 10 mins later and we'd cracked it. Then the cry goes up, 'engineer B' has just rung, he's going to be all day on a damaged UG cable'. So, we start to try and readjust the 'Tasks' when after just a minute, the cry goes up 'engineer C has had to go home due to a serious family matter' ……… and so on and so on. Without labouring the point, I'm sure folk will see that it is damned near impossible to predict what is going to happen on the day !! That's why there are 'no shows'.

I'm not promoting nor defending anything here, as I've said many times before, a lot of people comment on forums without the slightest inkling of the enormity of what they may see as something simple.

I don't have answers, but believe me when I tell you, they don't just throw a load of chicken-bones on the table to decide how best to manage the workstacks. There are multi-million pound systems in play, along with manual 'Controller's', trying to juggle spaghetti every day. If anyone has a good, workable idea as to how to better these things, BT are incredibly open to 'New Ideas'. As I say though, you need to factor in EVERYTHING, EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE INSTANCE, not just the bog-standard, ideal day.

 

[HPsauce]

I've worked (as head of IT) in many service businesses of different types (including "public service" as well as commercial) and hope I understand the issues.
Critical to it all is respect for and (honest) communication with the customer.

The sort of symptoms associated with BT would have had the senior service management at every single place I've worked in a hive of activity to rectify - or they would be fired!

[Black Sheep]

Drop them a line, HP, you may end up head of our 'Customer Based Solution' team.

[HPsauce]

I wasn't a Service Director, they were the guys who really had to sort it out, but obviously the contribution of IT (and what it realistically could and couldn't do) was quite important so I was intimately involved in almost all major decisions.

Anyway I'm pretty much retired, certainly from the corporate world.  8)

[kitz]

BT are incredibly open to 'New Ideas'.

Hows about a 'tracker' type system like I suggested earlier.   Do you think this would work from the engineers side of things.

Most delivery companies have some sort of software that does this.  All the login and account info is handled by the retailer who pass on a reference no to the customer, who can then check progress of their order.

So take this to a BT level.  The ISP books a fault and gets a reference number.  The ISP passes the reference number to the EU who can then check and confirm themselves the date and apprx time of the job.   

If the engineer is delayed on a previous job, then its reported to the system & the EU can spot immediately whats going on. 

I know in my case the engineer had already reported to control that he was stuck on a job, and I believe my appt was reallocated back into the days pool of work for someone else to try and pick up.   The failure was that no-one thought of letting me know what was going on. 
By 4pm I already suspected it was going to be another no show, but as an EU we are told the ISP cant do anything until 7pm (iirc) as the engineer may turn up until this point.  So I had to sit in for the next 3 hours 'just in case' for something that probably wasnt  going to happen.

Instead what happened was the engineer turned up first thing the next morning unexpected. 

Now wouldnt it have been better all round if as soon as the engineer realised at 3.30pm that he wasnt going to be able to make my job and had advised control..  that someone advised me.  What if I'd gone out the next morning, then that would have wasted an engineers time too.
The tracker system I propose should be updated as soon as the engineer realises hes going to be delayed.

This type of system wouldnt cost mega-bucks to implement.  Just put a web interface on the system they already have... so the EU can see where they are in the job stack?

[kitz]

I think my advice to anyone who needs a BT engineer appt would be to request their ISP for a morning appt.

For reasons already discussed, it appears "the last job of the day" is the one far most likely to end up as a no show.

[HPsauce]

They could even offer some incentive to accept later appointments on the basis they are riskier.
Many homeworkers or retired people would be happy to be more flexible if they saw a benefit to them.

And of course, as said before, the compensation should match the penalty. So if it's £150 for "not getting to the door quickly enough" not spotting the BT van driving by it should be £150 compensation for a no show.

[tonyappuk]

Is it too simplistic to think that a lot of the cause of no shows is that there is not enough staff available? I'm sure we can understand BT trying to operate as economically as possible so that we all, customers and shareholders, get a good return for our money, but you can't run a maintenance project properly wothout enough staff. I was in TV transmitter maintenance for a large part of my working life and getting the transmitters back on air with minimum down time meant a lot of skilled people sitting around doing very little for a lot of the time. Because mending faults electronic and mechanical take a variable length of time you need lots a spare resources. In common with a lot of companies these days the accountants call the shots and the customer suffers.
Tony

[kitz]

Theres always been the odd no show crop up, but it does seem to me that over the past year or so there has been a heck of a lot more.
The SPs themselves cant be too happy about this as it means they have to re-arrange the appt.   Sometimes when a no show occurs, by the time you go through this process another week can have passed.

- Again this is something perhaps an online ticket system could do, once you have a ref no, you can re-arrange another appt direct.. kind of like how you can re-arrange delivery of a parcel. 

Back to the apparent increase in no shows over the past year or so, BT need to ask themselves what has happened during this time?

The obvious would be the increase in FTTC and teething/wiring problems. 
Some issues may be incorrectly done work by by sub-contractors - we seem to have seen more than a few complaints in that area.
The fact that time constraints often cause repeat visits, which in itself is a waste of resources when another engineer has to start fault-finding from scratch again.   

So the simplistic reasoning is not enough engineers and existing time restraints not always being practical.

Because mending faults electronic and mechanical take a variable length of time you need lots a spare resources. In common with a lot of companies these days the accountants call the shots and the customer suffers.

Yep..  and there you have it 

[HPsauce]

BT need to ask themselves what has happened during this time?

I can't believe they're not doing that.
And in huge detail with loads of statistics and developing a thorough "recovery plan" to remedy it.

It's just along the way the actual customer seems to have become irrelevant. 

[waltergmw]

Gentlefolk,

In case anyone missed last weeks Watchdog episode here's a U Tube link. I hope it rattles a few cages with folk in high places.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqazOJONi94#t=116

Kind regards,
Walter

[kitz]

In case anyone missed last weeks Watchdog episode here's a U Tube link.

Merged with the existing topic

[4candles]

Because mending faults electronic and mechanical take a variable length of time you need lots a spare resources. In common with a lot of companies these days the accountants call the shots and the customer suffers.

Yep..  and there you have it 

Precisely so.

The bean counters think you can fit real life into little boxes. It doesn't work, and never will.