Is Anybody Answering the Phone today?

[#1]

Quote from: artmo

... Looks like Mr Baker doesn't care much for his customers IMO

It's rare for a Dark Prince of BT to make contact with the Great Unwashed British Public. They are much too important Artmo.

[#2]

The voice telephone is the last millennium's technology, invented by a teacher of the deaf and subscriber dialling by a funeral director. People have to queue to get connection. They receive messages at inconvenient times. Bells ring in their house interrupting whatever they are doing, often to be sent telephone spam about non existent insurance claims etc.
It is far better to queue the messages, which is what email achieves. However there needs to be an "order line", a means of connecting to the Internet that is only for fault reports. It would seem that such a system exists, 3G. I have also noted that the Three.co.uk service offers something that could be adapted. Their 3G unit will still connect just for the purpose of sending money when the subscriber's PAYG account is empty and everything else is blocked.
This is the solution: Plus Net offer a 3G service that only connects to a web site for customers to report faults and receive replies to such reports. That way the messages are queued not the people. I wouldn't be surprised if offering customers free units for this purpose would be much cheaper than running telephone call centres. A 3G USB dongle with introductory usage could about 30 quid, so the manufacturing cost is probably about 3, when you don't have to worry about marketing, retailing, and tax.
For an extra fee, Plus Net could also offer some sort of 3G backup with special modems that fall back to 3G when the wired service fails. If they are the first ISP to do this, then they should attract a lot of migrants from other providers. The modems could be programmed so that as long as the wired network is working throughout the country there would be no load on the 3G system, and if there is a partial breakdown the 3G system would only carry traffic relevant to that.

[#3]

Quote from: Edd

If the Leeds staff need assistance they can always contact us here. Saying that though they have loads of our most experienced Sheffield agents up there helping them already, so there shouldn't be problems.

Only the accents 

[#4]

Quote from: quantium

It would seem that such a system exists, 3G. I have also noted that the Three.co.uk service offers something that could be adapted. Their 3G unit will still connect just for the purpose of sending money when the subscriber's PAYG account is empty and everything else is blocked.

Maybe in a few more years when 3G is more universally available it could be a contender, but whilst 3G is only really effective in large urban areas - it's a Non-starter?
?

[#5]

Maybe there is some other mobile telephone based internet service that would work. Most people seem to have such devices, and they work here which is miles from anywhere. In any case, the number of PN customers in cities or otherwise in reach of 3G would surely make it feasible.

[#6]

What I would consider buying for internet access backup is a pay once PAYG mobile internet dongle that didn't have to be used in a specified time period e.g. 30 days, is there such a thing?
Edit > sorry for going slighly off topic 

[#7]

I would have thought this is on topic on account of the fact that it concerns continuity of service without using an outdated technology to report faults.
three(dot)co(dot)uk gives more details of existing facilities, which are not totally appropriate on account of the fact that they are time limited (rather than usage limited). This seems to be a money making legal trick rather than anything of technological significance.
dick:quote

[#8]

If it is of any help, I've had an invitation to a webinar entitled "Top 10 Contact Centre Strategies" ; I'll be happy to pass on details to the Plus Net Customer support management. Several topics are covered including "Customer Loyalty" and "Contact Centre Management".