phone provider changed withour permission!
Thanks Kevin,
Apologies for missing a response on the emergency reactivation process, I think I was a little too carried away in regards to the new processes headed our way
To address your question in order:
1) I'm hoping that I'm reading this one correctly - I understand the logic behind having the read acknowledgement on the transfer email however I'm unsure on how this could benefit either party. At present we're only supposed to cancel a transfer order if the customer gives us consent to do so. Given this we wouldn't be able to action anything either way of the email being opened and read. I guess it would shift responsibility entirely from the company if the customer read it and didn't act upon it and it later transpired that they were being slammed however at present this isn't going help the matter either way.
2) I in complete agreement with this, there will always be an unforeseen issue present that could cause this type of problem however an increase in this transfer window would only serve to upset the customers who are legitimately transferring their service so its a bit of a tough one to settle. In my mind (and I understand this may not go down very well) it would make sense to have a page interrupting regular browsing that would inform of the transfer and link to either a support ticket or even better, an interface that gives the option to accept or reject the transfer that links into the order system if this needs to be cancelled. This would then give the customer full control although at the expense of causing interruption.
3) I'm also in agreement with this! Just last week I dealt with an account where the customer provided us with a slightly different address to that of the house they were moving into which resulted in us attempting to take over a line twice before we got to the root of the matter. This type of issue does indeed happen by accident and ideally it would be stopped automatically if attempted and cancelled in quick succession. Maybe an improvement to the idea given under option 2 would be to allow customers to lock their line at the wholesale level via the member centre, this way they could unlock it if they do intend to transfer and all attempts would be rejected while locked. Unfortunately this would be down to the supplier to offer such a system although I'm sure we could build something similar on our side if we had the time or resource to do so.
4) In an ideal world I think this would be a good idea however this would require a heck of a lot of resource to cover it and I would hazard a guess at this workflow being subject to peaks and troughs in calls. Ultimately I think we should put the power in the customers hand and allow them free reign over what they want to do, as covered in answer 3.
Finally, with regards to the emergency re-provision of services slammed/ceased in error, I'm not aware of a solid supplier process for this under either of the situations. We have access to an expedite service at cost to ourselves (which should be covered if we ceased the asset early/incorrectly) however this isn't guaranteed to complete any earlier (and in a lot cases doesn't) which would soon start to mount up. There would be no way for us to claim these monies back from the provider who slammed the service.
As the majority of these issues turn out to be slammed lines, I would estimate the cost of covering the expedite process as being anywhere north of £50k minimum per year on a conservative estimate. It would be interesting to see the actual number of slammed lines we see over the annual period however it would be a little tough to quantify as this isn't something we actively report on in-house.
Given that OFCOM mentioned this process I will be sure to have a dig around to see if this is something that exists as it could well be something we're unaware of and therefore severely underutilising!
Apologies for missing a response on the emergency reactivation process, I think I was a little too carried away in regards to the new processes headed our way
To address your question in order:
1) I'm hoping that I'm reading this one correctly - I understand the logic behind having the read acknowledgement on the transfer email however I'm unsure on how this could benefit either party. At present we're only supposed to cancel a transfer order if the customer gives us consent to do so. Given this we wouldn't be able to action anything either way of the email being opened and read. I guess it would shift responsibility entirely from the company if the customer read it and didn't act upon it and it later transpired that they were being slammed however at present this isn't going help the matter either way.
2) I in complete agreement with this, there will always be an unforeseen issue present that could cause this type of problem however an increase in this transfer window would only serve to upset the customers who are legitimately transferring their service so its a bit of a tough one to settle. In my mind (and I understand this may not go down very well) it would make sense to have a page interrupting regular browsing that would inform of the transfer and link to either a support ticket or even better, an interface that gives the option to accept or reject the transfer that links into the order system if this needs to be cancelled. This would then give the customer full control although at the expense of causing interruption.
3) I'm also in agreement with this! Just last week I dealt with an account where the customer provided us with a slightly different address to that of the house they were moving into which resulted in us attempting to take over a line twice before we got to the root of the matter. This type of issue does indeed happen by accident and ideally it would be stopped automatically if attempted and cancelled in quick succession. Maybe an improvement to the idea given under option 2 would be to allow customers to lock their line at the wholesale level via the member centre, this way they could unlock it if they do intend to transfer and all attempts would be rejected while locked. Unfortunately this would be down to the supplier to offer such a system although I'm sure we could build something similar on our side if we had the time or resource to do so.
4) In an ideal world I think this would be a good idea however this would require a heck of a lot of resource to cover it and I would hazard a guess at this workflow being subject to peaks and troughs in calls. Ultimately I think we should put the power in the customers hand and allow them free reign over what they want to do, as covered in answer 3.
Finally, with regards to the emergency re-provision of services slammed/ceased in error, I'm not aware of a solid supplier process for this under either of the situations. We have access to an expedite service at cost to ourselves (which should be covered if we ceased the asset early/incorrectly) however this isn't guaranteed to complete any earlier (and in a lot cases doesn't) which would soon start to mount up. There would be no way for us to claim these monies back from the provider who slammed the service.
As the majority of these issues turn out to be slammed lines, I would estimate the cost of covering the expedite process as being anywhere north of £50k minimum per year on a conservative estimate. It would be interesting to see the actual number of slammed lines we see over the annual period however it would be a little tough to quantify as this isn't something we actively report on in-house.
Given that OFCOM mentioned this process I will be sure to have a dig around to see if this is something that exists as it could well be something we're unaware of and therefore severely underutilising!
Let me help you Adam.
Quote Given that OFCOM mentioned this process I will be sure to have a dig around to see if this is something that exists as it could well be something we're unaware of and therefore severely underutilising!
According to this http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/switching-fixed-voice-broadband/MPB_28.pdf it was something being proposed in 2010
Quote Emergency restoration process
–
A strawman proposal is being developed by
OR/OTA and will soon be shared with CPs for their review. Work in progress.
knowing OFCOM it's probably still being discussed
Sending an email with read receipt:
The rules say you can't contact the customer directly about moving away. But surely you can contact the customer if you send an important email and it appears it hasn't reached the intended recipient. All you'd have to do is adopt a similar policy for some other 'important' email so it wasn't a procedure specific to this case.
The rules say you can't contact the customer directly about moving away. But surely you can contact the customer if you send an important email and it appears it hasn't reached the intended recipient. All you'd have to do is adopt a similar policy for some other 'important' email so it wasn't a procedure specific to this case.
Quote from: MisterW knowing OFCOM it's probably still being discussed
Thanks MisterW,
I've had a good dig through everything and can't see anything more recent that relates back to this process being alive in the present day so I'm either missing something or this never made the final cut!
I've still got a few avenues to explore and minds to probe before I can say for sure but I'll make sure I post here when I get through with bugging people
@Townman - Thanks for the kind words, I know they have a substantial amount of work going into the project which will deliver the new process so I should probably put this idea forward and see if it would be viable. I'm not going to hold my breath at this stage though, they're already quite a way into the project so I would doubt that this is something they could squeeze in given the level of complexity required to deliver this as a customer facing tool.
With regards to measuring the slammed lines, I think it would be a good idea to measure them but again, this isn't a job for me so I'll raise it and see if we can start picking these up and see if a business case can be put together to outline the cost to us when we see a slammed line. Ultimately putting the tools in the hands of the customer would hopefully negate the need to monitor slammed lines however there would always be the odd one that slips through the net no doubt.
@ncar - As Townman mentioned, I would be more than happy to take a look at this for you if you'd like me to chase this up with regards to the OFCOM advice. Just drop me a PM and I'll pick it up for you
