Friday 13 January 2012

British Telecom

BT were nearly added to the list of dodgy companies recently, but saved themself at the last minute. I was at my mum’s house when we noticed her telephone was dead.

My mum is 91, is only partially sighted, is a bit unsteady on her feet and normally lives on her own. She has an emergency call device which she wears round her neck that is linked to this phone line, so if she falls she can press the button and get help. She also gets very lonely as she cannot get out much and the phone is her way to call family on a daily basis as she would other wise have no-one to takl to from one day to the next. The phone is her lifeline.

Using my computer I went on line and through the BT web site ( www.bt.com ) was able to carry out a test of her line which confirmed there was a fault near her house. BT reminded me that if the fault was in the house then they would charge for a visit, and asked if I wanted to report the fault on line to their website. I opened the master socket, tested the line from here confirming that the fault was outside the house, so I reported it at 5pm on Sunday night.

BT’s website gave a reference number and stated the fault would be fixed by Thursday. I decided to call them to see if they would increase the priority but left this until Monday morning when I knew staff would answer the phone.

When I called on Monday morning, there was no queue, I got straight through, explained the situation and asked if they could increase the priority of the repair. The call centre person said he would see what he could do.

Later that morning, as I was on my way back home a BT engineer called to say he was on site, and by 1:30 pm on Monday the fault was fixed. Considering the original estimate for the repair was Thursday, I think just after lunch on Monday was a good result – Well done BT.

I was pleased that they were able to help, I would have been very disappointed if they could not, as I worked for BT as a telecomms engineer and later an engineering manager for 31 years, and am now a BT pensioner. Any failings on the part of BT always make me feel bad as I know I did my best to make things go well when I worked for them.

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