Home Phone Faults Policy

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Home Phone faults can be raised via the Help Assistant on our customer service portal, or through Workplace (our internal customer management system) when a customer calls us to report a fault.

• More information about Home Phone Faults is available in our Troubleshooting guide
• Customers can report a Home Phone fault by raising a Question

Procedure

When a fault report is received by our Support Team:

1. They will check that enough information to diagnose and test the fault has been provided. It is important that as much information about the problem is supplied at the first point of contact.
2. In the event that insufficient information is provided by the customer, our Support Team will respond with a set of structured questions based on the initial information provided.
3. If the fault is logged by telephone, these questions will be asked before the fault Ticket is raised on the customer's account.
4. It is important that all required questions are answered. If a BT engineer attends the customer's premises to find a fault with the customer's equipment or setup, an 'Abortive Visit Charge' may be applied. To find out how much the current charge is please contact us.

We will provide updates and further communications about the fault using the method that was used to raise it, unless the customer requests otherwise.
Examples of questions asked to diagnose a fault are as follows:

1. When lifting your handset do you get a dial tone? If the answer is 'No' then please can you try the line with all other devices (i.e. any alarm systems, fax machines, satellite boxes) disconnected and just one handset connected, then let us know if the problem still happens. We also recommend trying an alternative handset (preferably known to be working), as this will eliminate the problem being with your equipment.
2. Are you suffering from poor line quality or noise on the line? If the answer is 'Yes' then please perform a test from the main socket with all other devices disconnected, to rule out anything on the line being the cause of the issue.

 

1. Is the problem you are having with incoming or outgoing calls? Please provide details of the problems you are experiencing.

 

1. Are you reporting that the line is damaged in some way? If so, please can you provide information about where the line is damaged?
2. Is the problem related to one of the features you have subscribed to with Plusnet? If so, which one and what problems are you experiencing?

Once enough information is recorded about the fault, the Ticket will be passed to our specialist faults team for further diagnosis. The faults team work through all open faults in chronological order from the point they are raised.

Faults Team

A line test is carried out using the BT Wholesale diagnostics system for each fault, and one of the following results is returned:

1. Line Fault - If the test comes back with this response then we will raise the fault to BTW immediately.
2. Exchange Fault - If the test comes back with this response then we will raise the fault to BTW immediately.
3. Line Test Completed - 'No Fault Found' - If the test comes back with this response we will contact the customer to confirm the nature and symptoms of the fault. This ensures we don't raise a fault unnecessarily to BTW, as this may delay the resolution of the problem.
4. Fault suspected on Customer Apparatus - If the test comes back with this response it is very likely that the problem is caused by something inside the property which is interfering with the telephone line. In these cases we will contact you and ask for a re-test with alternative equipment before we log the fault with BTW.

When we have raised a fault to BTW we will receive an estimated update time, which depends on the type of the fault. Typically this is set to Midnight on the day after a fault is raised, and in most cases the fault is solved or updated before this point. If the fault is not resolved, we will follow up each day and call BT for an update as soon as possible after the next update time is exceeded.
It is rare that updates are not received after the first call to BT, but in circumstances where this occurs, we will instigate a fixed escalation process in order to get the fault progressed as quickly as possible. Once BT advise that the fault is resolved, we will make contact with the customer in order to confirm this. Only following this confirmation will we close the fault Ticket and acknowledge with BTWs systems that the issue is resolved.

Escalation Procedure

Escalation contacts are made by telephone in the first instance, and email is used for follow-ups. The escalation procedure is as follows:

1. First Escalation - SMC (Service Management Centre)
2. Second Escalation - SMC Team Leader
3. Third Escalation - Duty Repair Manager
4. Fourth Escalation - Head of Assurance
5. Fifth Escalation - General Manager of Service Operations

Once BT advise that the fault is resolved the customer will be contacted and asked to confirm this, before the fault is marked as 'closed' in both our customer management system and BTs fault system.

Feature-Specific Problems

For problems with a feature of the Home Phone service, such as Call Waiting or Voicemail, the following should be noted:

• When a transfer of the Home Phone service to Plusnet is completed it is NOT a like-for-like transfer, so any features held previously will be lost unless specifically requested when transferring the service.
• If the customer requested a feature, but it is not working, in the first instance check the Home Phone Control Panel and ensure that the feature is active. If this is not the case you can add the necessary features from the Control Panel, and a confirmation email will be sent to the customer upon activation. If the feature is showing active, but is not working get as much information from the customer as possible and then raise a ticket to Home Phone Faults for further investigation.

• Certain feature faults can be tested by us, although there are no line tests we can carry out for feature issues:

Voicemail

If the customer is having a problem with the voicemail service there could be a valid reason for this:

• If the customer has recently moved from another provider and requested a voicemail service from us which is not working, it is necessary for us to know where the service was transferred from. Some providers use proprietary voicemail services (TalkTalk and OneTel are two such providers) which cause problems if the service has not been removed correctly prior to transfer. In these cases the only course of action available is for the customer to contact the previous provider and ask them to remove it correctly. If they advise that this has been done the customer will need to ask them to re-add the service, and then remove it again, after which we will be able to order the standard voicemail service.

• If Outgoing Call Barring (OCB) has recently been applied this is likely to have triggered the removal of the Voicemail service. This will need to be manually re-ordered by Home Phone provisioning if this is the case and will need to be requested on a Ticket.

• If the problem is not related to any of the above, obtain as much information as possible about the problem from the customer and raise a Ticket to 'Home Phone Faults' for further investigation.

Anonymous Call Reject

• Call the customer from one of the Nortel phones in the CSC. If ACR is working correctly you will hear "the number you are calling does not accept calls from anonymous numbers", however if the call gets through this is clearly not working and will need to be raised as a fault.

• Certain calls will get through despite ACR being applied, these are calls from emergency services, government agencies, hospitals or calls from abroad which do not display enough information for BTO to block the call.

Call Waiting
Test by calling the customer.

Policy Changes

We will list changes to the policy as they occur, to make it easier for you to see if and how the policy has altered since you last read it.