Improving customer service at Openreach

Openreach is responsible for maintaining the local access network � the copper and fibre wires that connect tens of millions of homes and businesses around the UK to local telephone exchanges

Customer service at Openreach is now at its best ever level. For example, last year on average a customer would experience a fault on their telephone line once every 12 years and over Christmas 2008, 99.99 per cent of lines were working � that�s just 142 customers per million out of service.

Openreach engineers have played an important part in this success. We met Lee Coulston, a Customer Service Engineer, who�s worked for BT for nine years, to ask about his role.

�I look after an area within the City of London which incorporates about 15 telephone exchanges. Each engineer has a preferred work location, so you get to know your own area pretty well. My patch stretches from Holborn up to Holloway and down to Stepney. Most of the time I work on my own, although I may work with a partner on some larger or more complex jobs.�

When we meet, Lee is working at a residential block just off Columbia Road, which is best known for its vibrant weekend flower market. He has been on a project renewing the copper wiring in two residential blocks of 18 flats for three weeks. When complete, these wires will carry telephone, broadband, data and other services to each property in the block.

It�s unusual for Lee to be working on a longer term project such as this. �Normally I am part of our work allocation system which issues jobs to engineers each day. So after my alarm wakes me at 6am, I switch on my laptop, sign-in and check the details of my first job which is automatically sent to my computer. I can do this from home which is great as it means I have time to look in on my daughter, Shauna, who is two and is usually awake before I leave.

�Breakfast is a cup of coffee and perhaps some fruit and I�m on route from my house in Croydon to my first job by 6.45am. This means I get ahead of the traffic and am on-site for an 8am start.

�Right first time is designed to ensure that from start to finish each job is completed efficiently and effectively�

�Once I finish a job, I input all the details on my laptop and send this information back to our central system. I then automatically receive details of my next job � what the problem is, the type of premises and where it�s located. It�s an incredibly efficient way of doing things as everything is done electronically so there�s no waiting around. Once a job is done it�s straight on to the next.

�I work in both residential and business premises. Every job is different and so the number of jobs I complete in a day varies. Typically I will finish two jobs in the morning and then one or two in the afternoon. I�m scheduled to have my lunch at some point between midday and 2pm, but I�ll work around completing jobs. Inevitably I have to grab lunch on the go. I bring sandwiches with me. I have to be my own canteen as it�s often not possible to find somewhere to buy food.�

Constantly improving customer service is vital and the �right first time� initiative is helping us make sure each job is completed correctly at the first go. Lee believes that this is making a really positive difference. �There are a number of people involved in each job � the person who speaks to the customer, the person who records information and the engineer. Right first time is designed to ensure that from start to finish each job is completed efficiently and effectively. This covers things like making sure we fully understand the work, that we can get access to the premises and that an engineer with the right skills is given the job.�

If Lee isn�t finishing off a job, his day normally ends at 5.40pm. �I�m on a four day work pattern from Monday to Saturday. That suits me although other engineers work five day cycles, at weekends or do night shifts.

�Evening traffic means that it usually takes a bit longer to drive home but I�m back shortly after 7pm most days. I reckon I drive between 200 and 250 miles in a week. If I�m home in time I like to read Shauna a story before she goes to sleep. Then I�ll sit down and catch-up with my partner, Debbie, over dinner.

�I really enjoy my job but it can be tiring. So I�m usually asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, ready to do it all again tomorrow.�

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