What to do when BT cut you off

Last week in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon, one of our drawing offices lost the use of its telephone lines. Callers just heard the phone ringing out, and staff at the office could get no dialling tone. Oh No!

It took me nearly 48hours to get the phones reconnected and working again, and then more time to negotiate reasonable compensation from BT (who according to their standard terms only owed us £6.78!)

We had contingency plans for such an eventuality, and so should you, but what did I learn about the experience, and what could you do if/when it happens to you? Here are my tips.

1. Just because BT’s website says there isn’t a fault on your line doesn’t mean there isn’t.
2. You need to get someone to call you, because when they call you, they are taking responsibility. This is your objective. Tactics which don’t support this objective are a waste of time.
3. Most BT helpline people are trained in a narrow field of operation and won’t move out of that. Indeed they have mastered techniques to avoid passing you up to someone more senior (thanks @IanRMcallister) and instead to pass you on to someone else if their rulebook says they can’t help you. As a result you can spend a lot of time being shuffled around from unhelpful person to unhelpful person. Break the chain!
4. Write everything down with date and time, who did what and what happened. Record who agreed to do what and who will contact whom. This isn’t to persuade BT to compensate you – they’ll do this only if they want to, and anyway will insist on using their records, not yours. But it does give you leverage and helps you keep perspective.
5. Take the name of the people you speak to – Hello, my name’s Su Butcher, what’s yours? Some people don’t like to do this but they should. After all how else are you going to write it down? Later you can say “Well I spoke to Brian Smith at 12.30pm on Tuesday and he said …”
6. The chairman of BT Is Sir Michael Rake and his email address is Michael.Rake@bt.uk.com but just because its his email address doesn’t mean he reads it, and even then whether he cares to help you. (thanks @bizsale Dave)
7. The telephone number of BT HQ 020 7356 5000 and you can speak to a real person! But even then they may not help you.
8. BT is a number of companies which for various reasons will say they can’t take responsibility for each others’ actions. However if you get to talk to the right person (see below) they can magically override this. In my case I was able to talk to people from BT Business who said I couldn’t talk to people from BT Openreach. But then someone from BT Openreach called me. His name was Steve by the way.
9. Twitter is a good place to get help and intelligence. Oh yes. But more particularly Twitter is a great place to express dissatisfaction with a brand. People pass it on, give it a hashtag (#BTfail) and in a few hours you might get contacted, as I did. I was contacted by @BTBusiness but not by @BTCare (who are really only interested in private individuals) but the person who helped me was @Iain_Mac, Iain MacLeod, General Manager of BT Customer Services. He asked me for my phone number. Now we’re getting somewhere.
10. BT respond well to bad publicity, if they think you are influential. Its worth remembering that everyone knows BT have appalling customer service so shouting about that isn’t really enough. How can you get more influential? Who do you know who is influential? How can you get @Iain_Mac to ask for your phone number? (NB – spamming won’t work – put yourself in his shoes!)
11. What you really want to do is to get BT calling you, not you calling them. When they start calling you, you can tell that you’re getting somewhere. Take heart and keep pushing.
12. BT do pay compensation (but not much) thanks Brian Butterworth @Briantist for this (Section 3) and thanks to Claire Thirwall @Thirlwall_Assoc for this and this.
13. On several occasions I tried to raise a complaint, but BT wouldn’t let me talk to the complaints department until they determined the matter was sorted. So complain online instead. Keep your notes going, and when things are finally resolved, BT might let you talk to someone who has better training in customer service!
14. When you are negotiating compensation, I recommend you take the advice of a professional. I spoke to Sean Sidney (@SeanSidney on twitter who helped me out with just enough advice to give me confidence, and surprise my boss that we won’t have to pay for our telephones for a while.

Result! Thanks to everyone who helped.

If you’ve had success with BT after they let you down, why not add your hints and tips below in the comments?

Su

Image: Telephone (old) by art_es_anna