A new fault management strategy is helping BT Wholesale’s Service Repair team to speed up the resolution of problems on private circuits.

Head of Service Repair Malcolm Butler explains: "In May 2007 we launched a new ‘jeopardy management’ approach for private circuit repairs that are being handled for us by an agent. With this we’ve set up automatic trigger points that alert us when a repair is still waiting to be completed.

The first is at three hours from the time of the fault report, followed by further alerts at five hours, seven hours and 10 hours."

Potentially faster repairs are only one of the benefits the new strategy can offer. Another is better information.

Malcolm continues: "Now that we’re able to track the progress of every repair more closely, we can be more proactive in managing and escalating the complete process on our customers’ behalf. That task also includes keeping the customer fully briefed.

We’ve set up a text messaging system that keeps us informed when there are delays, as well as channels so that we can speak direct to the engineers actually working on a project. It means we gain a much clearer picture of what’s happening in the field, which equips us to update customers accordingly."