When talking about our services, like Home Broadband or landline, you MUST ask your customer if they use Telecare. Some of our packages, like Digital Voice, may be incompatible with Telecare and moving these customers onto a non-compatible package puts them at great risk.
In the next few weeks, we’ll be getting mystery shopped on our knowledge of Digital Voice and how we support and guide customers who have a Telecare Alarm product.
We’ve got some great training available on My Campus if you need a refresher – just search for Digital Voice. If you want a quick reminder of Digital Voice and Telecare, keep reading below.
What’s Digital Voice?
- The old analogue network that most home phones work on today is no longer fit for purpose and can’t keep up with the demands of modern life. It’ll be switched off for all phone providers by this year.
- This new home phone service runs on the broadband network and offers lots of benefits and improved features over the existing system and will set up the country for the future.
- Customers can use their existing landline by plugging it in to their router and there’s no additional charges to use Digital Voice or degradation to their Broadband speeds.
- We also offer Digital Home Phones and Battery backups for our customers.
- Remember, you must always offer a landline service where available and explain that it will be Digital Voice.
What’s Telecare?
Telecare is a monitoring service that’s used by lots of people up and down the country. It offers remote support to elderly or vulnerable customers.
When talking about our services, like Home Broadband or Landline, you MUST ask your customer if they use Telecare.
Some of our packages, like Digital Voice, may not be compatible with Telecare, and so moving these customers onto a non-compatible package puts them at great risk.
Here’s a couple of examples of the best ways to ask the question:
‘Do you have a Healthcare Pendant or Telecare Alarm connected to the landline?’
‘Do you have any other safety or health related product that relies on the landline?’
If your customer answers ‘YES’, they have a Telecare alarm but can’t confirm it’s compatible then DO NOT CONTINUE WITH THE ORDER – you’ll need to ask your customer to check with their provider or products to ensure compatibility with Digital Voice. You can book an appointment for them to return
If your customer answers ‘YES’, they have a Telecare alarm and are certain that it’s compatible, you can place an order
If the customer answers ‘No’ they don’t have a Telecare alarm, you can continue with the order
From (7th February) you’ll no longer be able to serve a customer who: Has a telecare device in their home they depend on Has a telecare flag on their existing account If you have a customer who needs an active telecare service or is not sure if their current telecare monitoring service is compatible with Digital Voice, you’ll need to apologise to them and direct them to our Contact Centre sales team who have a specialist team to support them. for full details please check out the news story found here Urgent: Supporting Telecare customers policy change
Urgent: Supporting Telecare customers policy change
Since we started the rollout and migration of landline (PTSN) to the new Digital Voice landline service, supporting our vulnerable customers who use the Telecare monitoring service remains a priority.
To ensure we always give our customers the best service and continue to protect them, from today (7 February) you’ll no longer be able to serve a customer who:
- Has a Telecare device in their home that they depend on
- Has a Telecare flag on their existing account
If you’re serving a customer who has an active Telecare service or Telecare flag, you’ll need to apologise to them and direct them to our Contact Centre sales team who have a specialist team to support them.
We’re making this change to protect both you and your customers to ensure we don’t accidentally disconnect our vulnerable customers from their monitoring service, potentially endangering lives. So, it’s important we pass these customers on to the specialist team who are trained and understand the requirements for customers who have Telecare services.
As we’ve made this change quickly, you’ll still see a flag in Orbit and BT Sales & Service hub that will allow you to sell to a customer that has Telecare but under no circumstances should you continue the sale. We’re working in the background to remove this functionality.
Albert content will also reflect this change