Complicated BT / EE / Business / Home / Openreach situation - how to resolve and complain?

confusedbybt

Without going into the details of the situation, in trying to migrate between Business and Home services for broadband and (separately) landline, there have been a litany of errors by different parts of the BT / EE / Openreach behemoth that have caused significant cost and risk to an elderly and vulnerable customer 

Because the problem spans so many parts of the organisation, it seems virtually impossible to resolve, and equally to complain, as there is no 'central' function that can be contacted to link and connect the actions of all the different silos. Business is responsive but has no ability to help, Home is friendly after 30 minute+ phone waits, but cannot see or understand any previous Business dealings, Openreach are a law unto themselves

Any ideas on contact e-mails, addresses or high level phone numbers that have the power to resolve the problem in totality?

littleboo

Openreach are a seperate entity and have no customer contact, that's how it has to operate. Migrating from a business to residential product is probably quite an unusual request, is it possible to instead cease the business service and start a new residential product?

M25

Why don't you just order a new telephone line and then cancel the old line (and any contract)?

You seem to be making it sound very complicated.

username

As I have written in another thread (where someone was having a complex problem), find the CEO's email details of BT and email them with a factual precis of your situation and what you would like to be resolved. They may not personally read your email, however, there is a better chance it gets picked up by someone competent and the ability to cut through the issues and get a resolution, or it moving.
Do not bother phoning, as you have seen it is a waste of time, and no one has access to or the ability to fix the issue. Put the issues in writing, and keep in writing, as above.

littleboo said:

Openreach are a seperate entity and have no customer contact, that's how it has to operate. Migrating from a business to residential product is probably quite an unusual request, is it possible to instead cease the business service and start a new residential product?

M25 said:

Why don't you just order a new telephone line and then cancel the old line (and any contract)?

You seem to be making it sound very complicated.

Why shouldn't the OP be able to change between business and domestic services easily? The services are delivered along the same lines of plant - it is just a designation on a computer somewhere that defines what type of client they are. Companies should be able to deal competently with these issues.

littleboo

"it is just a designation on a computer somewhere that defines what type of client they are."

Well that's quite a claim, unless you have intimate knowledge of the relevant systems. I think its highly unlikely that in an organisation the size of BT, the Business and Consumer divisions are using a common system stack, particularly given the different requirements of the two customer bases.  TOTSCO only covers consumer switches currently, so that process would seem to be unlikely to help. Hence the suggestions of considering an alternative approach to get the desired outcome.

confusedbybt

Thank you all. We are indeed trying to resolve the situation by transferring each service - landline, broadband, mobile - from business to domestic as they come out of contract or have not unreasonable financial penalties to do so.

This creates 6 separate accounts with BT / EE (3 business; 3 domestic, each business deleted only once installation and transfer complete) and has been further complicated by the fact that a significant technical workaround had to be created to ensure that the (in retrospect wholly inappropriate) business service met the specific needs and disabilities of the elderly client. Mobile has been successful. Landline is not yet possible as the financial penalty is prohibitive.

As a single example of the difficulties - they are legion - OpenReach unilaterally cancelled the installation of domestic broadband (without communication and for a reason that is evidentially untrue, though linked to the history of the technical workaround) and neither domestic nor business sides of BT will take responsibility for this except to restart a new order with a further month+ delay.

Oh, and I have today spent another hour on the phone to try to stop Openreach unilaterally cancelling the installation of the new order for the same false reason, despite BT's claim it would never happen again.

What is the current CEO's e-mail? It would need to be proper head of all - domestic, broadband, EE and Openreach. I can currently find multiple names for different parts
  

confusedbybt

Allison Kirby appears to be the appropriate person? 

username

confusedbybt said:

What is the current CEO's e-mail? It would need to be proper head of all - domestic, broadband, EE and Openreach. I can currently find multiple names for different parts
  

It's Allison Kirkby. The site which has it on is banned in this forum for some reason, but, plugging the relevant terms into your favourite search should get the result you need.

I certainly don't profess to have an intricate knowledge of BT's internal workings. However, it seems crazy the designation cannot be changed easily between the two, although I'd also like to hazard a guess they're making it awkward as the business side can charge you more.

As an aside, it's like with business utilities, VAT aside, you're consuming the same stuff out of the pipes and cables, yet the costings magically become more expensive for the standing charges and tariff costs.