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Check response time

Not having telephone service can be a serious issue for some people

The telephone and its service provider have become the most important service each household requires. It is therefore most important to have a good understanding of the telephone services each service provider is offering.

Our  elderly neighbours recently lost all telephone and TV service to their home.  He is 92 and legally blind and his wonderful wife Ruth is in her 80s, both of them can no longer go outside unassisted and rely on many service providers  for assistance. However, their most important connection to the outside  world  is their telephone.

Our neighbours had to struggle over to our home at 6 p.m. last evening and asked for assistance in contacting their telephone provider. They wished to ask them to  fix their telephone and TV connections which they had lost at 3:30 p.m. Their phone could not even be used to call 911.

After many attempts and two hours of department hopping, we finally connected to someone in technical services who informed us that they could have someone come around in two days to check up on the problem. It was explained to the gentleman that the loss of a phone for even one day was not an option — the company’s policy was two days for a normal response time and possibly one day could be arranged — nothing could be done that night.

The company did show up the next morning at 10:15 a.m. with two  trucks and eventually had their phone working  by noon.

The company’s office in Nanaimo assured me that their policy was to fix all phone related problems within 24 hours — different information than that which was given the night before

If a telephone is critical to you, then it is important for you to contact your service provider and have them explain to you the response time for a loss of service. This company’s response to our neighbours’ difficulty was not adequate and very frightening to them.

Ken and Bonnie Boyd

 

Qualicum Beach