POL00043689
POL00043689
A408 - HSH Service Level Failure DRAFT Commercial In Confidence
@ AI 408 - HSH Service Level Failure
1. Dispute
Severity Assessment: Pathway: LOW POCL: MEDIUM.
Rectification Plan: Not agreed
2. Description of Deficiency
The Acceptance Incident was raised against the failure of Pathway's Horizon System Help
Desk (HSH) to mect June’s service levels in supporting the network.
The HSH failed the following Service Levels in June
“o Target June
Calis answered within 40 seconds 99.9% 89.42%
Calls not abandoned through ring-off 99% 90.27%
Level I calls resolved within 5 minutes 95%. 45.88%
Level I calls resolved within 10 minutes 100% 72.56%
Level 2 calls resolved within 30 minutes 95% 75.6%
Level 2 calls resolved within 45 minutes 100% 77.8%
3. Severity Rating
Pathway’s Severity Rating: LOW
POCL?’s Severity Rating: MEDIUM
‘ ‘The agreed definition for High severity is: “consistent failure to mect minimum acceptable
thresholds (MATs)”. The definition for Medium severity is: “occasional failure to meet
MATs but MATs met on average”. POCL’s view is that the consideration should be whether
this is a High or Medium incident.
Consistent failure has been shown. However, as there has been only one opportunity to
measure service levels during the Core Observation Period (COP) it was originally agreed
between POCL and Pathway that the Severity of this incident should be Medium as POCL
could not show a consistent failure during COP.
Pathway have changed their view to Low (workshop 10/8) on the basis that the original
figures were mis-reported (but Pathway have not shared these figures with POCL). POCL
consider Low unacceptable as the severity rating should be based on Pathway’s originally
reported service levels,
4. Business Impact
The lack of response from the HSH undermines the confidence in the service by the Sub
Postmasters. Considerable frustration has been noted during the Live Trial when
inappropriate levels of support were provided.
Ifthe resource plan is not robust, uscrs will not get through to the HSH then, as evidenced
from the Live Trial, they will call POCL’s NBSC. This in turn will require more operators to
handle the calls, POCL have capacity for some growth, but a sustained increase in calls
because of HSH may require a new POCL call centre.
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AI 408 - HSH Service Level Failure DRAFT Commercial In Confidence
Those calls to NBSC which should have been addressed by HSH will be for issues that NBSC
cannot answer because they do not have the knowledge and are not empowered to do so.
This will impact service to the network as their problems will not be resolved, There will be
an additional risk that users will gucss what to do which may Icad to clicnt crrors or loss of
data if the system is rebooted without permission from HSH.
Rectification Plan
POCL require that Pathway would provide a rectification plan with milestones and actions
for bringing service levels to the minimum acceptable threshold. The rectification plan
should include:
1, Review of the Horizon System Helpdesk scripts by Post Office Counters Ltd to
ensure that they are accurate. Not all the scripts has been supplied by ICL Pathway.
We have reviewed those we have been sent, ICL Pathway have been informed of the
missing areas. Experience to date indicates that some scripts have resulted in
inappropriate advice to Sub-Postmasters resulting in further calls to Horizon System
Helpdesk and Network Business Support Centre. ICL Pathway do not sce this as
part of the rectification plan. They view this action as business as usual,
2. Resource plan for the Horizon System Helpdesk. Post Office Counters Ltd need to
have confidence that the resource plan that ICL Pathway will use is robust and will
allow the network to be supported. We also nced to be able to understand the logic of
how ICL Pathway arrived at their resource figures, To do this we need to have sight
of their predicted call volumes, This has been conveyed to ICL Pathway at previous
meetings in July. ICL Pathway take the view that they have already submitted the
Tesource plan which they believe is accurate and they cannot supply their predicted
call model as it is thcir intellectual property.
3. Further actions, already discussed with Pathway, to bring service levels up to the
minimum acceptable thresholds (MAT). This clement of the plan has still to be
documented and agreed with POCL.
All three parts of the rectification plan are inextricably linked. The objective of : ‘supporting,
the network cannot be achieved without delivering all three parts. Inaccurate helpdesk
scripts will result in more calls to the Horizon System Helpdesk making it harder for service
levels to be achieved. An inadequate resource plan will result in calls not being answered
and impacting offices ability to service customers.
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POL00043689
POL00043689