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Sub postmaster Magazine Article:
Improvements
Jn August las year, promised to respond Post Offee® branches, has meat that the
to issues: raised about the reliability
‘umber of online transactions has increased
‘are now much more reliant on having Horizon
services.
The success of banking services through _ available.
to the Post Office®)
Chief Executive, Post Office Limited, David Mills highlights a new package of improvements including network backup.
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In reality Horizon provides a reliable service
for the majority of our branches, most of the
time. About 99.7% of the time in fact. Having
‘said that, I know that if your branch is
a loss of service it is stil significant and,
since August we've been working with our
suppliers to find ways of improving the overall
level of service, while keeping our technology
costs under control.
‘So I'm really pleased to announce a
package of service improvements, which we
will be undertaking over the coming months to
juce the time taken to fix Horizon network
problems, and. provide a. backup network
service for branches to ‘on. those
‘occasions when line faults can't be resolved
believe the following measures will reduce
lost sales time, and put an end to long service
losses where we are currently dependent on
BT to respond and resolve problems.
Faster Resolution of BT
Faults
@ Ail Post Otfice® owned telephone lines
will be upgraded to the BT Prompt Care level
of service, which means that these branches
will receive priority service. BT will respond to
reported faults within four hours, including
Saturday, rather than the existing service level
where BT responds by the close of the next
business day, Monday to Friday.
‘e iosking wit our suppliers, we have
identied a number of improvements in the
way we manage network faults, which
combined with the improved BT service level,
will result.in faster problem resolution for the
maory of problems (Well now how much
faster when we've finished
mmouliying our “exoing ult h nanan
processes with our suppliers.)
Backup Network
Howover, there will always, be some
/oblems which cannot be quickly resolved, for
‘example telephone lines lost to storm damage
‘or underground cables severed by roadworks.
‘To cater for these situations, we're developing
‘@ backup network solution, which means, in
the vast majority of cases, we will timit loss of
service to a maximum of two working days.
How will we do this? Well, for smaller
branches, a Fujtisu engineer will visi, when
the situation demands, to install temporary
equipment allowing Horizon to communicate
24
m
ork
I
\
on Netwo
David Mills, Chief Executive of Post Office Ltd
again. For larger branches, we will leave the
‘existing ISON line in place as backup for the
new ADSL network,
We are working on these changes because
we value our network of subpostmasters and
we recognise that we have to strive to give you
better service from the Horizon system to meet
the level of service you want to give our
‘customers. I believe these initiatives will bring
tangible improvemens in achieving tis.
To make these improvements Post Otfice
al’ Oh need sa ae taanages ek
telephone lines into branches. This will enable
Us to pay the cost oftheir service level
and manage BT drety 10 ensure they meet
tea commer es, We beleve Ha
boot way to aehlevo ths iso offer tho Post
Stiae 2 it Biling service to all branches that
‘ot yet taken it up. It provides lower call
aoe to subpostmasier and wil nude the
Prompt Car rd of service, paid for by
tho Pest Otices. A Spit ing Information and
olfer pack has recently been sent out to these
branches.
‘These initiatives will ensure that as our
business continues to change, the