POL00043682
POL00043682
Electronic memo
To John Meagher/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE, Ruth
Holleran/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE, Bruce
McNiven/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE
cc Keith K Baines/POCL/POSTOFFICE@POSTOFFICE
Hard Copy To
Hard Copy cc
From Min Burdett/POCL/POSTOFFICE
Date 13/08/99 12:59
Subject Al Description Template
All
Well, rather than do a template, I did an example by up-dating 408. Please note, after
discussing it with you I have added another paragraph at the start to summarise the nature of
the dispute.
Please come back with any comments ON THE FORMAT asap.
Al 408 BI .doc
13 AUG 1999 - #12
OFFICE
POL00043682
POL00043682
I
AI 408 HSH Service Level Failure
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 meet June’s service levels in supporting the network.
The HSH failed the following Service Levels in June
Target June
Calls answered within 40 seconds 99.9% 89.42%
Calls not abandoned through ring-off 99% 90.27%
Level 1 calls resolved within 5 minutes 95% 45.88%
Level 1 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 meet 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 there 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.
If the resource plan is not robust, users 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
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 guess what to do which may lead to client errors or loss of data
if the system is rebooted without permission from HSH.
5. 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. Actions to bring service levels up to the minimum acceptable thresholds (MAT).
‘This has been provided and agreed. On-going actions are progressing satisfactorily.
2. POCL Review of Horizon Service help desk scripts. Experience to date indicates that
some scripts have resulted in inappropriate advice to Sub-Postmasters resulting in
further calls to HSH and POCL's Network Business Support Centre (NBSC).
Pathway do not see this as part of the rectification plan.
3. Predicted call volumes during roll-out. Pathway are denying POCL access to this
information.
4, Resource plan for the HSH during roll-out. This resource plan to be discussed with
POCL in the context of 2 and 3 above. The rectification plan does not include these
discussions.
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