A broadband fault on day three
A customer's broadband has been dropping every afternoon for three days. Your support engineer ran the checks, confirmed it was not the router, and raised a fault with the broadband supplier. The supplier asked for tests to be run, then booked an engineer, then the engineer found a fault at the cabinet and passed it to another team. Each step came as a separate message into the portal, in the supplier's language.
The customer has rung four times. Each time, whoever picks up has to find the ticket, log into the supplier portal, read the latest note, and translate it. Between calls, nobody updates the customer, so the customer rings again. The engineer who raised the fault is on a site visit and has not seen the latest supplier note, which asked for access to the premises tomorrow.
When the fault is finally fixed, nobody tells the customer until they ring to check.
Why faults feel out of control
You own the customer relationship, but you do not own the repair. That gap is where everything falls through.
- Your helpdesk ticket and the carrier's ticket are separate, and only linked by a reference typed into a note.
- Carrier updates sit in a portal or come by email to whoever raised the fault.
- Carrier notes are technical and not suitable to forward to a customer as they are.
- Requests from the carrier (access, tests, a contact on site) need a fast reply or the clock stops.
- Carrier target times depend on the product and care level, and nobody is checking them.
The cost of silence
| What happens | Result |
|---|---|
| Customer not updated | Repeat calls tie up your support line |
| Carrier request missed | Fault paused, customer offline longer |
| Fault passes target time unchallenged | No escalation, no service credit claimed |
| Fix not confirmed with customer | Ticket closed on a fault that is still there |
| Repeat faults not spotted | Same line fails again and again |
Customers forgive faults. They find it much harder to forgive not knowing what is happening, and that is what they remember at renewal.
The fault tracking we set up
- When a fault is raised with a carrier, the carrier reference is recorded against the customer ticket in your helpdesk, whether that is HaloPSA, Freshdesk, Zendesk or similar.
- Carrier updates are pulled in by API where the carrier offers one, or read from the carrier's update emails, and added to the customer ticket as internal notes.
- Requests from the carrier that need action (access, tests, a site contact) are picked out and assigned to a person straight away, with an alert if they are not answered.
- Customers get a short update at each meaningful step, written in plain language from a set of templates your team controls, with the option to edit before sending.
- Each fault is timed against the carrier's target for that product and care level. Faults that go quiet or pass target are listed for escalation.
- When the carrier closes its fault, the customer is asked to confirm the service is working before your ticket closes.
- Lines and circuits with repeat faults are highlighted, which helps when you push a carrier for a proper fix or claim service credits under your agreement.
An AI model can draft the customer update from the carrier's technical note, but a person reviews it before it goes out. Carrier language is too easy to misread.
How a fault runs with it in place
The customer hears from you when the fault is raised, when an engineer is booked, and when it is fixed. When they ring, whoever answers sees the latest carrier update on the ticket without logging into anything. The carrier's request for access tomorrow reaches the right engineer the moment it arrives.
Your service manager sees every open carrier fault in one list, sorted by how close each is to its target, and knows which to chase.
Recognise this?
- Customers ring for fault updates more than once a day.
- Carrier updates are only visible in the carrier portal.
- A carrier request for access or tests has been missed.
- Nobody checks faults against carrier target times.
- Repeat faults on the same line are noticed by the customer first.