ThinkTel Support & Trouble Reporting Guidelines

Table of Contents

 

Introduction	1
ThinkTel Website	1.1
Support Website	1.2
Home	1.2.1
Contact Us	1.2.2
Knowledgebase	1.2.3
Announcements	1.2.4
uControl Site	1.3
Reporting a Service Issue	2
During Business Hours	2.1
After Business Hours	2.2
Opening Tickets Online	2.3
Opening Tickets by Phone	2.4
Escalation Process	3
During Business Hours (8:00 am to 8:00 PM) EST	3.1
After Business Hours Escalations	3.2
Definitions – Severity of Impact (Minor, Major & Critical Service	3.3
Minor Service Impairment	3.3.1
Major Service Impairments	3.3.2
Critical Service Impairment	3.3.3
Co-Location	4
Provisioning/Orders	5
Making Payments and Credit Issues	6
Porting	7

 

1. Introduction

ThinkTel and the Business Technical Support (BTS) team are pleased to assist in any way possible, to address your service and account concerns. Our specialized teams can be reached via our toll-free number at 1-866-92-THINK (928-4465) or by dialling 611 from your ThinkTel HPBX (Hosted PBX) phone).

 

You can reach us through our Technical Support site | http://support.thinktel.ca

 

The following department-specific email addresses are also available to assist you:

• Sales | sales@thinktel.ca

• Customer Care and Billing | billing@thinktel.ca

• Orders and Provisioning | orders@thinktel.ca

• Porting Group | ports@thinktel.ca

 

Regular Business Technical Support hours of operation are from Monday to Friday 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM EST.

 

Please note that the response time for tickets is approximately 2-4 hours (further information on ticket creation is located in section 2). Please call if it is an urgent issue. Tickets received after 8:00 PM EST Monday to Friday will be addressed the next business day, this includes updates on existing tickets. If your issue is considered Major (as listed in section 3.3.2) and is service-impacting, please contact support 866-928-4465 24/7 and the On Call tech will be contacted to follow up with you.

 

In the event of a service impairment or outage please follow these reporting guidelines for opening a service ticket. When reporting an issue, you will be asked to provide your account number, the type of service to which you subscribe, the impacted number(s), and recent call examples as outlined in section 2.4.

 

All service impairments are categorized as Minor, Major, or Critical. These categories are defined in section 3.3 of this document. Although every effort will be made to ensure that all issues are dealt with in a timely manner, actual response times and mean time to repair (MTTR) are based on the type and level of service impairment. Minor service issues are addressed during regular business hours, while support for Major and Critical issues is provided after hours as well. Please refer to section 2.2 for details.

 

1.1 ThinkTel Website thinktel.ca

This site outlines all services offered by ThinkTel.

SIP for Lync (OCS) - Hosted Lync – Managed Lync – Think365 - SIP Trunking – Digital lines – Colocation Services – Contact Center (IVR) – Professional Services – Porting Forms

 

1.2 Support Website support.thinktel.ca

This site is for all ThinkTel Support related issues, questions, and concerns.

1.2.1 Home Page

·        Shows our network status

·        Links to important ThinkTel sites

·        Maintenance Schedule

1.2.2    Contact Us

·        Used for opening tickets with ThinkTel (as explained in section 2.3)

1.2.3    Knowledgebase

Contains detailed information on the following:

SIP Trunking - Troubleshooting - Provisioning Devices - uControl FAQs - Porting - Phone Services - Fax Services -Documents - IP Voice Services - Microsoft Lync Support – Hosted Lync Support

1.2.4    Announcements

·        All network issues and service-impacting maintenance activities will be posted on this page and will be updated with any new developments.

 

 

Please note that in the event of a network outage or other service impacting issues, the Support team will make every effort to keep you informed via RSS feeds on the announcements page https://support.thinktel.ca/announcements

Please subscribe to this feed in order to receive timely announcements.

 

1.3 ucontrol.thinktel.ca

This site is the administrative portal which customers can use to make account changes, as well as order new services. Most tasks are outlined in our Knowledgebase uControl FAQ section, as outlined above. (Please contact the support team should any Knowledgebase information be missing).

 

2. Reporting a Service Issue

The Business Technical Support team is available Monday to Friday from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM EST. To contact by phone, please call 1-866-928-4465 and select Option 3 for Technical Support.

You may also open a service ticket as outlined in Section 2.3. When a service ticket is opened on your account, your Account Manager will automatically be notified.

 

2.1 During Business Hours

Response time for tickets is approximately 2-4 hours. For urgent issues or if a response is not received within 4 hours, please call 1-866-928-4465. Tickets received after 8:00 PM EST will be addressed the next business day.

 

You will be asked to provide specific information as detailed in Section 2.4 below.

A ticket number will be provided by the Support Representative for future reference and status updates.

For after-hours issues please follow the “After Business Hours Escalations” in Section 3.2 below.

 

2.2 After Business Hours

If you are experiencing a Major outage, as outlined in Section 3.3.2, please contact (855)-416-3607.

 

2.3 Opening Tickets via our support Web Portal

Once an account is set up, all related tickets (open and closed) can be viewed on the portal. Additionally, using this portal will ensure that all required troubleshooting information is supplied at the time of ticket creation.

https://support.thinktel.ca/contact

 

Please note that the response time for tickets is approximately 2-4 hours. Please call if it is an urgent issue. Tickets received after 8:00 PM EST Monday to Friday will be addressed the next business day, this includes updates on existing tickets. If your issue is considered Major (as listed in section 3.3.2) and is service-impacting, please escalate accordingly as outlined in section 3.

 

2.4 Opening Tickets by Phone

A service ticket may be opened by calling the support line at 1-866-928-4465, and selecting Options 1-3-1

 

When calling in to report an issue please ensure that the following information is available:

·        Account Name/Number

·        Affected Numbers

·        Call Records: (best to have multiple records if possible, in order to isolate a pattern.)

Calling number

Called number

Time of call

Date

Result/details

 

When calling to report an issue please ensure that you have as much information as possible for the problem you are reporting. I.e. Dead air, NIS, Fast busy and/or error messages you receive.

  

3. Escalation Process

 

 

Depending on the nature of the issue, a service ticket will be escalated internally and customers will receive regular updates with regard to the progress of the ticket. Direct escalations to the staff on the Escalation List should only be required if your issue(s) are not being resolved and/or you are not receiving updates.

 

3.1 During Business Hours

During regular support hours, if a response, update, or resolution is not received in a timely manner, you may escalate your ticket. You should first contact the Technical Support team or your Account Manager. If they are unable to assist to your satisfaction, please ask to speak with the Support Manager. Tickets may also be further escalated through the contacts, as outlined in the above table.

 

3.2 After Business Hours Escalations

NOTE: Only Major and Critical issues (section 3.3.2) should be escalated outside of our regular support business hours.

 

When reporting an issue after regular business technical support hours, please ensure that the issue is urgent and critical to your organization. Please follow the procedures as described in the Escalation Process. Someone will respond or call you back immediately. For non-urgent (service affecting) issues, a response will be provided by the following business day.

 

Depending on the nature of the issue, a service ticket will be escalated internally and customers will receive regular updates with regard to the progress of the ticket.

 

3.3 Definitions – Severity of Impact (Minor, Major & Critical Service Issues)

Outages are categorized into Minor, Major and Critical impairments. ThinkTel will identify, based on this criteria and their end user customer cases, when to escalate according to the ticket classification.

 

After Business Hours Support, is provided for Major and Critical issues only. All minor issues will be responded to within 4 hours of the start of the next business day. Please note that the Support representatives may request updated call examples for some issues.

 

3.3.1 Minor Service Impairment

Minor service issues are those that impact only individual customers or fewer that 20% of your customer base.

 

Examples of minor issues are:

 

VoIP

Internet/hosting

·        Intermittent Issues ·        Can't call certain number(s) ·        Can't receive calls from certain number(s) ·        Post dial delay ·        Noisy line, static, choppy, echo or other quality issue ·        Line cuts off (dropped calls) ·        Can’t call long distance or internationally ·        Call forwarding issues ·        Low sound volume ·        Changes to configuration i.e. Caller ID, channels or other non-service-impacting changes ·        Voice Mail issues ·        Issues with uControl or myphone.thinktel.ca

DSL signal issues Slow speed Modem issues PPPoE connection issues Domain Management Access Email issues Browsing issues

 

3.3.2 Major Service Impairments

Major failures are either not in service (NIS), or widespread minor issues that affect more than 20% of your customer base for a specific service. This impairment should have a significant impact to the end user’s operations.

 

Examples of major issues are:

 

Thinktel Proxy issues (Can’t ping your proxy IP) Trunk or circuit down Can't receive any calls Can't originate any calls Network event(s)

 

3.3.3 Critical Service Impairment

A Critical Service issue is one that impacts multiple customers and/or multiple services. If it is determined to be an issue affecting multiple customers, ThinkTel will deem the issue critical and will assign the highest priority.

 

Generally, if a Critical event is taking place within our network, multiple resources including NOC, Systems and Management Resources will be focused on resolving the situation. Updates to customers may be delayed; we will endeavor to keep our announcements page updated with all new developments.

 

During business hours ThinkTel will endeavor to provide status updates to impacted Customers. Updates may be delayed as resources are tasked with issue-resolution activities.

 

4. Co-location (Data Centre) Issues

If you have any issues with your network connection in one of our data centres, please follow the above guidelines for contacting Support. The nature and category of the issue will be determined and action/escalation will be set accordingly.

 

5. Provisioning/Orders

To inquire on the status of an existing Order/Provisioning contact Customer Care via email at info@thinktel.ca

or by phone at 1-866-928-4465, selecting Option 4.

The customer care representative will involve your Account Manager as required.

 

6. Making Payments / Credit Concerns

For all payment and billing inquiries, Credit and/or Payment issues please contact our Billing Department via email at: billing@thinktel.ca or by phone at 1-866-928-4465, selecting Option 2.

 

7. Porting

All porting requests will require a completed online port form at http://www.thinktel.ca/en/porting .

For additional information please refer to our Knowledgebase porting section: https://support.thinktel.ca/kb/article/285-Porting

 

You may also contact our Porting department via email ports@thinktel.ca or by phone at 1 866-928-4465, selecting Option 5.