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.
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
Level |
Phone |
Email |
Hours |
Notes |
Level 1: |
(866)
928-4465 |
24x7 call-in Assistance |
Business Technical Support |
|
Level 2: |
(855)-416-3607 For use in the event of emergency
situation / escalation. Answer will be immediate or a call back
provided within 15 minutes |
provide a summary of the problem with examples and
contact info for callback |
Emergency 24x7 Support |
Network Operations Centre (NOC) |
Level 3: |
(866) 716-0626 |
24x7 |
Business Technical Support Supervisor |
|
Level 4: |
(866) 999-0516 |
24x7 |
Business Technical Support Manager for escalation/emergency
only |
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:
|
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.