Our Managing Director, Keith Evans, shares his thoughts on a recent incident, which quite frankly, made us all feel very sad. This is a situation that has to change in the industry.
I was contacted by a distressed elderly gentleman out of my area whose residential landline wasn’t working properly. His service provider had fobbed him off as not their problem after they checked the line. He’d called round various telecoms companies in his area only to be told they only do business telephone systems. One of them gave him my name and number instead.
I’m over 40 miles away, so an 80 mile round trip for a small job I’d be making a loss on, and using up valuable scarce diesel. I asked about myself, but there’s no-one in that area that I could find willing to do a residential telecoms job. So, what choice did we have? You can’t leave the elderly without a landline just because it’s not a sexy job to go to. A bit too “old school”, no money in it.
Surely, telecoms companies, even if you are “Business Telecoms Only” you can help a local old fella when he calls?
Thankfully we got it fixed and he was so grateful that I felt pretty choked to be honest. Please, we all have a responsibility to help the vulnerable in our local community where we can, not just look at the profit margins all the time. Tell them you can help when they contact you.
I was contacted by a distressed elderly gentleman out of my area whose residential landline wasn’t working properly. His service provider had fobbed him off as not their problem after they checked the line. He’d called round various telecoms companies in his area only to be told they only do business telephone systems. One of them gave him my name and number instead.
I’m over 40 miles away, so an 80 mile round trip for a small job I’d be making a loss on, and using up valuable scarce diesel. I asked about myself, but there’s no-one in that area that I could find willing to do a residential telecoms job. So, what choice did we have? You can’t leave the elderly without a landline just because it’s not a sexy job to go to. A bit too “old school”, no money in it.
Surely, telecoms companies, even if you are “Business Telecoms Only” you can help a local old fella when he calls?
Thankfully we got it fixed and he was so grateful that I felt pretty choked to be honest. Please, we all have a responsibility to help the vulnerable in our local community where we can, not just look at the profit margins all the time. Tell them you can help when they contact you.
