As you probably already know, mobile provider O2 had a massive outage over the last couple of days. The loss of service meant that as many as a third of its 23 million customers in the UK were unable to make phone calls, send and receive text messages and use the mobile internet.
Service began to gradually go back to normal throughout the day, first with 2G services, before full service was restored quite late yesterday afternoon. O2 are yet to release a statement conclusively explaining the reason for the outage, but it’s believed to have been caused by a computer system problem preventing certain customers’ phones from connecting to the network.
A loss of mobile phone service on this scale is a serious problem in this day and age but the company can be commended on their handling of the situation from a customer services standpoint. The team responding to the barrage of abuse on Twitter were very professional and honest and kept the regular updates coming.
Once the issue had been dealt with, the CEO of O2 himself, Ronan Dunne made this statement on Twitter; “To all our affected customers – I’m very sorry. The network is back. My focus now is restoring your confidence and trust in O2.” While of little consolation to those who were affected it is nice to see the CEO acknowledging the company’s failings and dealing with the problem directly.
The outage was nothing more than an inconvenience to the majority of customers but it is likely to have caused bigger problems to some small business users. Many have already spoken out against O2 claiming that the outage has cost them thousands of pounds in missed business.
One way to ensure that issues like this don’t affect your business in the future is to consider our telephone answering service. In the event of something like this happening again our representatives would be on hand to take your calls and either pass messages on to you or patch the calls directly through to you on another number, both can be applied to suit your daily needs. Either way, your callers will feel valued that their call was answered professionally and you can relax knowing you can prioritise your responses. We will also provide you with a dedicated landline number for you to use as your primary telephone number.