NZHerald running story on shoddy Chorus contractor installation work

Wheelbarrow01:

Mark Ratcliffe during the RNZ interview: "We receive about 50 escalations per week.... somebody's come to us and said that we don't think the work's done to a sufficient standard, and those jobs are resolved with those customers".

As someone who has daily contact with the Chorus fibre provisioning escalation team, I'd dispute that statement on several fronts. Firstly, it appears Mr Radcliffe doesn't know what the Chorus definition of 'escalation' is. Chorus fibre orders can be (and are) escalated by RSPs for a multitude of reasons - by far the most common is where a technician is a no-show for a scheduled appointment. The usual excuse is 'lack of tech resource' which indicates they are regularly over-booking their techs. Other reasons for escalation include miscommunication between Chorus and the end customer with regards to timing, delays in 3rd party contractors doing civil works, incorrect scope assessments, incorrect existing network records - the list goes on really. I'd expect, based on my experience, that only a fraction of all escalated orders are due to 'shoddy' install work after the fact.

And just because a job is escalated, that does not mean it will be resolved with any speed. One of my corporate clients fibre orders was under escalation for over a year before it was finally resolved and service delivered. During the period it was under escalation, there were a total of 14 missed site visits (visits scheduled between Chorus and the customer where the Chorus representative - be it the scoper, civil crew, field manager, installer - failed to show up). This is an extreme example, but most escalations I handle take between 1-3 months to resolve. This particular client is in the process of developing a high profile Auckland site into a very large residential development. Their concern is that if it takes over a year to get a single fibre connection to their show home prior to construction, how long will it take to get the other 200+ connections in place when the new development is actually complete.

I'd also be VERY surprised if the total volume of escalations was as little as 50 per week. I personally escalate at least 1 to 2 fibre jobs to Chorus every day, sometimes more - surely I'm not personally responsible for 10-20% of all Chorus fibre escalations??? Couple those with the escalations raised my my team mates here at Spark Digital alone, and it would appear no other provider (including Spark residential) ever escalates anything......

Mark was talking about 50 direct escalations per week about Fibre install quality (you've even quoted that).

People shouldn't assume that Chorus accept these poor quality installs either. Not all jobs can be QA'd. So please report them:

1) https://www.chorus.co.nz/contact-us/forms/email-us
2) https://twitter.com/ChorusNZ
3) 0800 600 100

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