Midland Telecom | Day to Day Management

Whichever method you choose, the process will be monitored by a modern helpdesk software system to a published SLA. Each stage of the process is communicated by a choice of email, SMS text or call.

Adding new devices

Because we bill the services ourselves, we can take orders to be added directly to your bill. They can be added to cost centres or departmental bills.

Selection – your portal account can be loaded with the usual choices of handsets and accessories and you simply choose a device from a dropdown list and order it.
Authorisation – if your business process requires that colleagues need to authorise the selection, we can include them with a notification, to agree the issue of the device before despatch.
Configuration – this can be a pre-prepared selection of plans, again from a dropdown list
Despatch – you can enter the address for a zero-touch delivery

Then we add the device and any plan to the billing on your account with a partial month to synchronise with the month-end and with the rest of the connections on the main account.

SIM swaps and same-day provisioning

We normally issue a business customer with a stock of spare SIMs. They are useful in checking faults, issuing new phones straight away and doing network or number swaps.

If you have a device to hand, we can usually enable a new SIM within an hour, provided the helpdesk is not too busy. This can be done through the portal, call or email to your Account Manager. If you ask us to stock a

particular handset and keep it, we can despatch a new phone and SIM to a user the next working day.

Repairing devices, warranty and insurance

Getting a handset repaired can be frustrating, it is more about the despatch and receipt from couriers. They add a day each time and maybe a second day if they arrive before the device can be processed.

Repair the spare

Supporting your fleet will be much more convenient if you stock a spare handset for every 50 users. This solves the following issues:

Diagnostics - swap a handset with a spare to check if the fault moves to the new handset.
Productivity - exchange the spare with the suspect device to instantly get your user back on-line with no productivity loss.
Repair the Spare – this allows you to instantly clone a broken handset from cloud back-ups, send the user on their way with the loan phone, then send the broken one off for repair, that way all the pressure off you.
New starter - with our same-day provisioning we can get a new staff member ready in an hour if you have a spare mobile.
Lost or stolen – again, we can get the staff member back to full productivity immediately with cloud back-up to a spare phone and SIM.

Repairs

In general, we see nothing wrong with you getting a local repairer to fix a broken screen. We would rather you benefit from the convenience of using a local or mobile repairer. This may invalidate your warranty, but Samsung and Apple phones rarely go wrong, except for accidental or fluid damage. If you have a top-of-the-range phone, we will be happy to get the repair or warranty claim sorted.

Clear Case, glass screen protector, spare lead

This low-cost combination will make the mobile fleet manager’s life a lot easier. This small outlay, from £7 is going to be a wise investment. This will cost a fraction of the extended warranty and provide a better return on investment. See accessory price list

Insurance

This rarely produces a return on your investment. The odd user might benefit from a policy if they have had multiple claims in the past. The cost varies form £3 a month to £12 a month depending on the model. We can offer Supercover policies.

Ordering from a framework agreement

We can arrange automated ordering of any product line, accessory, plan or device and keep these items in stock for you. You then simply email a proforma, use the portal and dropdown lists to select the item or call the helpdesk. This bypasses all the paperwork agreed in advance.

Faults, SLA’s, complaints procedure

We operate a service level agreement (SLA) for mobile which is embedded into the helpdesk system and automatically escalates tickets that are unresolved within the specified timeframe. These are assessed for priority, then allocated to the team to solve. As we pick up the ticket and process it, each stage is communicated to its author. If a ticket exceeds the SLA, it has several layers of escalation where we attempt to solve the issues involving the next layer of management.

It is our policy to resolve any tickets that breach their SLA. A good example of this would be to ship a new SIM to a user (on a different network) while the problem with the current network is resolved.

Our Mobile Support Philosophy

Mobile support is straight forward, mostly it is either the SIM, the device or the network. We can swap the SIM; we can substitute the device and we can inspect the network bulletins for issues in the area. If we cannot find the issue within those three spheres, then we can clone the device (with your permission) and see if we can replicate the fault in our lab. Other possible issues can be your local area network, an application running on the device or a known issue we discover by searching forums and notice boards for the device or applications.

Midland Telecom & IT is the ideal Mobile Service Provider because it offers a complete managed service provision to our customers. We do IT, we do telecoms and we do connectivity, firewalls, and desktop software. In our building we have access to the correct expert, we do not need to pass you on to someone else saying “this isn’t us”. Quite the opposite, we like to solve issues to demonstrate our flexibility as a generalist supplier. When we do locate an issue elsewhere in the supply chain, we always find it is best for all parties to co-operate, sharing the ticket notes (with your consent), to show how we reached our conclusions.

These days we have Wi-Fi calling transiting your LAN, firewalls and Wireless Access Points. We know the correct settings to present to your IT support team, which ports to open on the firewall. We supply and maintain IP PBX and PBX softphones; we have the tools to do Wireshark and SIP traces and share the fault conditions. We supply and support office 365, Microsoft Teams and have multiple IP Networking Engineers to support you. This all means that the whole workplace is connected, not just one part of it.

Quality Management Systems

Although we do not have a specific ISO 9001 for mobile, we have most of the framework contained within it, in place. This is because it is good practice for us to follow such a philosophy. Helpdesk flow charts and complaint procedures are listed herein. We have a clear process and accountability to our customers to deliver on our service levels, despite the service often being supplied by a third party which holds the licenced government approval. We have a Quality Management System that you can inspect here.