Service Escalation Policy

SECTION 1

BLUE OCEAN TECHNOLOGIES’ CUSTOMER SERVICE

Statement of Purpose
Blue Ocean Technologies’ Customer Service (hereinafter “Customer Service”) provides focused trouble management by serving as the customer’s advocate and taking ownership of the repair process. Customer Service also facilitates and manages new circuit activation. It is our goal for our employees to meet and to exceed our customer’s expectations through proactive communication, restoration and confirmation of repair.

Customer Service Responsibilities

• Answer Inbound Calls
• Receive & Track Troubles
• Resolve Impairments
• Provide Status
• Escalate issues
• Identify Chronic Trouble
• Manage Events

SECTION 2

INCIDENT RESOLUTION PROCESS

Incident Reporting
The following steps outline the procedure for opening and resolving network service problems:

• Customer contacts Blue Ocean Technologies
  • By phone: 205-776-6911
  • By email: service@blueotech.net
  • Through the website Help Desk: www.bluotech.net
• Customer provides specific trouble information to Customer Service. The type of service will determine the information the customer needs to provide. The customer should be prepared to provide the following information:
  Switched Access:
  • Contact name, affiliated company, phone number, and account number
  • Site contact(s) and telephone number(s)
  • Phone number of originating call
  • Phone number dialed
  • Number of attempts
  • Time and date of trouble
  • Recorded Voice Announcement (RVA) and associated ID code (if applicable)
  • Calling Card access number (if applicable)
• Dedicated Inbound/Outbound and Local PRI Services:
  • Contact name, affiliated company, phone number, and account number
  • Site contact(s) and telephone number(s)
  • Circuit ID or 10 digit number impacted
  • Phone number dialed
  • Number of attempts
  • Time and date of trouble
  • Nature of the trouble
  • Recorded Voice Announcement (RVA) and associated ID code (if applicable)
  • Does customer’s inbound toll free service need to be re-established?
• Private Line, Frame Relay and Internet Services:
  • Contact name, affiliated company, phone number, and account number
  • Site contact(s) and telephone number(s). (Two site contacts are recommended to ensure availability.)
  • Circuit ID or IP address
  • Location affected
  • Time and date of trouble
  • Nature of the trouble
  • Location access information
  • Can the circuit be released for testing?

Customer Service will assign a trouble report number (ticket number). Use of this number will facilitate communication about the trouble status or for any additional information relevant to trouble resolution.

Customer Service will keep the customer apprised of the status of the problem and will notify the customer as soon as the trouble is resolved.

Incident Tracking and Resolution
Customer Service will assign a severity level to the incident based on the information derived from the customer when the ticket is created. The ticket severity ensures efficient, prompt trouble resolution. Below are the guidelines for assigning severity as well as the associated guidelines for status and escalation.

Severity Guidelines
Severity 1: Out of service condition. Examples for dedicated services include any Private Line, voice T1, Local PRI, Frame Relay or IP circuit out of service.
Example for switched services would be when more than half of the customer’s switched access is down. Severity 1 represents significant impact on ability to conduct normal business.
Severity 2: Quality/connectivity condition that can be duplicated. Examples include slow response, continuous errors or garble, impaired circuit, circuit instability, busies, static or echo. Severity 2 represents limited impact on ability to conduct normal business.
Severity 3: Reason for outage (RFO) or single attempts that can not be duplicated.
Examples include intermittent errors, garbled call clearing, line/circuit failure, busies, static or echo.
Severity 4: Informational or non-service affecting conditions. Examples include service inquiries, notifications of customer initiated testing or Caller ID changes.

Status Guidelines
Severity 1: Initial status reported to customer within thirty minutes of ticket entry and every hour thereafter until resolution.
Severity 2: Initial status reported to customer within one hour of ticket entry and every two hours thereafter until resolution.
Severity 3: Status will be provided to customer every two hours as necessary.
Severity 4: Status will be provided to customer a minimum of once a day or as necessary. The status given on these tickets can vary greatly depending on the customer’s needs.

Escalation Guidelines
Escalation opportunities are evaluated on a scheduled basis according to the severity of the incident. The following guidelines are used to determine if escalation is appropriate at the scheduled opportunity.

Reasons for Escalating

1. Cause of impairment is not known.
2. Carrier is not escalating with external agencies (i.e., local telephone company) at acceptable intervals.
3. Unacceptable progress is being made toward fix action. Resolution objectives are in jeopardy.
4. Lack of adequate status and/or repair updates from carriers documented in the incident reporting system.
5. Indecision between venders as to who is responsible for repair.
6. Customer requests escalation.

Reasons for Not Escalating

1. No access to customer’s premise when necessary for further troubleshooting and/or resolution. If condition is out of service and it is extending into customer’s normal business hours, Customer Service will coordinate a plan of action and will advise the customer, before they are non-accessible, of this plan.
2. Dispatch is pending and the timeframe is acceptable to the customer or the timeframe is the best possible.
3. Trouble has been referred to an external carrier without consulting Customer Service.
4. Lack of adequate status and/or repair updates from carriers (i.e., local telephone company) and acceptable progress is being made toward repair. Internal Customer Service escalations may continue as necessary.

Domestic Service Escalation and Status Guidelines
The following escalation and status guidelines and timetables are for all Switched Access, Private Line, voice T1, Local PRI, Frame Relay and IP Services:

Severity 1:
Status: Initial status reported to customer within 30minutes of ticket entry and every hour thereafter until resolution
Ticket Duration Escalation Level Notification Contacts
Initial Outage 1 - The CUSTOMER SERVICE escalates immediately.

1. Customer Service escalates to carrier Supervisor (hour 1).
2. Customer Service escalates to carrier Manager (hour 2).
3. Customer Service escalates to carrier Director (hour 3).

Severity 2:
Status: Initial status reported to customer within 1 hour of ticket entry and every 2 hours thereafter until resolution
Ticket Duration Escalation Level Notification Contacts

1. Customer Service escalates to carrier Supervisor (hour 1).
2. Customer Service escalates to carrier Manager (hour 2).
3. Customer Service escalates to carrier Director (hour 3).

Severity 3:
Status: Status reported to customer every2 hours until resolution
Ticket Duration Escalation Level Notification Contacts

1. Customer Service escalates to carrier Supervisor (hour 1).
2. Customer Service escalates to carrier Manager (hour 2).
3. Customer Service escalates to carrier Director (hour 3).
4. Customer Service escalates to carrier Director (hour 6).
5. Customer Service escalates to carrier VP (hour 10).

Severity 4:
Status: Status reported at least once a day until resolution
Ticket Duration Escalation Level Notification Contacts

1. Customer Service escalates immediately to fix agency Lead (hour 2).
2. Customer Service escalates to carrier Supervisor (hour 4).
3. Customer Service escalates to carrier Manager (hour 8).
4. Customer Service escalates to carrier Director (hour 12).
5. Customer Service escalates to carrier VP (hour 20).

Note: All carrier escalations are escalated at concurrent match levels within the Customer Service. Customer Service will prioritize and work tickets based on their severity.

Incident Ticket Closure

Once an incident has been resolved, Customer Service will contact the customer to confirm resolution in order to close the trouble ticket. In the event that Customer Service does not receive a response from the customer to the request to close the trouble ticket for a period of 24 hours, the trouble ticket will be automatically closed.