The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A well-known retailer yesterday blasted the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) for phone line woes that slashed sales in key product lines by up to 20 per cent during its “Christmas season” equivalent.

Dale Thompson, principal of Mackey Street-based Bahamas Office and School Supplies (BOSS), told Tribune Business that its office and store phone lines had largely been out of service for a two-month period that began in early July.

Disclosing that it took more than a month for a BTC technician to come and assess the problem, Mr Thompson said the phone line problems could not have impacted BOSS at a worse time.

He added that vital ‘call in’ product categories had suffered 20 per cent and 15 per cent year-over-year sales drops during the ‘Back to School’ period, which traditionally accounts for “at least” one-quarter of BOSS’s annual top-line.

Mr Thompson said the company had likely lost thousands of dollars in top-line sales and profits as a result, adding that BTC had yet to completely fix the problem.

While phone communications to BOSS’s store have been restored, those with its office and sales staff have not, with BTC technicians blaming a ‘system problem’, according to Mr Thompson.

He suggested that BTC’s customer service quality and response time appeared to have nosedived since recent management changes that saw its controlling shareholder, Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC), replace Geoff Houston, as the company’s chief executive.

“We’ve had problems with our phone lines at BOSS for two months,” Mr Thompson told Tribune Business. “Our main line has basically been non-contactable.

“All of our lines seem to have had some problems. We may be able to call and the customer does not hear us, or we cannot hear the customer.

“Our main line for the office is still out, and the shop has only come online after being out for seven weeks. All this went on during Back to School.

“I kept holding on, hoping they [BTC] could get it done. I had Back to School going on, which is my Christmas.”

Despite its pleas, Mr Thompson said BOSS was unable to get BTC to respond quickly to its plight.

“I shouldn’t say this, but it seems that since Mr Houston has gone, they’ve gone back to this ‘don’t care’ attitude again,’ he added.

“I used to be able to call and in a short period of time, they were able to get things done. You can’t get a real response and go up the chain of command.”

In this case, Mr Thompson said BTC failed to respond promptly, eventually referring BOSS to its Enterprise unit, which deals with services to the corporate community.

He added that it was four-five weeks into the saga before the first BTC technician arrived on-site to assess the problem. The last one, Mr Thompson said, was present 10 days ago, with the cause described as a “system problem”.

No response to Mr Thompson’s complaints was received from BTC prior to last night’s press deadline, although this newspaper did contact a company spokesman by phone and e-mail, detailing the nature of the inquiry.

The spokesman promised to pass the information to BTC chief executive, Leon Williams, and Janet Brown, who has replaced Marlon Johnson as vice-president of sales and marketing, but no comment was received.

Meanwhile, detailing the impact on BOSS’s business, Mr Thompson told Tribune Business that an analysis of the company’s sales showed a significant decline in “two critical areas” where customers and staff relied on the phone.

These were Hewlett-Packard ink cartridge sales, and school text books. Mr Thompson said corporate clients frequently called to check the ink cartridges were in stock, and correctly matched to printers, with text book buyers doing the same and also comparing pricing.

“Text books are almost 20 per cent down,” Mr Thompson told Tribune Business. “We’re about 15 per cent down in Hewlett-Packard ink cartridges.

“The school supplies and stuff were the same as they were last year. This leads me to believe even more that we were driving those customers in through advertising, but those other people [ink cartridges and text books] couldn’t call in and contact us.

“After out store phone came back up, we had a lot of people say: ‘We were trying to call you’,” Mr Thompson added.

“It’s our main season. We do at least 25 per cent of our sales through the store during Back to School. That’s between July Independence Day week and the end of August, which is how long this has been going on.

“If this had happened to us in November, December, the end of the year, it would not have bothered me as much. December is my worst month of the year, as people are not working in offices at that point.”

Mr Thompson emphasised that the problems were “still not fully resolved”, for while the store’s 394-5656 number was working, the office’s 393-5656 number was not.

Explaining that it was “hit and miss” for his sales staff to make and receive calls, he added: “Two weeks ago I asked BTC to put a message on that number saying we were having problems with the lines and to try an alternative number, and to-date that’s not been done either.

“I’m disgusted. I’ve never complained about any business in this country like I am at this point. I’m not a person that goes out to make noise We all have businesses and issues. This has just got to the point of ridiculous.”

Mr Thompson said he had no alternative but to use BTC as his communications provider, as Cable Bahamas’ phones typically went down during power outages.