Quality of service

Quality of service standards for the text relay service are agreed between Ofcom and BT (as the current sole wholesale supplier of the service). This will help to ensure that deaf and speech-impaired people receive a good service. See below for the key performance indicators and principles agreed by BT and Ofcom.

There will be quarterly reporting on compliance with these standards.

The key principles of the agreed quality of service measures are that people who use the relay service should be able to rely on a number of things:

• Their call will be answered quickly
• The relay operator will facilitate the call in a professional way
• Confidentiality will be respected
• Emergency calls will be prioritised

To see our latest reports please visit the Downloads section.

Relay Assistant's Role
The relay assistant will provide a real-time voice to text and text to voice relay service. They will act as an impartial facilitator and not participate in the conversation except where one party's lack of knowledge of the service or of the other party's communication needs is impeding the conversation.

The relay assistant may if appropriate insert notes of sounds or emotions that the textphone user would otherwise miss e.g. phone ringing, laughing, etc.

Confidentiality
Conversations facilitated by the relay may only be recorded, or parts of conversations noted, in the following situations:

• An emergency call
• For quality measurement and training
• When one party is abusive to the relay personnel
• Where there is a technical problem which needs investigation
• Relay assistants may not have writing materials at their workstations (except by specific arrangement, e.g. if they are asked to complete a form as part of a feedback trial).

Relay service employees must sign a confidentiality agreement which states that they will be dismissed and may be prosecuted if they discuss or use any information from the conversations they relay. This does not cover comments directed at the relay assistant or discussions between a party and the relay assistant.

Training for relay assistants
The training will provide relay personnel with knowledge of the communications needs of deaf, hard of hearing, speech-impaired, and deafblind textphone users.

Refresher training will be undertaken as required.

Call Types
The standard relay service will facilitate calls by providing an English transcription service from and to textphone users in the UK. Where a call originates outside the UK the call will only be connected to a UK telephone number.

Reporting
The performance indicators above will be reported quarterly to Ofcom.

Complaints handling
Complaints handling procedures must be agreed between BT and Ofcom.

Target Measure

• 90% PCA15 Standard Calls 90% of standard relay calls answered within 15 seconds
• 95% PCA5 Emergency 95% of emergency relay calls answered within 5 seconds
• 85% Hit Rate PCA15 target met for 85% of 15 minute intervals
• <5% customers dissatisfied Less than 5% of customers surveyed express dissatisfaction with the relay service
• <3% Standard Calls Abandoned Less than 3% of standard relay calls abandoned
• <2% Emergency Calls Abandoned Less than 2% of emergency calls abandoned. This is in line with the standard voice 999 service measure.

All measures to be averaged over a four week period.

The above metrics plus the additional metrics shown below.

Target Measure

• >95% of calls correctly handled Relay assistants will be monitored at least quarterly for speed of transcription, accuracy, and process conformance
• >40 Words Per Minute (wpm) In conversation voice to text transcription speed better than 40 wpm (when the textphone user is able to receive 40wpm or faster)
• >98% Accuracy Average voice to text transcription accuracy of better than 98%
• <1 Complaint Per 1000 Calls Less than one complaint relating to the relay per 1000 calls handled by the relay

All measures to be averaged over a four week period.

These quality of service measures will be reviewed annually.