
Coronavirus: Keeping your business connected
We’re working hard to keep the nation connected. That’s why we’ve introduced new products, offers and free resources. All designed to make things that little bit easier for our businesses.
Best ways to stay in touch during the coronavirus pandemic
It’s simple to manage your BT service yourself online and in the BT Business app. And with our call centres busier than usual, self service is likely to be the fastest way to update your details.
Here are just a few of the things that you can do in My Account:
- View and download your bills
- Check your usage
- View any out of allowance costs
- Report and track orders and faults
Looking for a quick answer? We have lots of frequently asked questions, articles, videos and user guides online to help you.
Here are some in particular that could help you during coronavirus:
How do I forward/direct calls from my business phone?
How do I find information about my bill?
How do I raise a fault with my broadband or phone line?
Going abroad? Get ready before you go - read the latest UK Government guidance for travel during the coronavirus pandemic
We’ve expanded our live chat team, and we’re ready to help Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.
With our call centres busier than usual, please use live chat if you’re looking to contact us.
The networks to support working from home
With home working increasing hugely in response to COVID-19, you need to be confident you can keep connected. There’s more than enough capacity in our UK broadband and mobile networks to handle the demand. Here’s why.
Our network is built to accommodate evening peak network capacity, which is driven by data-heavy things like video streaming and game downloads, for example.
In comparison, work-related applications like video calls and daytime email traffic use only a fraction of the data. Even if the same heavy data traffic that we see each evening were to run throughout the daytime, there’s still enough capacity for work applications to run simultaneously.
How our partners have adapted to remote working
Samsung
Paul Harris of Samsung talks about our partnership supporting the NHS and transforming ways of working.
RingCentral
BT’s Fotis Karonis in conversation with RingCentral’s Sunny Dhami, on remote working, digital transformation and more.
Cisco
Fotis Karonis chats with Mark Needham of Cisco on the positive impact remote working can have within an organisation.
Expert support to help your business through coronavirus
Digital skills help our customers adapt
MobGroup
Live-streaming is just one of the ways of staying connected with your customers. Discover how MobGroup moved from workplace wellness to remote workouts to keep their customers working out during coronavirus.
We’ve created free digital training resources to help businesses go digital, with a wide range of courses to choose from.
Heaps + Stacks
Events company Heaps + Stacks adapted its business model to meet, and beat, the challenges of coronavirus. Thanks to out-of-the-box thinking and new digital skills, Heaps + Stacks found new income streams and is thriving.
View the full article and if you’re inspired by what Heaps + Stacks achieved, we can help you transform your business too.
Your Live Guide
Social media live streams have become a saviour for keeping people entertained recently. Discover how Chloé jumped on the trend and used her digital skills to bring Your Live Guide to life. A platform to make it easier for people around the globe to find live streams they love.
Read the full article and discover what your digital skills could help you achieve.

Easy-to-implement solutions to support business continuity
BT Business Direct offers you lots of solutions that can improve the remote working experience for your employees and colleagues. And the even better news is that many are free, have free trial options, or won’t cost your business a fortune.

Playing our part to support the NHS
Our teams are working hard to help the NHS and public health authorities, including:
- Making 101 calls free, to take pressure off the 999 emergency service
- Immediate additional connectivity for NHS trusts, including Nightingale Hospitals
- 43 million ‘stay at home’ SMS alerts sent on our mobile network for GOV.UK
Providing video calling services for intensive care patients to speak to families
How our IP voice products help with home working
Most of BT's IP voice products come with applications that can work on your mobile phone or desktop. This means as long as you have a good 4G or wi-fi connection you can make and receive calls when you’re away from the office using an app on your mobile.
All calls to customers within your organisation are free. Calls outside of your organisation to a landline or mobile will be charged according to your current call plan.
Here are our IP voice apps and how you can download them:
BT Cloud Phone (for Cloud Work and Cloud Phone)
- Download Cloud Phone app for iOS
- Download Cloud Phone app for Android
- How to download Cloud Phone app for Windows
- How to download Cloud Phone app for macOS
BT Cloud Voice Express
BT Cloud Voice Communicator (for BT Cloud Voice)
- Download Cloud Voice Communicator app for iOS iPhone
- Download Cloud Voice Communicator app for iOS iPad
- Download Cloud Voice Communicator app for Android
- How to download Cloud Voice Communicator app for Windows and macOS
BT One Phone
If you have BT Cloud Phone, Cloud Voice Express, Cloud Voice, Cloud Work or One Phone, you can take your IP enabled handset to a different location and it will work as normal. IP handsets work over the internet so rather than plugging the device into the landline port in your home, you will need to plug it into your broadband hub. IP devices generally need 500Kbps or more to work, so if you have fibre broadband you should be fine.
Note: If you need to call 999 it’s better to use a mobile or home phone. If using your IP phone, you must give the operator your location.
You can use these apps to collaborate by video and screen shares, both within and outside your organisation. Thanks to support from RingCentral, we’re upgrading our Cloud Phone and Cloud Work customers to have more collaboration tools for free. We’ll email you when we’ve upgraded your service. If you need collaboration apps immediately, please call our sales teams.
And for all of our customers who need collaboration tools, we’re offering free access to Cisco Webex. You can sign up on our Cisco Webex page today.
Video and presence applications use up more of your internet and VPN bandwidth than just surfing the internet or making calls. If things start slowing down, you may wish to manage bandwidth by reducing streaming to give you a better service on things you need most.
Here’s where to get help and support with the collaboration apps available with BT IP voice products:
You can set call forwards to re-route your calls to your mobile. This may be the best option if you don’t have good broadband connectivity.
- How to divert calls on your BT landline
- Add call diversion and other calling features to your BT landline
- How to set up call forwarding for Cloud Voice Express customers on the app
- How to set up call forwarding for Cloud Voice Express online
- How to set up call forwarding for BT Cloud Voice
- How to set up call forwarding for Cloud Phone and Cloud Work
- How to set up call forwarding for BT's PBX systems
Here are some useful links to help you make the most of your BT voice product:
If you need to work from home or help your people to do so, here are some key things to think about:
- Is there suitable connectivity at home, such as a broadband line?
- Is there security in place to dial in remotely into systems outside your corporate LAN or WAN?
- Likewise, is there security and protection for your equipment?
- Are any data backup or storage facilities needed to work effectively from home?
- What will you use to make calls – devices or Skype, for example?
- Do you need communication tools such as a headset or video camera?
- Do you have the collaboration tools including the right licenses and quality of service?
We can help with connectivity, extra bandwidth , security, digital phone lines and business grade licenses for conferencing services. Plus you can find out more about our collaboration services and offers in the ‘home working’ and ‘special benefits’ sections.
Special benefits for IP voice customers during the coronavirus outbreak
Free access to Cisco Webex for audio and video calls
For all of our customers who need collaboration tools, we’re offering free access to Cisco Webex. You can sign up on our Cisco Webex page today.
Free video and web conferencing with the BT Cloud Phone Meetings app until 30 June 2020
We’re giving the Cloud Phone Meetings app free to all customers with Basic or Connect licences. With the app, you’ll get free access to audio, video and web conferencing (for up to 100 participants) from your mobile, tablet or PC until 30 June. So you, your team and your customers can stay connected at home and when working remotely.
If you’re a Basic user, simply download the app and use your Cloud Phone log in details to get started.
- Download Cloud Phone app for iOS
- Download Cloud Phone app for Android
- How to download Cloud Phone app for Windows
- How to download Cloud Phone app for macOS
Connect users can just log in as normal to see the new features.
If you forget your password, just follow the on-screen steps. And if you need any extra support, check out the Cloud Phone help page.
Free unlimited access to online training content
We’re giving you free use of the Avaya IP Office training portal online.
Sign up today to get 24/7 access to a wide range of training – including administration courses, video tutorials, live web cast broadcasts, and even one-to-one ‘guru’ sessions.
You can also use the training to manage your Avaya IP Office system. So it’ll be quick and simple for you to switch on call forwarding, record announcements, and update business hours. It’s one more way we can help your business manage the impact of coronavirus.
Complete an order form online to sign up to our training offer
View terms and conditions of training offer
We're currently working with our teams and partners to discuss training, collaboration tools and other upgrades that we may be able to offer on these products to help support with remote working. Please continue to check this page regularly for any updates.
Frequently asked questions
BT Group has more up to date information on how the coronavirus is impacting the way it works and the steps that it’s taking at https://btplc.com/coronavirus/index.htm
Openreach, who provide network access services, have announced that no work will be carried out by engineers inside customer premises, unless they’re part of the Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) of the U.K.
This decision will impact the services we can provide, and certain products may not be available. This is an industry wide issue, not just affecting BT.
We understand this could cause problems for you, but we do have plenty of products that won’t require an Openreach engineer. For example, self-install connectivity solutions and mobile access such as 4G Assure.
Our number one priority is to ensure that businesses and essential public services stay connected whilst protecting the health and wellbeing of our colleagues. We fully support Openreach’s decision, as this change will help protect us all.
We thank you for your patience and understanding.
Read the full update and find out more on the Openreach website
COVID-19 focused service offers
In light of the present challenging circumstances, we’ve put together a list of BT service offers across a number of procurement routes, which will help you to be able to deal with the challenges of COVID-19.