BT has re-emphasised its call centre strategy in the UK and elsewhere
following media coverage of the issue.
The company was responding to a campaigning piece in The Mail on
Sunday that tried to persuade companies to bring call centres back to
the UK.
BT's managing director of customer service Duncan Ingram says 32 of BT
Retail's 34 contact centres are already in the UK and that £105
million has been invested to make the UK centres cutting edge.
He said: "We have invested heavily in the UK and have no plans to
significantly increase the numbers we employ in our BT Retail contact
centres in India.
"All our advisors in India receive comprehensive training, including
accent training. In some business areas, such as the broadband
technical helpdesk, we do offer the opportunity for the call to be
handled by a UK advisor."
Duncan said that BT is a global company with operations in 130
countries and - with customer satisfaction closely monitored at the
company's Indian operations - has no plans to move all its call
centres to the UK.
He said: "The customer satisfaction results show that the call centres
in India reach the same high standard as we offer in the UK. Customer
service is at the heart of what we do and we cannot afford to provide
poor quality service to customers in the extremely competitive markets
in which we operate."
In other news, Nortel has won a $5 million contract from BT to migrate
its U.K. call centres to a new VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol)
system over the next two years
The deal will cover 10,000 agents and 124 sites, though the nature of
the technology will mean agents can be based away from call centres
and using data applications as well as voice.
BT said in a statement that by its staff using applications on a
converged IP network it will be showing its customers that it
practises what it preaches.
Reaching the right person to solve a problem can be difficult in a
large organization such as BT, and customers can often find their call
transferred several times, each transfer obliging them to explain
their problem again. BT recently promised to make it easier for
customers to reach the right person, and so its call centre agents
need to be able to transfer calls -- and accompanying information
about the customer's identity and reason for calling -- to the
appropriate place.
With the new system, "We can move calls around the business to support
BT's 'My customer promises,'" said Alf Ellis, head of BT's internal
voice solutions.
The new VOIP equipment from Nortel includes five Nortel Communication
Server 1000 systems for the main sites in England (Gatwick, Cambridge,
Walsall and Bristol) and Scotland (Edinburgh), according to Nortel.
The deal also includes a desktop Nortel 2004 IP phone for each of the
9,700 call center agents and a Symposium Call Center Server, making it
one of the largest virtual call centers in Europe. The equipment
replaces existing Nortel equipment, including Meridian 1 PBXs and
Meridian Max call centre software.
For the call center agents, this will be their first encounter with
VOIP within BT -- but the company has already used the technology at
the highest levels, according to a Glynn Evans, Nortel's account
manager for BT.
"We had deployed IP Telephony at BT's headquarters in Newgate Street,
London, last year," he said in an e-mail. That system served 2,000
employees, including BT's executive management board.
Regards
Sunil
BT call centre strategy 
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