BT pledge to bring customer call services back to UK

BT plans to answer 80% of customer calls in UK service centres by next year

Wonder if there will be another increase in line rental charges etc sometime next year?

That would have happened regardless of what they did with the call centres.

In reply to a post by kasg:

That would have happened regardless of what they did with the call centres.

Yes indeed, without a doubt.

So they are importing the call centre staff from India etc.. ? Or employing existing immigrants here?

The location of the call centre is irrelevant, if it has the same tired scripts and incoherent staff then where is the advantage?

In reply to a post by kijoma:

So they are importing the call centre staff from India etc.. ? Or employing existing immigrants here?

The location of the call centre is irrelevant, if it has the same tired scripts and incoherent staff then where is the advantage?

Location is relatively unimportant.

Technical competence is the primary issue, followed closely by the ability to understand and speak English clearly. Strong regional accents can be problematical, irrespective of whether the Call Centre is in London, Glasgow, Tyneside, Merseyside, Belfast or Mumbai.

In reply to a post by kijoma:

So they are importing the call centre staff from India etc.. ? Or employing existing immigrants here?

I suppose this is good news for the Syrian Refugees...

In reply to a post by kijoma:

The location of the call centre is irrelevant, if it has the same tired scripts and incoherent staff then where is the advantage?

It's the scripting that has always been the problem for me. The accents are normally easy enough to understand and the staff are polite. In some cases (Barclays/Woolwich) the Indian call centres are actually more effective.

To an extent I'm pleased as in my experience (and recently that has been far more extensive than I would like) BT customer support is abysmal. The only thing I have noticed is that if I'm talking to someone in the UK they tend to pick up on frustration a little better whereas in India they apologise a lot and it's obvious it's scripted. Once or twice I have spoken to someone in the UK that has been good, but it's the exception rather than the rule.

My biggest problem with BT is the lack of information given back. You report a problem and an "order" goes in, but there's no indication of what the problem is or what the course of action is going to be. Makes me feel like a mushroom..... Kept in the dark and fed *****.

Good news, smoother handling of calls/complaints and bringing more jobs back to the UK

I have mostly had no issues, even when we lost our broadband connection due to rain, or SNR issues.

Granted I have had one or two issues but after talking technical to them and gradually moving away from their cue cards and out of their comfort zone, they have 9 times out of 10 transferred me to a more technical person and after a few transfers you end up with a UK based person that resolves my issue at that time.

The classic fault was when it was raining heavy for several hours and drains was flooding etc, broadband was dropping out all over the place, phoned BT and got BT India, thought no problem and explained the issue where they started to do some tests and also asked me to run the BT diagnostics page.
This test failed due to the connection dropping every few seconds, each time the DSL noise margin increasing, the BT person started to get annoyed and after several tries I ended up being transferred to a UK based support and the issues was resolved 24 to 48 hours later.
I only had to then call them to reset my DSL Noise Margin back to 6.0dB and everything was back to normal.

Also just because they are moving the support back to the UK doesn't mean it will be better.

But one can hope.

Paul

In reply to a post by kijoma:

The location of the call centre is irrelevant ..

Afraid I disagree, having spent too much time dealing with BT's overseas call centres I found that staff speaking conversational English often have trouble properly comprehending what you are asking them to do - I never had that trouble on the few occasions I was able to deal with BT's UK staff. Mix in poor comprehension and poor product knowledge - on top of long waiting times - and it's enough to drive the average customer bonkers.

And numerous people I know, and it's also happened to me, have mentioned that although the overseas staff are generally polite there is a reasonable chance you will get "magically" cut-off if you irritate them.