ITR - British Telecom Bringing Back Call Centres to the UK - Michael Dixon ITR-UK

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British Telecom

Bringing Back

Call Centres to the UK

From an Anonymous Subscriber within British Telecom
29.6.2009

Email Received today 29 June 2009

Hi mate, just a small bit of info from inside British Telecom.

Nigel Stagg (who is 2 levels below Ian Livingston in the hierarchy of BT) has come to the decision that the call centers need to come back to the UK permanently.

(Well it didn't take much brain power to realise that now did it... M.D.)

Currently in all the call centers around the UK people are being retrained in the areas that are currently being outsourced and taking test calls to see how well this goes across.


The best thing is that the staff in the Indian call centers will NOT be laid off, they will be kept on in a non-customer facing position.

(Good News... M.D.)

If all goes well this will hopefully open up a whole load of job in the UK, so for once British Telecom actually seems to be doing something sensible (shock! horror! heh heh).

(Are we to assume that the UK Call Centres will not have the mindless set of rules to follow and will be able to use their own initiative? Or will they follow the 1 - 10 set of instruction but just speak in a language that we can all understand? - Sorry but someone has to take responsibility and not pass the buck and we need to lose this crazy political correctness that's destroying the known world... M.D.)

I don't know if this has been made public yet or not so I would appreciate it if my name wasn't mentioned if you do blog this.
Anon

Firstly I would like to thank Anon for his brave decision to bring this to my attention - as many of you will know I have been fighting for years to get a sensible Broadband signal to our village and those villages around. M.D.

'OpenReach' is the trademark for British Telecom in the field so to speak and whilst they're not officially supposed to be affiliated to BT - they are an arm of British Telecom. The engineers are usually very good professional people and our local engineers who have attended our situation have always been welcomed here with a proper cup of coffee or tea or herbal tea and have always done what they can within the remit that they're able. so there is no complaint about 'OpenReach' nor the BT linesmen that have always done their work professionally - it's the higher levels that need to be aware of what the customer needs in this modern world and not to look at the profit and loss accounts - for if they did they would not waste so much time sending engineers down on a daily basis nor need so many people in call centres wherever they are based.

Check back on the Blogs on www.intouchradio.net or www.myspace.com/intouchradionet or www.myspace.com/i_am_michael_dixon (Networking InTouchRadio.net) and read 'What A Difference A Field Makes' - shortly after BT put a new cable across the field in question to our village but omitted to replace the main cables throughout our village.

The following is my answer to Anon at BT (British Telecom):


BT 'OpenReach' switched our pairing on the box onto a line with no other BB users and our speed went from lowest 118 kbps up to a massive actual 1389 kbps and potential of 1984 kbps but the line has continued dropping since down to 1152 kbps - the Broadband engineer thinks there is possibly a weather related issue with possible water in junction box somewhere between us and the main box and the fact that our cables between the houses and cabinet is alluminum not copper in places causing a loss of contention? I agree somewhat with him as I take a twice daily - sometimes three times, BT Test (http://www.speedtester.bt.com/)and often after bad weather the signal drops with loss of speed and noise on the telephone, an indication of his analysis above.

We're having to have our Router once again replaced, as the new ones have both developed faults on the wireless and our hub phone is non functional and often reboots itself for no apparent reason - this will be the 3rd... ah ho. Funny all the advertising indicates the latest all-dancing - all-singing praise of the best router on the market to date... Perhaps the great British BT Customers are yet again a 'work in progress' rather than doing full R & D (Research & Development)!

If BT had their wit about them they'd replace the long line between Godney Village Cabinet and Glastonbury Telephone Exchange, which is all new copper (a rare and diminishing mineral globally) now hopelessly expensive. The could 'blow' (a way of pushing through long line cables under air pressure) through an optical cable which costs pennies to produce - carries hundreds of lines and lasts indefinitely and as the 'OpenReach' engineer said "would last for over a hundred years and never run out of lines"... It is easily replaceable and that would not only save them on the number of engineer-visits to our village and the other local villages and would enable Hi Speed Broad Band to the Telephone Cabinets without loss from the Telephone Exchange at which point most of the remaining remote areas down here on the Somerset Levels would have a potential average of 6 Megs and those closest to the cabinest potentially 8 Megs.

I have been fighting for this village to have broadband enablement for over 5+ years - I managed to obtain a grant with RABBIT through Somerset Connect for each of the people in the Godney of £750 which would have gone to pay for the line and mast/s for a wireless link from Taunton - Moorlynch on the Polden Hills the signal would have then been beamed down to the Somerset Levels but most of the village were with other providers and wouldn't change to BT (knowing that the villages had left BT due to ongoing problems in the first place!).

Britain is an island of very small proportions, all these other providers hasn't made for an easier cheaper existence but a complex convoluted set of circumstances that has done more to cause problems.

Competition outweighs the potential and we now have possibly the slowest Broadband in the western world and yet our technology invented the system in the first place - crazy but true. A lot of InTouchRadio.net friends around the world think we are stupid to accept our situation and it has been said we are technologically living in the Stone Age... they can't believe the situation we are in.

BT support the City but not the Country... more revenue and through their own greed and the political structure just look at the state this country is now in... I say no more.

Thanks for being there in support and don't forget any other info and local news will be gratefully received but not at the cost of your reputation.

Keep In Touch - best regards
Michael Dixon
ITR - UK

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