OT off-shore call centres

This one made me chuckle.

TV licensing, no off shore call centres for them oh no mate.

Cos I am a muppet I was late paying it and they sent me a threatening
letter. Fair do's my mistake, so I phoned up the number and gave the
details verbally to some system.

Six weeks later and I get a *really* threatening letter saying I still
hadn't paid. Checks bank and I haven't so I phone up a human. Turns
out the bank rejected the number I gave them as non existent and "no we
don't have a record of what you said" !![1] and "The tapes are sent to
India for transcription."

Made I laugh.


[1] We shall be talking further on this one, if what I have been told is
correct they have major breach in their Data Protection Compliance
systems and they will fix it and they will tell me the number they used.

 

Heres a wee movie for you to enjoy: http://www.callcentermovie.com/

While I'm at it, if you ever fancy getting a mobile phone, or changing the
one you've got, whatever stay away from 3. All their calls are handled in
Bombay. Last week I got a call from them threating legal action because I
hadn't paid my bill. I hadn't paid it, and had told them that I could'nt as
I was just out of hospital, SSP load of shite. When I got the call from
Bombay threating the legal action, I asked to speak to someone in a UK call
centre. After all my contract is in the UK and if it went as far as court,
(which it didnt) it would be a UK court and not one in bloody Bombay. They
don;t have a UK call centre though, exxcept the one in Glasgow, but I can;t
be transferred there. its a luck of the draw thing. Which led to an
amusing conversation:
Me: You are a communications company?
3: Yes Mr Scott
Me: Why can't you transfer me to the Glasgow call centre?
3: We don't have that facility in place.
Me: So you are a communications company that can't communicate with itself?
3: Sorry Mr Scott, i don't understand.
Me: Clunk.

</Rant>

Andy

 

Andrew Scott wrote

A new treatment of an old idea. Quite well done though.

 

LTSB are offshoring their Human Remains function:

http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2006/05/26/35517/Bank+offshores+HR+admin+to+India.htm

That'll work well. Not.

 

I'm not a LTSB customer, but if I was, I probably wouldn't be any longer.
How can they possibly ship 150 jobs out of the UK, and magically create
another 150 here for the call centre workers affected? Surely they could
keep the 150 call centre employees and create the 150 jobs anyways? I
remember when Sky said they were moving jobs from Livingston to India, the
Daily Record ran a huge spread about it, and the amount of Scottish
customer's who phoned to cancel made Sky change their mind.

Andy

 

I am a Lloyds customer and expect to remain one.

If LTSB do not trim their costs then their competition will; and LTSB's
customer offer will be less attactive than their competitions',
resulting in a loss of customers.

The 150 jobs in question are not (I believe) standard customer facing
call centre roles, they are HR supporting roles so it's an internal call
centre. It seems that they believe they can get an acceptable level of
support by outsourcing this function.

LTSB have chosen to try to redeploy their staff internally; in other
roles. I think this is laudable; if it's sincere.

We work in a global economy, like it or not, and there are no guarantees
of a job for life, or even for the next few weeks...

 

Andrew Scott wrote

I did the Solaris Fundamentals training for the admins in Sky Scotland.
They choose potential recruits by internal advert. Surprising how many
very well qualified folks they had hiding in the post room.

I was only sent up there because the bird who was sposed to do it caught
babies. I got, despite seriously heavy protesting on my part that this
was not the in m job description, made to write up a summary of them
all. The first course I was on there was a really bright bloke who was
struggling because he was vain about wearing bins and I mentioned this
in my report. They thought I was wonderful and insisted that I be
brought back to do all the courses. Fortunately I was made redundant
shortly after that. I don't like Edinberg, full of fucking jocks it is
and a kin long drive to get there.

 

Halla wrote

No it was even worse than that. It was what we referred to internally
as Off-site. The type of job only given to people who could deliver a
course without the aid of machines and manuals and convince the
attendees they got value for money. Not for the faint hearted, the
primary skill needed was not technical but unfailing self confidence, in
spades.

It was two roads over from some gert great building site that we had
told them would be a parliament. In some "affiliates" offices.
Independent Sun consultants or some such.

The saving grace was the pub I found just round the corner, suited and
booted was /not/ the appropriate 'attire de jour'. The place went that
special sort of quiet that some places go when I walked in. Eerie. It
took me five minutes but I won them round to thinking that despite my
being English I was alcoholic working class scum like them and we got on
just fine and I even ended up having me dinners there.

 

Halla wrote

No, I was ordering beer, it was them who went quiet.

I wasn't at my best that day.