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BT to add 500 jobs to meet customer service targets…

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British Telecom (BT) has declared it will add a further 500 frontline customer service positions to its
bases across the UK and Ireland.

Due to the continuing growth of the company’s BT Consumer division, contact centres in Doncaster,
Accrington, Swansea and Warrington are expected to benefit the most, and the new roles are in addition to the previously-announced target of 1,000 UK and Ireland customer service jobs by the end of March 2017.

Expanding the customer service teams will also help with BT’s commitment to answer 90 per cent of its customers’ calls in the UK and Ireland by the same date.

Libby Barr, managing director of customer care at BT Consumer, said: “We are proud to be creating these new jobs in the UK and Ireland. BT is completely changing the way we serve our customers in order to boost our service levels.

“We are going to answer 90 per cent of our customers’ calls in the UK and Ireland by the end of March, and we have been taking on great people to fill full time jobs working for BT. In fact, we will be recruiting for an extra 500 positons, which will be a dramatic increase in what we said we’d do.”

BT’s existing employees can earn a £500 bonus under a ‘Refer a Friend’ scheme if their friend’s application is successful and they complete the first six months of the role.

Manpower agency staff will also have the chance to convert their role into a permanent position with BT.

BA to ‘outsource more than 1,000 UK call centre jobs’…

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A spokesman for British Airways (BA) has confirmed that the airline is considering outsourcing its UK contact centre operations in a bid to reduce costs at its Manchester and Newcastle sites.

Branded “a slap in the face” to its employees by the trade union, Unite, BA – owned by International Airlines Group – has reportedly already asked outsourcing firms to assess the two call centre sites and bid for the jobs. Third-party firms have also been approached to submit proposals for potential cost-effective solutions to implement. 

It is thought that a downturn in the aviation industry has prompted BA to make these cuts to compete with the popularity of low-cost airlines.

Consultation with union representatives and staff members will take place before a final decision is made, and the BA spokesman claims that outsourcing these jobs would enable the use of the latest technology to further improve customer service.

Oliver Richardson, Unite national officer, said in a statement published on the union’s website: “This review is nothing short of a slap in the face for hardworking staff who have constantly adapted to changing markets, while continuing to deliver the highest level of customer service.

“A cloud of uncertainty now hangs over the heads of workers who fear that their jobs will be outsourced or offshored as a result of this exercise. Such a scenario would lead to poorer customer service and a more fragmented experience for passengers. 

“We urge IAG to resist the temptation to engage in a crude cost cutting exercise and repay its loyal workforce by keeping the customer service operations of our national carrier in–house.” 

Banking and financial services top UK customer satisfaction league…

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The banking and financial services sectors have the best levels of customer service satisfaction in the UK, according to statistics from Bright’s first ever ‘Industry Satisfaction Survey’ as part of its latest Customer Experience Report.

Based on insights gathered from more than 1.5 million post-transaction surveys in 2016, the fourth annual report considered key elements of the customer journey to make its final conclusions, including: call handler knowledge, average response time, query resolution, agent handling skill, and customer after care.

Banking was rated as best sector in the UK when it came to general customer satisfaction with 91 per cent stating they are happy with the level of service they receive; closely followed by the financial services sector at 89 per cent.

Mats Rennstam, managing director at Bright UK said: “Only a few years ago, the findings of this research would have been unthinkable. It has taken a huge amount of effort for the banking and financial services industries to turn the tide of public opinion that was so viciverous in its criticism post-2007.

“However, with the links between quality customer service and profits becoming increasingly clear, both sectors have done much to convince customers that they not only understand and care about them, but are actually doing something about it.”

Besides financial, the utility sector was rated third when it came to general customer satisfaction (87 per cent). Retail and media followed with 86 per cent and 81 per cent respectively, as well as housing (77 per cent), transport and travel (72 per cent) and the public sector coming in last with 71 per cent.

Rennstam added: “There is no silver bullet solution for achieving a world-class customer experience. However, there are things that can be done in customer service departments that do not require a lot of time or monetary investment.

“The fact is that today, most customer feedback is available verbatim via voice of the customer recordings that are fed back to staff and managers, which is having a much greater impact than traditional stats and charts, if analysed and monitored in the right way.”

 

Download a copy of the report here

Are industry professionals missing out on key cloud opportunities?

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While the majority of contact centres are using cloud technology to some extent, adoption for many is ‘relatively superficial’, according to recent conducted by Aspect Software.

Surveying 100 UK-based senior contact centre professionals, data indicates that even though the industry is ‘moving in the right direction’, Aspect believes the benefits of the delivery model for agent productivity and customer engagement will only be unlocked when contact centres ‘migrate more of their operations to the cloud’.

Research found that 78 per cent are currently using cloud to some extent, with the channel most likely to have been migrated being email in 60 per cent of cases.  However, adoption of cloud technology in other channels remains low – 27 per cent manage their mobile apps in the cloud; 23 per cent have migrated SMS to cloud; 13 per cent have deployed cloud-based web chat.

Stephen Ball, SVP Europe and Africa at Aspect commented: “It’s clear that cloud is gaining ground in contact centres and that contact centre operators are increasingly comfortable with cloud delivery models, which is very positive. But at the moment many have only migrated a handful of applications and channels – what you might call the low-hanging fruit – and that doesn’t seem likely to change much over the next year. Even partial cloud adoptions can bring about positive changes within your organisation, but we’ve seen that the really interesting things only start to happen when bigger portions of the IT estate have been migrated.”

Analysts predict that this is unlikely to change over the next 12 months, as just 27 per cent of respondents claimed they will integrate new cloud-based solutions into their contact centres in 2017.

6 ‘major pain points’ identified in ContactBabel’s annual report…

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The 14th edition of ContactBabel‘s annual ‘UK Contact Centre Decision-Makers’ Guide’ has been released by the industry analyst firm, which focuses on the operations, performance, technology and HR aspects of UK contact centre operations.

Based on a random sample of the industry, a detailed questionnaire was presented to 216 contact centre directors and managers to complete between June and August 2016, and analysis of all collected responses was conducted in September.

Six ‘major pain points’ were identified throughout the report: strategic decisions; increasing profitability; improving quality and performance; HR management; maximising efficiency and agent optimisation; and new media and the customer of the future. Each ‘pain point’ is allocated its own section, and solutions to solving each issue – with analysis of the primary research data – are provided.   

 

Access the full report here 

Guest Blog, Steven Robertson: Using omnichannel as a direct route to customer engagement success…

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It’s no secret that smart use of the right contact channel and judicious use of customer data is the foundation of the sort of responsive customer service today’s digital consumer demands. Let’s look at the best ways of getting to that destination and how you can ensure you are rightly supporting your customer base…

Being smart on timing

Our company has a database of millions of UK mobile users and their pick-up patterns. In fact, we’ve touched 75 per cent of the UK population through all our client work. And we’ve seen a big pattern emerge; one of the oversights companies are guilty of is running an expensive contact centre that doesn’t make phone calls at the right times during the day. That is a missed opportunity. I’m personally a blur of motion in the morning as I get to work, but I have a couple of calmer times in the day, and by 8pm, I’m halfway through a new episode of GBBO. In other words, work with me and my schedule and don’t expect me to take a sales call before I get to the office, or try and conduct a market research questionnaire for 30 minutes while my favourite programme is on. Sounds simple, but it’s amazing how many companies get this wrong – the data is out there.

One size does not fit all

Too often, the contact centre relies on one contact channel, albeit calling or emailing, web chat or dialler and so on, which is just too inflexible. It turns out that how you engage matters as much as timing. That means brands need to apply thought to what will work for different customer demographics. For people in arrears and younger people in general, voice calls don’t appeal. But switching to SMS (and two-way SMS conversations in particular) means response rates can be phenomenally high. Making contact through a channel that customers are not comfortable with means they will block you, but if the initial outreach is via a channel they prefer, there may be a wide-open door.

Don’t just blast out the company propaganda endlessly via different communication mediums. Instead be proactive, as proactive is what all good customer contact centres should be practicing right now. A great place to start is using proactive outbound communications that notify customers of key relevant events, such as delivery schedule changes; in-store or online promotions; or the availability of their latest bills. These interactions will be a requisite to further useful conversations you then need to go on and have. According to Forrester, “Proactive engagements anticipate the what, when, where, and how for customers, and prioritise information and functionality to speed customer time-to-completion.”

To navigate our complex world as a brand, you have to work with the reality of how people are operating, so you need to keep abreast of all the communication channels. You also need to offer choice; people like choice, different channels, and you need to ensure the transition between them is seamless.

Creating an effective engagement strategy is a question of using the right blend of communications technology at the right time in a helpful and conversational way, to help you and your customers achieve omnichannel success.

 

Steven brings over 25 years’ of strategic sales and management experience to the role of sales and marketing director at VoiceSage, including 15 years in leadership roles in the contact centre, telephony and professional services space. His track record includes success at market leaders BT, Cable & Wireless, PSS Help, Empirix Inc. and Protocall One, where he spearheaded successful growth programmes, as well as building complete sales ecosystems across Europe and beyond.

New UK call centres behind decrease in EE complaints…

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After announcing its decision to move all customer service operations ‘on-shore’ earlier this year, EE has declared that customer complaints have dropped by a substantial 50 per cent.

Along with other big firms, its strategy to move customer operations abroad to cut costs ultimately backfired on the provider, as many consumers reported poor levels of service and, as a result, switched to competitors.

CEO of EE, Marc Allera, said in a statement: “Earlier this year, we set out ambitions to transform the experience and service we provide our customers, including returning all customer service roles to the UK and Ireland. We’ve had fantastic feedback from our customers about the changes we’ve made so far and the number of complaints has plummeted – but we’re not stopping there.”

He continued: “There’s still more we want to achieve and we’re creating over 550 additional service jobs here in the UK to fully onshore all customer service roles, and provide the best possible experience for our customers.”