Trouble at Swansea?
 

http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/di...pNodeId=253140

Hmm, not looking too good.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

No, not looking good at all. It can't be easy working with this hanging over your head. :(

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

I am just waiting for customer care to have cut backs

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

lol maybe if virginmedia actually told them what was going on etc maybe they could improve their performance. virginmedia don't just treat customers like **** they also treat customer care workers like it to imo

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Nope, not easy at all :(

I can't see customer care having cut backs as I've noticed they're constantly busy, but by midday all of our calls are transferred to offshore call centres...which makes me laugh at IBM's comment of 'lower call volumes'.

When it comes to customers wanting to speak to someone in the UK it evidently seems the company don't care.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

It wouldn't suprise me if it's partly because of the huge numbers of customers leaving or lowering their packages. Oh and could it be due to more people getting their BB and TV illegally?

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

You answered everyones concern in the paragraph above where I have made bold.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

I can't see CMC cutbacks just yet. Surely they will get rid of the contracted outsourced centres first when the contracts run out?

Berkett came to our centre a few months ago and said that each month 10% more calls are coming back to the UK centres with the outsourced receiving 10% less.

But that being said...they're moving staff accounts to IBM swansea...

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Could be slighlty difficult as the entire FMC & TSC are outsourced, as well as few other back office functions that are needed. That includes Off-net Virign aswell.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Haggis what centre you in

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Could be...but seeing as im talking bout cmc outsourced....

---------- Post added at 18:08 ---------- Previous post was at 18:08 ----------

I'm on your team! lol =|

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

I was just asking u lil biatch lol haggis where you been?

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

It's a good job that you know each other as normally that type of post would raise a few eyebrows on CF ;)

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

I guessed it might but I can get away with it as I sit nxt to him lol sorry rob

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Not on the forum hagbag

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

:notopic: Can we leave the chat to your workplace and return to the subject of this thread please?

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Not the entire FMC and TSC are outsourced, I'm in FMC in Swansea, TSC is also here, and it's the same in Liverpool.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

So working for a 3rd party contractor isnt outsourced ? ;)
Outsourced doesnt have to mean offshore. Working in Swansea, you should know that point very well ;) :angel: as TSC was the first of the ex-ntl area's to be outsourced, followed by FMC & CMC etc...

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

People getting services illegally has been going on for years,if customers are leaving or reducing their packages its because either (a) the packages dont offer value for money or (b) people are tightening their belts in the current climate.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Or (c) people getting through to India and getting no help!

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

I have dealt with India on numerous occasions with no problems...

There are just as many problems created in the UK Centres as there are in Pune/Bangalore - people just choose to blame it on the offshore guys as nobody seems to like them!

Axe Becogent CMC or India CMC??

Byebye BC :p:

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

But not the Becogent TSC as they are good.:)

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

I would love to be surprised but i'm really not.

The offshore call centers have been going for a few years now, and even though people still complain about them they are getting better and complaints less. Also they are much cheaper to run than UK ones, and more flexible as they can call people in at a moments notice.

The center in swansea, has gone from a huge building that was once full of staff to now only half operating.

I would think that it is unlikly that staff are made redundant as it would make more sense for manpower to shift operations to one of their other clients that value UK only call centers, and re-train the current VM staff as they already have most of the skills needed and would save on redundancy costs.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

You know it! :)

---------- Post added at 13:37 ---------- Previous post was at 13:35 ----------


Agreed. I'm thinking some day soon we shall have 'super users' that deal with pretty much all departments.

They've already got CMC agents dealing with Relations and Sales calls.

They've got Sales doing relations...only a matter of time before they start asking more of us.

Bring it on :)

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

When I worked for FMR at Teesside there was a 1hr plus wait for Broadband Support at Swansea. Even though we only really dealt with DTV, CATV and telco several of us ended up providing Broadband support as well. I used to also work Retentions and was seconded occasionally to the CMC. I was also going to work overtime in sales but then FMR overtime became so plentiful that I did not have to.

To be honest that's probably why they got outsourced as the overtime was way over the top, had they trained the staff they took on correctly and had the right amount of them their jobs might have been a little more secure.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Agreed!

I didn't realise they had users working across the board like you were, though!

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Why do you think Faults are all on 151, because they want them all cross trained if possible.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Sort of a non story in my view - Off shore outsourcing saves money, On shore outsource is just a temporary step before and TUPE helps reduce long redundancy term costs I think.

CMC are now starting to recruit again in a few offices which is a good sign on that front.

Hows that then? Faults have been on 151 for the last 10 years other than when it was pulled

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

TUPE does not truly affect agency staff.

Because they have started cross training, and now 151 is back so it would make it easier for BBI techs to be able to answer all 3 types of faults calls.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Heart felt wishes go to you all.

/r00t

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

ditto - apologies for not noticing this thread earlier ..

redundancy is horrible, best of luck to you all :tu:

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

How does that work then? They were VM staff and moved to an agency under TUPE legislation..

Nope your still not making that clear for me.. They were cross trained on 151 to some degree almost from when they started offering BBAND with ntl: I know I was CS, Faults and BB first line...

Still went through to Swansea when I couldnt help the sub though, cant see whats changed..... We have 151 because its simple.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Virgin need to get back to inhouse tech support it's going to lose business if it does not.

Outsourcing removes all incentives to actually assist a customer. At freeserve/Wanadoo we compiled 'the bible' which was a definitive resource for tech agents to assist customers but plenty of it was removed as it was considered outside of the remit of tech for the contract we covered. Of course that never stopped the calls coming through and because the techs did not have this resource to hand they wasted up to an hour on calls running through poor diagnosis and strict guidelines.

The net result was the customer lost out and I'll bet Wanadoo lost out when they moved provider.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Couldn't agree with you more Handyman! They've already taken things away from us such as the Error Code Database, provides too much 'confusing' information for offshore agents when it was a tool I loved using to explain the customers fault, and learning more information off generally. It's now the same with the new Fault Diagnostic Tool, where I am currently trialling an even more scripted flowchart...feel so restricted in my job, it's unreal.

I wouldn't agree that it's the same across the board for service when it comes to onshore or offshore, considering we listen in for quality purposes in Swansea. Due to changes in our bonus schemes, they are not helping the customer but more often fobbing them off, purely to achieve their stats.

If it continues the way that it is, we will see more customer losses.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

I am not just talking about the original staff, I am also including all new staff employed by both Manpower at Swansea and Adecco at Liverpool, when you sign for an Agency you sign away those rights because if you job goes they keep you on their books for X amount of weeks after your job finishes therefore paying lip service to TUPE.


I think you may notice that we changed back to 151 from 0906 because of the excess amount of complaints from BBI callers.

Why does every here just think NTL when cross training is mentioned, they are now trying to roll this out more at Telewest call centres, and who has had the increase in staff while this at Swansea is making the local headlines.

What we want is no site closure at Swansea not even a partial closure.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

True...but that's like asking why are CMC/CRELS/MOVERS etc all on 150? lol

Swings and roundabouts :p

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

I can tell you why faults and CMC are on 151 /150.

Its because BT use the same numbers so it played on the established way customers called their previous telco provider. It's also simple and easy to remember.

There is also 152 - business CMC and 154 business faults

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Think your missing the point somewhat.

Your not losing 1st line agents in Swansea, your losing 2 specialized departments, who provide 2nd & 3rd level support. ( FMET & FMS )

Your losing staff with 5+ years experience, Something that the Focus on faults group should be picking up on, as this knowledge cant be replaced by moving offshore or to Liverpool, as they dont understand the ex-ntl network & escalation avenues.

Unfortuntly it is becoming once again a power struggle between ex-tw & ex-ntl management, with little empire's being built, this was something that we should have moved away from a long time ago, & the only people this will affect, is dedicated knowledgable staff, & ultimately the customer.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Chuck in IBM, B&Q, MFI, ICI et al.......

Sorry for not being down with all these acronyms, but this thread is turning into some sort of code.

What does FMC, TSC and the others mean please, perhaps then I can start to understand this tread.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

FMC - Faults Management Centre
TSC - Tech Support Centre


Does anyone knowwhat B&Q means? lol

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Thanks....don't even know if ICI are going.

So have there been official announcements on people being lost in Swansea?

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

There's been nothing announced internally as far as i can see...

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

FMS - Fault Management Support (2nd Level though 3rd level techs run the head ends)
FMR - Faults Management Reception (Old ntl 1st line support)
CMC - Customer Service Centre
CMR - Customer Service Representative
DTV - Digital TV
CATV - Analogue Cable TV

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

JUST to be picky!

CMC - Customer Management Centre
CSR - Customer Service Representative but now we have to call them CCA - customer care advisor! lol :angel:

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

There probably wouldn't be, as this is a IBM initiative.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

True, but they generally keep VM employees posted on all of the 'outcourced' changes, including offshore.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

What power truggle is this then? I have never seen any power struggle and internally there is no ref to what legacy business we come from in relation to decision making. Load of rubbish.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

oops CMR was short for CustoMR when adding notes to accounts (Do you still add notes to accounts?). As for CMC I was trying to let them know what it was :-)

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

As you have not seen it, then it doesn't happen ? lol :dunce: I forgot you have the experience's of all members of VM staff, both internal & external.

Go look at the group internet from the months after the business's joined, theres plenty of mention of power struggles between ex-tw & ex-ntl management, please dont think there is any difference in the out source world.

As a example take a look at the grill session with Elisa, & the amount of people who raised concerns over the way ex-ntl trainers had been treated in Sheffield..

Do you work for any outsource partner & aware of what is happening within the IBM contract ?

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Yea we do i tend to use CMR/SUB/CUST on notes

and i know i was just bein picky and postin for the sake of it (runnin down the last few mins of my shift) :D

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

There was very little power struggle between the 13 or so companies that ended up as ntl so even though I left before the Telewest merger I could not imagine that it would have caused fuss that would last very long*. (quite a non merger since TW and ntl were working together for years).

*Pity ntl management ruined the service that was very good until about a year before the merger.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Isn't the board made up of mainly TW members?

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Does anyone know when this is going to happen and who is going to take over this role ? .

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

I have people in 9 offices both Managers and Colleagues they are from both legacy areas and in the past I also had agency staff. I work with most areas of the consumer, from MD's down to CCA.... So I dont have the experiences of all members of staff, but I do have a broader view than many.

Nope, nor will I.

Oh the allegations of bullying, yes I knew some of those people... and it wasnt just Sheffield it was Manchester, Notts etc.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

We shall see what happens in 30 days...that's all I can say for now.

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

Its not good news is it fella, but keep fighting away, you never know what can happen within 30 days, good luck...

Re: Trouble at Swansea?
 

On a related note does anyone know if there is still a VM office in Luton? I thought it closed ages ago but I recently saw an recruitment ad for customer accounts which sounded like VM although the company name was not given?