Virgin media off shore call centres
 

virgin media have annouced over the lst couple of days that two of the majour sales offices based in Nottingham and Dudley are to be closed
as off July and October. and all future calls will be diverted oversea to Manilla in the Phillipenes. the decesion has been made so there share holders can save about 40 % on annule cost.

So has of October any new customer wanting to speak to somebody about arranging a good deal. will now have to speak to some facelss nobody thousands of miles away who will be reading from a script and no knowledge of the servises.
Im one of the unlucky staff members whose has had his job taken away from him, just in the name off paying some guy overseas a cheaper wage packet.
I now face a uncertain future and today current climate of recession,
Ive a morgage to pay and two childen to feed and cloth.
thanks virgin

You thoughts please.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

There is also going to be Manchester Sales

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Manchester is remaining as it is. as it alredy has inbound sales and outbound.
however the call which would of been taken by Nottingham and Dudley will now be routed to Manila.

mypoint is once again English jobs have now been axed and replced with jobs for people in the phillipeanes.

not good for the British encomey

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

On the plus side now a Philippineo will be able to feed their family in a country where the social security system is doubtless less developed than our own.

As a customer this is a real blow to the quality of service. VM know that people don't like the off-shore call centres according to their "We Hear You" website.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Welcome to the world of unemployment ... I'm losing my job in 3 days so know how you feel.

The way we're going, everyone in the UK's going to be unemployed apart from the bods in vans that go round fixing things!

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Not good for Virgin customers ether

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

I hear you. Ive always done my up most best to help our custmers.. I take complaints everyday. beacuse you cannot undertand so guy speaking to you with a Indian accient.
once again Virgin medai are thinking of themselfs and not there custmers.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

OMG... strange American accents on the phoneline soon ...

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

omg over seas retentions :(

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Nope.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

I've never understood why the people in Manilla speak english with american accents. Talk about emphasising the fact that they're not UK based :(

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

It's all to do with the courses used to train them

Most of Europe (and associated ex-colonies) will use British English - whereas East Asia will use American English (probably to do with the post WWII association)

I remember listening to audio tapes the French use - sounded like those old Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse 1930s sketches

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

It is a sad day when the accountants call the shots and the off shore workforce take the jobs. All to line the fat cats pockets.
The jobs lost will not even go to the EU !

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

It's a shame they don't even outsource somewhere decent; I have experienced South African call centres with both Virgin Mobile and Plusnet and they are pretty much equal to their British counterparts.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Whilst having sympathy for UK workers losing their jobs, I do feel we should not assume all overseas call centres will be worse than the ones in the UK. I regularly speak to a global software company who have their customer service office in Manilla and they are brilliant, conversely I have dealt with some extremely rude/arrogant people in UK call centres (not VM however!).

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

I cant find the 'we hear you' page on the web. Is it somewhere that you can actually tell thm things or just where they tell us what they are supposedly doing to improve?

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

this is very unfortunate, I wonder whether the current lack of deals, offers and products (HD channels) is a way of thwarting any decent redundancy package for the unlucky sales staff?

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

After the fiasco of the Indian call centers you'd have thought VM would have learned their lesson, other UK companies are actively using the fact they have UK call centers as a selling point in their advertising, but not it seems VM, they are well aware that foreign call centers are one of the customers biggest moans and yet here they are opening even more.
It may look good to some bean counter in a darkened room at VM towers, but the average customer upon ringing up CS will now find even more people he/she can't understand or be understood by, even if you get past this barrier the foreign call centers fob you off with a list of pat answers written in front of them, you end up finishing the call and ringing again hoping to get an English speaker and invariably when you do the problem is solved quickly and efficiently.
IMO these foreign call centers are a complete false economy, I mean what price do VM put on providing a decent CS for us? not much it would seem.
VM are getting rid of the very people that their customers hope and pray will answer the phone when they ring with a problem, and are going to replace them with some non English speaking automaton.
How short sighted can they be?

Agreed, but then again their first language is English so its no real surprise:), now it appears we are off to the Philippines!

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Here's the response I got from the complaint email I sent a few days ago:
On the plus side, it's nice to see these email forms are now being responded too.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

I however do have experience of Global Service Delivery.

The Data Protection Act only applies in 1 country.. The UK.. Once your data leaves the shores of this land it is subject to the laws of the land in which its used. The Phillipines for example does not have any Data Protection Laws and 45% of all personal data thefts occur in asian countries. 23 % in African Countries, 22% in American countries (38% of these in the US!!) 10% in the EU. (only 15% of these occur from UK companies! and most are data loses not thefts).

Do you think your financial records are safe.. No.. truth is anyone anywhere in the world will be at risk but with companies like Virgin Media outsourcing out data to far off lands it will get much worse.

I will now not speak to a contact centre that is not in the UK. If you feel strongly about this then you should write to your MP, raise this issue on local media.

I am trying to create a No10 Petition on the issue and would like you guys to all sign up for it, if it gets approved - I have delibrately taken this from a Data protection standpoint as there are numerous petitions on the no10 website to stop outsourcing of contact centres they have about 400 signitures in total. The trick here is not to sound "Protectionist" but instead to sound like your primary interest is to give the choice back to the consumer.

Your petition reads:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Add a clause
to the Data Protection Act 1998

We ask the Prime Minister to add a clause into the Data
Protection act which reads "Data collected in the UK may not be
used, transfered or in anyway accessed by companies,
individuals or groups, with out the express permission of the
Data Subject, which are based outside of the UK. It will be the
responcability of the company, individual or group who collects
the data to ensure the data is used in compliance with this
section of the act and failure to comply with this provision
would be subject to the same provisions as provided for with
this act to deal with data misuse. Companies, groups or
individuals who intend to use this data must provide a service
for data subjects who excercise the right to keep their data in
the UK which complies with these provisions"

Will post link if it gets published.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

I find it very hard to believe what this guy says, "the majority of our customers are more than happy with oversea call centers", I seem to remember somebody posting a link recently that VM put out saying, "our oversea call centers do not mean a second rate service". They went on to admit that they had been receiving complaints about the language barrier and they then showed a clip of very happy Indians being "retrained".
Also two separate VM engineers whom I know have both told me that this is one of the biggest complaints they hear about from customers when on their rounds.
Strange also how companies like Saga and Admiral are now using the fact that they have UK call centers in their advertising, I think the person who spun you that line chickendippers that, "most of us are happy with foreign call centers" is either deluded to the extent he believes it or he's trying to delude you mate.:)

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

The demographic Saga and Admiral are targeting are somewhat different to what VM are targeting. Lets be frank here, VM are pushing super fast BB, and early V festival tickets, you got to ask your self who are VM trying to target? Your average 18-24 year old online gamer, single bloke probably doesn't care if he places his order for VM with a Philippino, but would be interested in those V festival tickets.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Admiral use Indian callcentres in the evenings purely because they want their UK staff to enoy the benefits of having a 9 to 5 day. They're one of the few companies that use offshoring but not for financial reasons.

The whole data protection thing was brought up a few years ago - apparently no infomation is stored in those countries, it's all retreived from the UK.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Literacy has never been a pre-requisite of sales clearly..

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

are you affected with the latest offshore news?

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

No and I have sympathy for my colleagues in those areas I worked in Sales for a few years

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

I had a sales call from an Indian call-centre a few months ago. I could hardly understand a word he was saying so asked him to put the info in the post. Needless to say it never arrived. How many other sales do they loose in this way. VM obviously don't care what the first impression of the company a potential customer will have is like! One thing's for sure it WILL put a lot of people off.:(

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

I got that one wrong Russ its Churchill not Admiral who use the term UK call centers in their adverts.

I agree that Saga maybe a special case, but Admiral and Churchill certainly don't deal exclusively with older customers, in fact I'd hazard a guess they make up a rather small percentage of their overall client base.
I also disagree that VM's target audience would be between 18-24 your forgetting about the phone and more importantly the TV services they offer, at another guess:) I'd say the demographic that holds the biggest sway with VM would be the 35-60 year olds.
I agree that in the case of 50mb BB most customers would be at the younger end of the scale, but when you consider that of all VM's BB services over 70% of customers are on 2mb. The only reason VM are moving their UK call centers abroad is money, nothing to do with youngsters not caring who they talk to, besides out of those 18-24 year olds I wonder how many have the bill in their names? or is it more likely thats its in their parents name.:)

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

I`m amazed that VM have done this. So much for their new policy of listening to customers. We say scrap the foreign call centers, VM do the opposite.

Well done Virgin. No change then. Money first, customers last.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Well its typical of Virgin Media, putting money before customer service, I had a sales call from the Manilla call centre the other day and they could not understand me and i could not understand them, I got so fustrated i put the phone down after 2 minutes, a waste of time..
When will companys like Virgin Media uderstand that it is customer service that counts and by transfering British jobs are doing the British economy no good..
Nevermind the crap about demographic targeting in simply words its just money grapping...

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

The whole data protection thing was brought up a few years ago - apparently no infomation is stored in those countries, it's all retreived from the UK.

it doesnt matter where it is stored its the fact that its accessed by people outwith the legal power of the data protection act as a result they can not be charge with breach of it

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

midlands takes another hit then, I think we hitting the stage where government needs to step in and actually tax offshoring to discourage it.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Hi. New to the Forum. I was just wondering if Virgin was going to close down its Direct Sales (Door-to-Door) operations? Does anyone know? Is it part of the 2,000 odd reduncies announced or will it be saved?

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

I have never had a door to door Virgin Media person :( Instead I have to speak to someone in another country that doesn't understand me and I don't understand them. They never log calls so when you phone back you have to explain all over again. It was a joy phoning retentions in January I actually spoke to an English person living in the UK :O

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Nor would you want to..

No-one knows who is part of the redundancies until it happens.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

why do you want to know that?

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Does it matter why he wants to know? Maybe he's one of those at risk, or a friend or family member is?

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

And why do you want to know, why he wants to know.?:)

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

im not racist but i hate speaking to foreign people on the phone.. cant understand them.. they cant understand you.. an sorry if some rando person million miles away can access my information, who else cant? also find it that if someone calls me and has an foreign accent, we tend to hang up because its always someone trying to sell us a mobile phone contact, or help us get out of debt...? lol

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

presumably you are also not a misogynist but hate talking to women - do you realise how what you posted contradicts itself????

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

India have no DPA.. Once they print something, it belongs to the Indian Government.

Where I work, some of the work is now outsourced to India, and more work is going over there. Staff from here have been sent to India to train them. They get all the same benefits as I do, and paid a very good wage by their standards.

If you want to redeem your mortgage with a certain bank, the redemption figure is worked out in India and the figure emailed back to the UK.

Some time ago I had a problem with my virgin TV, 5 days later it had still not been sorted out. By chance I received a feedback form via email from Virgin, I rated everything 0 and in my comments, I said the workers in India were muppets and read from a script.

Within 2 hours I had 2 calls from top managers, who agreed with me. They confirmed I had been treated badly, and my notes consisted of 2 pages of " call transferred". They[managers] each gave me their names, one also gave me their direct line number and the other gave me their extension number, advising if I ever called India again I was asked to be put through to that extension

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

And this is precisely why more and more UK companies are actively advertising the fact that they use UK call centers...except VM of course who still claim that their Indian call centers are as good as their UK ones.:rolleyes:

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

wot I find funy bout this threed is the pore grama and punchuation by posters complaning bout the Indien cal senter staff havin bad Inglish

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

No-one said the Indian workers have bad English. What has been said however is that customers find it difficult to work out what they're saying as well as the Indians not being able to understand what customers are saying a lot of the time.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Russ you have no concept of irony.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

I know what you were suggesting, but that's only a factor if VM starts offering tech support via text.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

what was I suggesting?

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

That it's rich of people to complain about Indian staff being difficult to understand whilst some have poor spelling and grammar.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

so whats the relevance of VM offering text support? That seems to be a bit of a tangent.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

...because the only way someone's spelling or grammar might be an issue is if VM were to offer some sort of text-based support....(sigh) never mind.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

try and read post 39

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

They are not random people who have free access to your data but verified staff who have secure logins on a inhouse system.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

I tried...and succeeded.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Hand bags coming out ladies?

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Petition has been published : http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/DPA-keepuk/

see here to sign the petition - feel free to send to your friends

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Blimey Russ, as I've said before you must have the patience of Jobe, reading that eight post exchange with jungleguy almost had me losing the will to live, how you do it I don't know.:)

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

He has the lord by his side

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

my last word on this. I made a deliberate ironic statement, meant as humor and slightly pocking fun at other posters. Unfortunately I am clearly not funny, because it has been taken as a literal post by Russ.

Maybe we need a forum devoted to humor, and if anyone posts something funny, the mods can move it to that forum.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Not a forum but maybe this will help

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/24/

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Lighten up russ i read it as intended just a bit of irony

---------- Post added at 14:38 ---------- Previous post was at 14:36 ----------


Signed

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Planetgarb

thanks, I can't tell you how painful this thread has become. There are some members who have had a personality bi-pass. I've heard these ops are free on the NHS (in South Wales and Brighton LOL).

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

i like his avatar!!! :)

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

thanks glad you like my avater, I prefer Planetgarb avatar though;). LOL (I know what you meant by the way)

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Potentially partially off-topic,

Do virgin media outsource to Accenture?

seeing a fair few similarities thats all, especially with their manilla location...or is that just a common place for customer services these days?

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

The news of the closure of the Dudley office has finally made the BBC News this afternoon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/w...ds/8038571.stm

Another 322 jobs lost :(

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

To bring this more back on-topc...

BT are also known for outsourcing and it is very rare to get through to a UK call centre, especially for general CS enquiries.

I remember a while back ending up in an Indian call centre. The CS person was actually very good and he ended up asking me why so many people hated the Indian call centres. I said to him that it isn't a racial thing but an udnerstanding thing - people can't understand what is being said, whether it be the Indian unable to udnerstand the Brit or the Brit not understanding the Indian. He admitted that Indians talk a lot faster than British people. He also asked me why this outsourcing goes on and I said it was money and explained to him that a company could employ six Indians for the price of a single British call centre operative based on the wages he told me he earned, which he said were good wages for India.

We all know that VM, BT and many other companies - AOL (which I think is now owned by Carphone Warehouse) is another - outsource. It's done to save money regardless of the fact that customer service falls through the floor and irritates many people when it's Indians or Philipions, or someone else from a country where English is not the first language, who answers. And yes, you do often get companies mentioning UK-based call centres in their advertising quite frequently as a result of this outsourcing.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Excellent post, I would hate to think that an Indian working in a call center believed that the Brits didn't think much of the service because of some backwards looking racial ideal, I honestly don't believe that's the case with the majority of Brits.
As said above the frustration felt is down to the language barrier, any UK company outsourcing to a country who's first language is not English is storing up trouble for it self.
From the Indian's point of view he's probably taking dozens of calls a day, so its not surprising if he gets a bit lazy and starts talking faster...but from a customers point of view its infuriating, if only I had a pound for every time I've said, "can you please repeat that please" when talking to the Indian CS I'd have a nice few bob tucked away.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

I agree. I genuinely don't think it's a racial thing. It's a communication thing.

I should have said that it was a BT Indian call centre to which I had that conversation.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

There are certain cultural issues too. When it comes to mannerisms on the phone, the Indians don't seem to understand that some people like to be able to 'chat' to agents. I don't mean to discuss their day etc but when talking about the reason for the call, to be able to discuss it informally.

If a CSA can 'personalise' the call by chatting and being 'human' rather than sticking to a script or process then I'm going to have a hell of a lot more confidence in who I'm speaking to.

It seems like in Indian culture they're either not used to it or are uncomfortable with it. Very rarely have I ever heard someone in an Indian (or indeed any offshore) callcentre be able to 'personalise' the call. On the few times I've heard it, it all comes across as very forced, very fake and subsequently very patronising. I can't relate to that and my belief in the agent taking that call diminishes immediately.

If I want to make a complaint to an Indian agent I have no faith in that issue being dealt with on the level I'm expecting. English is not their first language so I have no reason to assume they will understand my emphasis on certain aspect. Companies like VM can spend millions on training them about "British culture" but raport is something you either have or not. It cannot be bought.

Of course the moment you approach any company about this and mention 'different cultures' the anti-racism barricades go up and you never get anywhere.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

That is exactly how we UK agents are supposed to structure the call as it is a part of our training.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

In VM's case it also seems to be down to a lack of training of foreign agents. If they had as much experience with the system (backend and the actual tv/internet services) I'm sure they would be very capable of matching the British agents for competence.
Especially as Indian call centre workers are graduates, you can't really insult their intelligence, but they can only help out as far as their training goes.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Apparently that's just PR BS put out by the Indian outsourcing companies to attract UK business in to investing in them.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

I think there's a lot of truth in that as well and when they 'try' you get the "have nice day sir please" stuff don't you and it sounds not only false but, as you say, is very very patronising.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

Well they must have suckered the academics too judging by the stuff I've read.

Re: Virgin media off shore call centres
 

I'm not saying there aren't any graduates in there, but there was something on Radio 2 about this a year or two back, where they looked in to whether it was true that they're all (or mostly) university-educated. Someone said they envisaged teachers asking schoolchildren in India what they wanted to be when they grew up and offered such professions as doctors, solicitors, policemen etc with one child saying "No, I want to work in...a callcentre!" to gasps of astonishment from jealous classmates...

It turned out that from the top 5 callcentre agencies in Mumbai, something like less than 20% completed university education with many of those considering their job to be a 'stepping stone' role to their chosen vocation.