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Originally Posted by handyman
I dont for one second think its got anything to do with massaging the figures. It's 100% down to running the call centres with poorly trained staff. By moving the call centres to 3 from 13 all they have done is staffed the 3 centres with people who have not got a clue what they are doing, this is why accounts are not getting closed correctly, there is absolutly no mandate for fudging figures.
The only way for ntl to get out of the mess they are in is to set up special teams that can be trained to do the job well. Teesside ran on 10 faults bods when I started there, there was also a mini rush around 8.30 and tea-time but other than that it was a 20 min wait between calls. Because they where not busy they had time to become proficient with their jobs.
It was a wonderfull time to be working there and its a shame that ntl have taken the wrong road and now the service is very poor.
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Pre Chapter 11 the figures were being massaged in a big way, as well as the problem for ex-customers breaking free from the company it was probably not common knowledge amongst the people at the sharp end, but it was being discussed amongst management at a higher level. There was also tens of thousands of homes passed figures and customers claimed by the company by using figures from old networks that had been closed down many years ago. These customer figures were added to the database and passed off as new build figures to meet the Oftel figures in the earlier days, so massaging was common practice as well as giving free service to keep a customer as an RGU.
We all know BT are not exactly perfect in many ways, I agree with your comments about staff training entirely. BT had the advantage of years of experience amongst many of their engineers and at least some career development in the company. The ntl attitude was to take almost anyone off the street and give them a bit of training to make them an instant overnight expert. I admit its a big problem with a start-up company finding staff on that scale, and I have had the opinion for many years that finding suitable employees would be the biggest issue if I was ever considering running my own company.
I think the bottom line is that BT due to staff reductions have ended up with many experienced engineers that will be retiring around the same time, I found on the other hand in the region that I worked in, ntl gained some good ex-BT people who had decided to take the money and run from BT. These guys are advancing in age and ntl will also be in a similar situation in the future. ntl have no career development for its employees end of story, so standards and efficiency can only fall.
I agree with your comment that the way to go would be set up special teams, but the problems could not be sorted over night. The ntl tradition is to cause huge internal disruption and efficiency problems by moving callcentres or responsibility of tasks between departments, and then just as things are progressing up the learning curve change them again!
I think many of the problems are down to it being such an unmanagable company with too many empire building managers focusing on building their empire and trying to take over other areas instead of getting on with the job. The standard joke when it was redundancy time was "The managers are so confused they are going around stabbing one another in the front"
I am not aiming at anyone in particular here, but there used to be a fair number of ntl callcentre employees on this and the .com forum who would defend the company. I have noticed many have gone quiet, done a large U turn or simply dissapeared after being made redundant. I would never verbally attack or criticise an individual ntl employee here, but as a collective organisation they are a very poor show for efficiency and competence.
The ones I knew and considered to be good employees who were always willing to go the extra mile who I know and are still at ntl, have been dragged down and dont really give a toss these days. That poor staff morale is the biggest hurdle the company faces, and I see no way of getting over it. It's possible to open a callcenter somewhere else and staff it with a new keen workforce even if they are not upto speed, but changing all the technicians out in the field for freshly brainwashed ones who think the company is good, is not such an easy task.