50M : Should VIP customers be guaranteed a UK call centre til midnight?

[KenK]

Originally Posted by Jameseh

Because they cost money and keeping them open to the suggested time is ludacris.

Everything costs money. Including unhappy customers.

[jb66]

I think 24/7 uk support is a little ott, maybe uk 7 till 7. India after that, can't have Indians working during the night, no buses

[Risco]

The unsociable hours argument is invalid. People work nightshifts all the time, maybe the answer is to have a 12-7am shift. Of course they would be paid a higher wage or put on a continental shift ( 6 days on 3 days off or similar ) This is one of the reasons why all the bloody foreigners get our jobs, the british public are not prepared to work anything other than 9-5.

[jb66]

Why do you need to call virgin at 3am?

[Milambar]

Why do you need to call virgin at 3am?

Well, for example, my better half is in the US at the moment and will be for some 8 months on a works contract (she wants to emigrate there permanently too ). 3am here is only 10pm there. I'm often up at 3am talking to her over skype.

If my internet goes down at 3am, I want it back, sharpish.

Sad to say, the whole world doesn't adhere to UK time.

My point being, people have valid reasons for being awake, and using the internet at that time.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Ability of staff to get to and from work is irrelevant. Either the wages are of sufficeint levels that staff are willing to do it, or there will be noone there to anser the calls. But then if wages have to go up then the customer costs would rise and would we accept that. I doubt it.

But why should one type of customer be entitled to better service than another. The VIP customer may pay more, than a simple 20meg BB only customer, but then they use more and cost VM more by using that bit more. OK hopefully overall profit margins are better, because of the better turnover.

But this post does not really address the issue. I've had occasion to call VM a number of times. It;s quite random if I get a UK or overseas call centre. To be honest I find the scottish accent just as hard to understand as the Indian ones. Indeed often I have no issue with the overseas. What really cheeses me off is the two minute process of working through the various call systems (I've dialled 151 because I have a fault, so I don't need the options to change services etc), and that so many agents, UK and overseas don't want to listen to your diagnosis, they just want to work through their script.

[Peter_]

One important point though would you all be willing to pay a lot more for your services in order to have a UK only call centre base as that is what it would take as higher wages would have to be paid.

[jb66]

Well so be it, I think it should be law if you operate in this country your call centre should be in this country, this would do wonders for our growing number of unemployment

[Nopanic]

Originally Posted by Masque

No need as the centres close at 10pm at present and they can get the bus home and not everyone lives in the same area, plus in Liverpool we can have staff living quite far out or on the Wirral.

---------- Post added at 22:01 ---------- Previous post was at 21:59 ----------


You drive and I drive, but peoples safety should also be of paramount importance and the hours are until 10pm which gives people the chance to get a bus or a train home.

The Liverpool call centre is at the Albert Dock and not the easiest place to get home from once public transport has stopped for the night.

Back office in the dock works till midnight.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Milambar

No, because ALL customers should be garunteed a UK call center.

[jb66]

Virgin make very little money on sky sports and movies (especially with the HD version and the tivo charge absorbed) so surely a customer on triple xl is more profitable than a vip customer. So therefore should VIP customers always get offshore as virgin are making less money from them

[kwikbreaks]

Originally Posted by Masque

One important point though would you all be willing to pay a lot more for your services in order to have a UK only call centre base as that is what it would take as higher wages would have to be paid.

Plusnet are one of the cheapest ADSL ISPs and they have a UK only call center.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Well it all comes down to cost in the end...I suspect you would end up paying extra on the package for such a service.

O2 has 24-hour UK support and charges less than VM... I for one would happily pay extra to know I can speak to someone who knows what they're doing when my connection breaks.

That said there are examples of offshore support being done well, and examples of it being done terribly. Surprisingly enough, as much as I dread having to explain my problems to someone who I can barely understand, some companies have their offshore support trained and managed so well I have complete confidence in them being able to resolve my query each and every time.

Funny enough, VM isn't one of them. In fact, even their UK agents have been next to useless on more than one occasion.

It's not about where your staff are located - suggesting foreign call centre staff are somehow less intelligent is just racism. It's all about management, training, and procedures. Three facets that VM's offshore centres fail epically on. It's not because offshore people are inherently stupid - VM just prevent them from doing anything useful. If anything, blame VM, not the offshore folk. They're just doing what they're paid to do.

---------- Post added at 09:29 ---------- Previous post was at 09:24 ----------

Originally Posted by jb66

Close nightclubs, pubs, hospitals, staff can't get home, no buses! Lol

Or more relevantly, the NOC folk and datacentre staff who are on-call 24/7. I guess the union would ban their jobs if they had a say...

Oh wait...

---------- Post added at 09:33 ---------- Previous post was at 09:29 ----------

Originally Posted by Masque

One important point though would you all be willing to pay a lot more for your services in order to have a UK only call centre base as that is what it would take as higher wages would have to be paid.

Ignorance at it's best.

You want to be paid more money than other people doing an equivalent job, yet you're unwilling to work extra hours or be flexible. And scream "UNIONS HALP" soon as someone suggests working till midnight. Jeez.

What the hell do you think makes you entitled to more pay than foreigners? Your accent?

[kwikbreaks]

Most of the complaints I see about VM offshore support do actually mention a difficulty understanding the rep and in being understood so racist or not (and imo it isn't) it's a very important factor in just how much use the support is. If you can't communicate with the rep you may just as well have a tape playing "most Superhubs work perfectly"...

I can't comment myself as I've never spoken to anyone from VM offshore support as I chose to use the forum for an upstream voltage problem, then forum and CEO office for my Superhub woes, and "I'm thinking of leaving" to cancel the phone.

[nefu]

Why not just get better trained staff offshore and the need for UK out of hours staff goes away. Compaints seem to be around technical ability and language, so just recruit people with very good English and train them well.