General : VM insources Home Engineers and sign £500m build deal

[newapollo]

From ISPReview

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.ph...uild-deal.html

Cable ISP Virgin Media UK has today announced that they’ve awarded a series of new regional build contracts for their gigabit-capable broadband and TV network to 6 national partners (worth £500m per year). On top of that they’ve also brought more than 700 customer-facing engineers back in-house to improve customer service. As part of the above VM’s new 5-year contracts worth £500m annually are said to manage both the delivery and maintenance of their gigabit capable broadband network (this covers numerous business areas like Project Lightning and Consumer). All of this forms part of an effort to “reform their partnership model” in order to provide a “one-stop-shop for the planning, expansion and maintenance.”

The new structure mentioned above will thus be implemented from April 2020 with 6 national partners delivering a variety of civil engineering tasks across nine key regions in the United Kingdom, which we’ve summarised below.

Contracted partners and regions:
Kier: Scotland + South London, South Coast & South East
Actavo: Northern Ireland
Avonline: North East + South West & South Wales
NMCN: North West & North Wales + Yorkshire & East Midlands
Comex: West Midlands
Kelly: North London, Homes Counties & East Anglia

On top of that all visits to homes and businesses will now be carried out by a Virgin Media employed engineer (previously some in-home visits were carried out by contracted partners). In practice what this means is that the operator will increase its directly employed engineer workforce by more than 700, taking its total number to 1,800. Apparently this will “provide new and existing customers with a much improved experience when they have their services installed or issues fixed that require an engineer visit,” which could also be read as suggesting that the previously outsourced team of domestic focused engineers weren’t as good at their job as VM would have liked.

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this will “provide new and existing customers with a much improved experience when they have their services installed or issues fixed that require an engineer visit,” which could also be read as suggesting that the previously outsourced team of domestic focused engineers weren’t as good at their job as VM would have liked

It looks like the "cowboys" are being brought inhouse and up trained to provide a bettter service. One can only hope that VM will reopen their closed call centres and set up a proper customer service support team, rather than having to rely on the outsourced "Indians"

[jb66]

Paid by the hour now rather than paid by the job

[denphone]

Are not most workers paid by the hour now.

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by denphone

Are not most workers paid by the hour now.

Previously Virgin's engineers were paid per job - essentially encouraging them to get jobs done as quickly as possible rather than to an acceptable standard.

[punkrock101]

Originally Posted by newapollo

One can only hope that VM will reopen their closed call centres and set up a proper customer service support team, rather than having to rely on the outsourced "Indians"

Let's hope they bring the Call Centres back the UK just like BT has done as the call centres in India and the Philippines that Virgin Media use are a complete nightmare.

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by punkrock101

Let's hope they bring the Call Centres back the UK just like BT has done as the call centres in India and the Philippines that Virgin Media use are a complete nightmare.

Virgin has zero reason to bring call centres back to the UK. The outsourced ones are cheaper and just as effective.

Which I know is crazy, because anyone that's had to deal with them will attest that they're an utter nightmare - myself included and this was just as true when I actually worked at Virgin (that is to say, even dealing with them internally was a nightmare).

But guess what - Virgin regularly tracks as one of the better providers when it comes to customer support: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom...rvice-revealed



Compare with BT and their UK support centres, Virgin customers produce fewer complaints and are generally more satisfied.

TalkTalk actually have a load of UK call centres (many of which are staffed by ex-Virgin staff) and they're the worst of the lot.

The mind boggles but until those numbers change, I wouldn't expect Virgin to bring their support in house any time soon.

[Jayster]

Good to see the engineers being brought in house, I worked for one of those contract partners (on a different contract) and wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.