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Cuts at premium rate call centre
(12-09-07) - Rumours that Virgin Media (www.VirginMedia.com) has cut staff from its UK-based technical support line, that recently became a premium rate number, have yet to be denied by the company.
Virgin Media’s tech support line became a 25p per minute premium rate line on 1 July, just before winning the ISP industry association award for customer satisfaction, with the company saying that since less than half of all calls made to the line are actually about their broadband service they were increasing the cost in order to deter off-subject calls to their new 0906 number.
Virgin Media currently outsource part of their tech support to UK-based IBM call centres, and part to call centres in India. Reports on The Register and ISP Review claim that jobs in the Virgin Media section at the Leeds and Swansea centres had been cut over the past few days. The Register also quoted a leaked IBM memo saying the company had to “right-size” its headcount (see useful links).
Virgin Media declined to comment, saying only that the decision had been taken by IBM, while a spokesman from IBM said: “IBM is constantly rebalancing its workforce in support of the ongoing needs of the business and its clients.”
Chris Eagle, BroadbandChoices.co.uk commercial manager, said: “Chris Eagle, BroadbandChoices.co.uk commercial manager, said: “This problem is not exclusive to Virgin Media. Customers are loathe to connect to foreign call centres - which the majority of ISPs use - so any job losses at UK centres are bound to go down badly. Customers often find that language barriers make it more difficult to solve technical problems, and will be concerned that at a premium rate, any delays will soon add up.”
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