NEW NAME, MORE MONEY

NTL Telewest Business has changed its name to Virgin Media Business as part of a move to increase its appeal to mid-market enterprises and the public sector.  It says that it is increasing its investment in its network and provisioning to become the clear alternative to BT.

And it says that, with 40 offices across the UK, it will be able to deliver a highly personalised service and each business customer will have their own regionally based account team.

ANOTHER 100 STAFF

CCA International, a Paris-based outsourcer, plans to hire 100 more call centre staff for its London office this year.  At present, it has 600 employees and recently moved to a larger site on the same street in Clerkenwell.

Carol Rogerson, managing director in the UK, said that, having won contracts in the publishing industry, the company was now targeting retail and home shopping.

CCA has 17 call centres in seven countries and has a total of 4,500 staff.

SOCIETY’S CALL CENTRE SPEND

Cheshire Building Society has bought a new call centre system and adopted an MPLS network, both from Vodafone.  It means that Cheshire's 42 branches can access the services at head office in Macclesfield and that additional call centre agents can be based elsewhere.

In addition, customers can continue to call their local branch but if the branch cannot handle the call it can be routed to an agent.

Vodafone supplied equipment from Nortel (now Avaya), including Contact Centre 6 Suite and CS 1000M IP communication server and installed a workforce management system from Witness.

NOW YOU CAN SHARE

CyberTech International has brought out a new recording system which allows different companies or departments to share the same system, securely and independently.  Called Release 5.4 and free to existing users, it includes new agent evaluation features.

www.cybertech-int.co.uk

KAREN’S NEW JOB

Karen Ullah has been appointed director of telesales by Daisy Communications, of Nelson, Lancs.  She previously held the same position at Autotrader and was sales director at Caudwell Communications.

HOTEL BOOKING

The Alternative Hotel Group has hired The Listening Company to handle UK callers wishing to book rooms at its 22 Village Hotels, 12 De Vere Hotels and Resorts and 26 Residential Venues.  It will also process inbound emails and faxes and reservations from third party agencies and on-line booking engines.

DOING THE FILING

FileMaker, a subsidiary of Apple, has signed Sitel to provide multi-lingual customer care and technical support for users in 14 countries across Europe. Staff at Sitel's site in Kingston upon Thames took a four-week training course and are now supporting FileMaker users via phone and email as well as in online forums.