TWO NEW CALL CENTRES
John Lewis is to open two call centres to handle queries previously answered by store-based teams. The first to open, in June, will have 280 people occupying 40,000 sq ft in Fintry House, Hamilton International Business Park, south east of Glasgow. The second, due to open three months later, will eventually have 450 people on the first floor of Scotscroft, Towers Business Park, Didsbury, south Manchester.
HERE AND THERE
The area codes of at least one in three business telephone numbers do not correspond to the company’s location. Heart Communications, which supplies numbers and has an answering service, gives some examples: overseas businesses with no physical presence here set up a UK telephone number; companies using geographic numbers to test demand in other cities without risk or cost; and many start-ups using a London dialling code to help lend credibility to their young brands.
NEW FACES
Autoglass has hired two customer contact centre operations managers. Debbie Wilson (pictured) spent 12 years with HSBC and, more recently, was offshore performance manager at Barclays Bank, India. Phillip Atwell joins after 12 years at Vodafone where he was contact centre manager.
COFFEE CALLS
Lovers of Nespresso coffee -– made with Nestlé’s machines – will soon have their own call centre, set to open in October at the company’s site in York. Nestle says it is costing £500,000 and will start with 48 staff, growing in number to 73 by 2012.
999 HOAXERS PROSECUTED
Gloucestershire Police reports that its call recording system has led to the conviction of malicious 999 callers. Using CLI data, it identified one person who made more than 400 nuisance calls in five months and another who made 900-plus calls in a year.
In another example, a police force investigating a homicide requested a recording of a call made in March 2006 – it was found and emailed within 25 minutes.
As well as telephone calls, the system records radio messages. In addition, an ambient recording system captures commands issued and operational discussions in the control room during major incidents so that events can be replayed in real-time for debriefing and to see if any changes need to be made.
The CyberTech Pro system records over 130 channels -- 10,000-13,000 hours a month – and stores the recordings for up to seven years.
MOBILE PHONE DEAL
Vodafone has signed a deal for HEROtsc, the big Scotland-based outsourcer, to buy and run its 600-seat contact centre in Warrington. HEROtsc already had 400 staff, based in Kilmarnock and Dunoon, handling Vodafone’s pre-pay users for nine years.
HEROtsc, which now has nearly 3,300 staff across 10 UK sites, was founded as Telecom Service Centres on the Isle of Bute and was bought for £40m by Hero Group, of India, in 2007.
QUERIES ANSWERED
Reckitt Benckiser, maker of products such as Finish, Vanish, Harpic, Airwick and Cillit Bang, has hired Sitel to handle consumer enquiries. At present the contract involves 17 agents at Sitel’s site in Kingston on Thames handling queries from the UK and Portugal and more will join the team as 10 more countries are added by the year end in a move by RB to consolidate call centre activity.
ON-LINE EXPERIENCES
Compliments Experiences, just launched by Capital Incentives & Motivation, is a card-based reward scheme which offers staff more than 500 activities. They range from car driving and hot-air ballooning to cookery classes and swimming with sharks Recipients receive a card, along with a reward package, which is pre-loaded with a financial value. They then choose an activity from a web site and receive a pack containing a wallet, experience voucher and information about their chosen reward.
The new reward scheme joins a range from Capital, part of Accor Services, comprising Compliments Rewards, Compliments Passport and the recently launched Compliments Green.
www.compliments-experiences.co.uk
M&S GIFTS
Recipients of SVM Europe Preference gift cards can now use them to buy from Marks & Spencer. The cards can be loaded with any value up to £500 – or Euros for the Republic of Ireland -- and used at the recipients’ choice of 35 retailers. Others include Peacocks, Debenhams and Laura Ashley.