working for BT?

MoaningLisa

I'm new here. I've recently applied for a position with BT call centre. Does anyone here work for a BT call centre or have done previously?
How did you find it? I've read mixed reviews About it.

TIA

motorguy

MoaningLisa wrote: »

I'm new here. I've recently applied for a position with BT call centre. Does anyone here work for a BT call centre or have done previously?
How did you find it? I've read mixed reviews About it.

TIA

Speaking of call centres generally...

Call Centre experiences vary from centre to centre and BT themselves have many call centres.

Outbound selling is the hardest with targets to meet so try to get somewhere where its inbound customer service calls if you want a stress free life.

Like most jobs you'll get out of it what you put in, and the talented / keen tend to progress quite quickly.

Lazy people who cant be bothered and have a negative attitude tend not to survive long.

Personally, i'd go for it. My wife started her career as an agent on the phones of a BT Call Centre many moons ago and is now a Contact Centre Head with some 700 people working for her and a salary to match...

directdebiter

Not really relevant - But from my customer experience with BT Call Centres they are all in India ! :mad: I assume you have a UK job offer?

somethingcorporate

BT have lots of UK call centres for sales, service, billing etc and each would be very different. What is the role?

I am aware of a number of examples of individuals that started on the phones that are now General Managers / Directors on very good salaries.

InsideInsurance

Did 10 years in call centres in total.

Personally worked for BT twice, once on billing/ service and once for their outsourcing arm. The ex from back in that time also worked for BT for a while on their directory enquiries.

Directory Enquiries were terrible work, you really were just a machine in the cog with 90% of calls not requiring you to say a word and an average call handling time of something like 6 seconds. You salutation was pre-recorded and the number being read out/ transfering the customer was pre-recorded. The only time you spoke was if you couldnt understand what they'd said or the search brought back multiple/ no results.

My work in their outsourcing arm was doing outbound telesales, was a good bunch of people, fairly relaxed atmosphere but targets were unachievable and so you forgot any chance of getting commission.

In service/ billing was the best experience of the three. More formal than the outsourcing with a lot of emphasis on KPIs and exceptionally close monitoring to your times when your not available to take calls - far more than any other company I worked for but outside of that a good bunch of people and ok work.

I know that people say that call centres are the sweat shops of the developed world but I never really found them that bad. Inbound is better than outbound. Service better than sales. Personally I liked complaints (or later Claims) though some find them more stressful.

It is just a controlled environment, obv they need bums on seats when they should be, and some companies can be very full on when you have a 5 hour shift with not a seconds gap between calls as the planners have got it wrong (or that is the plan)