BT providing free meals to coax its healthy customer support staff back into office as calls rocket amid pandemic BT has begun asking contact centre employees to return to work as it grapples with an increasing number of customer calls resulting from the UK-wide lockdown. Marc Allera, CEO of BT's consumer branch, tweeted: We're doing all we can @bt_uk, @EE and @Plusnethelp to keep serving our customers and keep our people safe at this …
Why would you need a VPN? A sensible run call centre would be in 2020 using software that runs in a web browser, which will be running https anyway. Best practice is to secure the endpoints because you can't trust the internal network anyway. All you should need is a Chromebook or better.
Then you just need a way to route calls and VoIP does not require a VPN either to be secured. I had to call eBuyer today due to their silly systems ignoring the input address and defaulting to my work address and well the building is closed. I would lay money that the call was handled at home based on the background noise.
If I where in charge I would be on the line to the lawyers looking for grounds to fire the person responsible for call centre operations for failure to make sure staff could work from home. Two years ago it was "beast from the east" so it's not exactly an unprecedented occurrence. There where a couple of bad winters on the trot a decade ago too, so failure to prepare is IMHO gross incompetence.
BT's VPN is a software vpn that goes device to remote network - ergo no local network to network connection, its also restricted to locked down devices rather than any old piece of home kit.
Most likely the reason for not being able to move call center Staffers to remote working is that if they're not on a webtop (BT corporate issue laptop) carting a desktop home is a pain. As is making sure any second screens are taken as well.
There's also a small matter of getting large VOIP deployments moved out of a specific site if it's something like a CISCO desk phone system. The alternative would be to use the standard issue Skype For Business which can barely cope normally never mind with another 10k users hammering it.
P. S. I work for the EE brand in the head office so I'm well acquainted with what I can and can't do with my kit/logons/etc.
There's an issue across the industry in complying with the regulations for taking card payments (PCI DSS) that I think is impossible to comply with if people take calls from home. I presume anything that requires a card payment could be carried out with people in offices with the rest handled by people working from home.
Indeed it isn't. While I can enjoy a bit of BT - bashing as much as anyone in this case it might not be wholly appropriate. Part of the "non - triviality" is replacing the one "desk top" per call centre worker *on duty* to have one laptop per employee, whether on duty or not. Apart from being able to get hold of that many laptops quickly (none to be had now I suspect!) the costs would be high and we all know that in the end it won't be BT but its customers that pay for it all.
It might not be something that can be set up quickly - although a lot of other businesses seem to have managed it. However BT sells at least some of the technology to enable it so you might expect them to have moved a portion of the operation over to that if only to sample it for quality control let alone for business continuity preparedness. At least you would have expected them to if you hadn't had previous experience of BT management style.
They say they are maintaining social distancing however as with many companies it is not possible due standard layouts of offices and especially call centres. There are bottlenecks all over the place. Only 1 person in a lift at one time, 2 meters on the stairs and hope no one joins while you are walking past a floor, one person in the toilets at a time and no passing in corridors as they won't be 2 metres. I would have thought this would be obvious.
One mistake, and the infection will start spreading again. Some carriers are asymptotic while others won’t have symptoms for up to a week. Issuing basic face masks would help contain the spread, but they must also be used when travelling in public. However face masks would make telephone operators harder to understand ... unless their mic can be worn inside the mask?
Not sure whether asymptotic is a reasonable analysis of the spread - are there always a constant number of new infections per iteration?
I imagine something like (x*2)+1 per generation would support asymptotic growth (1,3,7,15,31,63,...), but I can't see the stats to support that.
Where would the odd 'one' come from? And isn't it asymptomatically insignificant anyway after a couple of generations?
There is no way that the spread could be completely eliminated without shutting everything down and then people will die of starvation. The vast majority of people have nothing to fear if they get the disease.
Why should telephone operators need a face mask? The virus cannot travel through the phone lines, and each operator can have their own headset that only they use.
Why should telephone operators need a face mask?
The same reason you see people at the supermarket wearing masks they bought to do DIY or paint the garden fence - absolutely done. Those things are utterly useless for protecting from Covid-19 or any other medical nasty!
A colleague pointed out that they would stop them touching their face though.
Uh, the two masks I bought to do spray painting from the local hardware store are 3M's N95 respirator masks, so not utterly useless, at least if they were new. Unfortunately, these are close to their "use by date" and have been used, so probably not safe with COVID-19 based on 3M's website.
" Issuing basic face masks would help contain the spread"
Not really, the ones you see people wearing aren't fine enough to stop much.
" However face masks would make telephone operators harder to understand ... unless their mic can be worn inside the mask?"
I've tried this whilst filtering out pollen (hay fever). Mic inside the mask is even more unintelligible than mic outside the mask.
Phone headsets is an art and there's a reason that the likes of Plantronics still exist,
"maintaining social distancing"
Unless the medical advice has changed, assuming the people you are near are nor coughing or sneezing, you need to be in close contact for significant time to get infected. IIRC, last time I heard, it was 15 minutes. You should be ok passing someone in a corridor, just try to keep it to a minimum.
"you need to be in close contact for significant time to get infected."
You don't even need to inhale droplets to be infected. Having them settle on the moist surfaces of your eyes is sufficient. Do you wear _goggles_ as well as masks?
It's all about "chances" of getting in contact with a droplet containing virus-laden particles. You might be fine after 15 minutes (unlikely) or something might smack into your cornea in less than 30 seconds.
Escalate? There's escalation? The only escalation I've come across was me walking to the village to find a couple of guys the operator didn't know about in manholes* redoing all the connections to the cabinets. The alternative escalation offered was an engineer visit for which I'd have been charge if no fault had been found - which there wouldn't have been as the maintenance would have been finished by then.
But only "not particularly surprised"? I doubt BT management has changed much in the last qusrter century or so** so not in the least surprised.
* Personholes if you prefer.
** Is it really that long? Nearly. Wow!
I think the problem with WFH for BT call centre staff is that the system was designed by Crowley after he finished the M25 - its not meant to actually do anything for your account, just drive you slowly insane whilst transferring you from phone to phone until they find a department you need to speak to that has already shut for the day. I believe it is meant to induce either violence against small animals, increased alcohol consumption, or suicide - perhaps all three.
Unless you want sales, in which case the phone is answered on the 3rd ring and everything is possible, just let me get your address and account details...
True story, I moved flat and the new place had an Openreach FTTP box all lit up and waiting for a router to plug in to it. I had the router, BT had the fibre, all they needed to do was activate the line so that the router could authenticate. 4 weeks of phone calls, pleading, transferring departments, sending me 3 different BT HomeHubs - no-one could enable the line. Eventually I got them to send me return boxes for the hubs, and a cheque for the month of no service (I cancelled the direct debit, I did not trust them to not take more money without providing a service). Hyperoptic is much better anyway, I just needed to wait for one of their engineers to have time to run an extension from the hallway into my flat, instant gigabit :)
Why are BT not allowing remote workforce for their call centre?
Teams, Genesis etc are all cloud products.
It's not like they are still using old kit when they've migrated a lot to new kit (it was when I sat in the call centre at BT).
They also sell a solution for it: https://www.bt.com/static/i/media/pdf/bt_customer_contact_centres_cs.pdf
Mentality. Charter's just had the same problem, the CEO wanted everyone in the office, when he finally relented he allowed a whole 40% of staff to work from home, and finally he's offering $25 restaurant gift cards for hazard pay for techs visiting customers' homes, but no masks or gloves. In other words, the boss is a fucking lunatic.
It's nuts. Either they're wilfully ignoring government guidance due to egotistical / incompetent management, or people really can't work from home due to incompetent management that haven't heard of things like business resilience planning.
As you note, it's particularly ironic given BT advertise themselves as experts on deploying remote working.
Whatever the reason, you can pretty much guarantee at least one of the call centres is going to be a new epicentre for COVID-19 infections and put extra unnecessary pressure on the NHS - thanks BT!
"
This is it - lack of trust - wanting to monitor the staff and their computers in case they are watching Netflix rather than Sales/Support...
"
And you don't think that that is a real concern? Very few people are capable of the discipline required to work out of sight and without any supervision, unless their pay is directly related to their productivity. When my company allowed programmers to work from home (many years ago), the average time to complete projects quadrupled. Of course everyone had plausible excuses why things were taking so long. Half the staff resigned when we brought them back into the office, with cries of, "You don't trust us!!!"
No, we didn't. And with very good reason backed with sound evidence.
Have a downvote, 18 years wfh here, and yet none of your rant applies. In fact the distributed wfh team seem to get through more and seem to hit more targets than the very much better staffed inhouse teams.
And without supervision? do you have absolutely no way of tracking output apart from if you can see a warm body sat at a desk? if not, I'd say YOU were the weak link in the chain and needed replacing.
Its going to be a brave new world the other side of this, and just maybe, some people will come out of their locked in need servitude mindset and join the new century. Maybe you could spend lockdown trying to learn some of the skillset needed to actually manage a team in it.
I know its desperate times and all that, but will BT be laying off all the new Call centre staff when the Indian ones come off lockdown?
Personally if this had lost me my job i would take the call centre job in a heart beat, but it sounds like a short term job.
I wonder how many companies who where quick to lay off staff will find themselves out of position when this all blows over, whistling for loyal staff to return from their enforced unpaid holidays to find they are now Tesco delivery drivers/ call centre staff.
"Personally if this had lost me my job i would take the call centre job in a heart beat"
Only if it came with a substantial pay jump - you KNOW it's short term, so treat it like a contracting gig.
"I wonder how many companies who where quick to lay off staff will find themselves out of position when this all blows over, "
I'm hoping that Wetherspoons and Sport Direct are high on that list. The way they treated their staff was beyond appalling and deserves the "won't be crossing that threshold again until there's new ownership" treatment.
Makes my blood boil that companies such as BT are left to define their own interpretation of what consttitutes a "key worker" and insisting their call centre workers report for duty to answer calls on non-critical matters. Shows a flagrant disregard for employee welfare and doesnt it just expose of the lack of Business Continuity / Resiliance and Disaster Recovery planning expected of a major plc ?
I'm sat in my home office with a pair of 24 inch monitors a large well organised desk and a decent chair.
Working at home is therefore actually more comfortable than the office.
I'm currently working with a large County Council who have transitioned from a work at home occasionally (1 day a week) model to work from home full time.
Managers are now having to deal with large numbers of issues from people with ergonomic issues who are struggling badly.
Many people find that the day working at home can be very productive on catch up tasks and that a 14 inch laptop in the kitchen is fine for that but working all day every day they are having issues.
The council is dealing with that by loaning out additional hardware (screens docking stations. mice and keybards.
Where staff have dedicated chairs or equipment to cope with physical disabilities they have been allowed to take these home as well.
To support working from home they have implemented an electronic mail room and replaced local printing facilities by migrating to its hybred printing solution. They've also accelerated the roll out of Microsoft teams as a Sskype replacement.
Its not been without hiccups VPN split tunneling has only just been introduced but some infrastructure work that has been stalled for months has been implemented in days. They will come out the other side of this a much more robust organisation and I predict that much more working from home will be encouraged to reduce accommodation costs.
All this has happened at a time when devs have had to develop new apps for volunteer recruitment and assignment, technical staff have been supporting the self install of teams for several thousand users and the networking guys have been beefing up external network and VPN capacity to support a 5 fold increase in remote access.
The centre of focus however has been the continued delivery of Care Services for our most vulnerable citizens and the protection of our front line staff.
The council has been sourcing PPE for care providers independent of Public Health England and leading the local resiliency forum to make sure it gets where it needs to go. Any back office staff with recent care delivery experience are being re-deployed on a voluntary basis back into direct care services.
During the same time we've had to urgently change care provider payment processes to ensure that they have a predictable income irrelevant of what they actually deliver while they support us by restructuring services. E.G all Day Service provision in centres are on hold and providers have had to deliver a home based model of care.
Its stalled one of my projects but accelerated delivery of another couple as they support some of the above.
Quite frankly the organisation has responded magnificently to the Covid 19 crisis and I'm proud of the small role I've played in that.
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