> - How BT does business.

Surely not that different to many other large companies?

> - How to install wired analogue telephone systems.
> - How to perform diagnostics on wired analogue telephone systems.

Those skills could probably be used by many companies with their own 
internal telephone systems (ie every company with more than 10 employees). 
I'm sure it wouldn't take her long to do some training (if she hasn't 
already) to brush up on digital phone systems.

Post a reply to this message

> Microsoft's job is to make money. It doesn't necessarily have to be at 
> their customer's expense - they just prefer to do business that way 
> because it's easier.

Haha you are exactly the sort of person Darren was talking about.  So what, 
you suggest that a company does something a *harder* way and then make 
*less* money?  Yeh, all the shareholders are going to love that one...

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>> My mum, on the other hand, is one of those rare people who actually 
>> wants to help the customer. Every service quality measurement they 
>> have a statistic for, my mum is above target by a mile. The *only* 
>> stat below target is call duration. Need I explain further?
> 
> Not to me, but I guess to her manager if he shouts at her.  If I were 
> your mum I would simply ask him what to do, simply say would you prefer 
> me to cut off callers early in order to reach this target or carry on as 
> I'm doing actually trying to solve the problem, or maybe he has another 
> suggestion. Get it in writing what she should be aiming to do, as there 
> doesn't seem an obvious way to meet the target *and* solve every problem 
> properly.

 From what I've heard, when the managers demonstrate how to handle 
calls, their call handling times exceed the limits as well. Damn 
hipocrits...

>> BT seems to have an institutional culture of everybody trying to dump 
>> work on other people as fast as possible. People will transfer calls 
>> to totally inappropriate departments just to keep their own stats 
>> looking good. The faster you transfer the call, the faster it becomes 
>> "not my problem any more".
> 
> Hehe, I guess if your average call duration is 502 seconds and it's near 
> the end of the month you need a few 5 second "hang on while i transfer 
> you" calls to get under the magic 500!

I'm not just talking about the call center. I'm talking about the entire 
BT organisation. If you ever call them and get transfered to 20 
different people, it's because nobody actually wants to help you, they 
want to dump you on somebody else ASAP. The engineers fight over who 
gets the "easy" jobs out of the job queue. They make up excuses for why 
they shouldn't be the one to do the awkward jobs - "I'm too far away", 
"I need to refuel", "I haven't had the training course for that one", "I 
need to go to stores", etc.

Basically it seems to be an entire organisation of loafers and 
blame-shifters. Nice atmos...

Post a reply to this message

>> Microsoft's job is to make money. It doesn't necessarily have to be at 
>> their customer's expense - they just prefer to do business that way 
>> because it's easier.
> 
> Haha you are exactly the sort of person Darren was talking about.  So 
> what, you suggest that a company does something a *harder* way and then 
> make *less* money?  Yeh, all the shareholders are going to love that one...

...and *this* is why there are laws against practices such as fraud, 
extortion, and so forth. Because otherwise no sane company would bother 
to actually produce products. They'd just promise the customer a 
product, take their money, give the customer an empty shoe box with some 
wires on the front, and be laughing all the way to the bank.

Fortunately, such behaviour is illegal. Unfortunately, laws do not apply 
to Microsoft.

Post a reply to this message

> I'm not just talking about the call center. I'm talking about the entire 
> BT organisation. If you ever call them and get transfered to 20 different 
> people, it's because nobody actually wants to help you, they want to dump 
> you on somebody else ASAP. The engineers fight over who gets the "easy" 
> jobs out of the job queue. They make up excuses for why they shouldn't be 
> the one to do the awkward jobs - "I'm too far away", "I need to refuel", 
> "I haven't had the training course for that one", "I need to go to 
> stores", etc.
>
> Basically it seems to be an entire organisation of loafers and 
> blame-shifters. Nice atmos...

Makes it easier for the ones who actually want to get on in their career to 
get recognised then :-)

Post a reply to this message

>> I'm not just talking about the call center. I'm talking about the 
>> entire BT organisation. If you ever call them and get transfered to 20 
>> different people, it's because nobody actually wants to help you, they 
>> want to dump you on somebody else ASAP. The engineers fight over who 
>> gets the "easy" jobs out of the job queue. They make up excuses for 
>> why they shouldn't be the one to do the awkward jobs - "I'm too far 
>> away", "I need to refuel", "I haven't had the training course for that 
>> one", "I need to go to stores", etc.
>>
>> Basically it seems to be an entire organisation of loafers and 
>> blame-shifters. Nice atmos...
> 
> Makes it easier for the ones who actually want to get on in their career 
> to get recognised then :-)

Well no, see, because the ones who are most successful at not doing any 
actual work and dumping all the problems on somebody else are the ones 
with the best stats, see? So they're the ones who get kept, and even 
promoted. The people [like my mum] who actually do their job properly 
have crap stats and eventually get fired.

The result?

...a systemic culture of work-avoiders and blame-shifters? QED.

Performance monitoring FTW!

Post a reply to this message

>> - How BT does business.
> 
> Surely not that different to many other large companies?

I mean stuff like knowing which departments deal with which problems, 
what order a customer request has to go from place to place to get stuff 
done, things like that. Stuff that's perculiar to the particular 
department structure that BT has chosen to implement.

>> - How to install wired analogue telephone systems.
>> - How to perform diagnostics on wired analogue telephone systems.
> 
> Those skills could probably be used by many companies with their own 
> internal telephone systems (ie every company with more than 10 
> employees). I'm sure it wouldn't take her long to do some training (if 
> she hasn't already) to brush up on digital phone systems.

I'm not sure how many companies need you to attach overhead wires to 
telegraph poles, but sure, the internal stuff is probably relevant. 
Except that my mum doesn't *do* installation work any more. Diagnostics 
could be a possibility though...

Post a reply to this message

> They'd just promise the customer a product, take their money, give the 
> customer an empty shoe box with some wires on the front, and be laughing 
> all the way to the bank.

Ermm yeh, doesn't sound like a very sustainable business model...

> Fortunately, such behaviour is illegal. Unfortunately, laws do not apply 
> to Microsoft.

It appears you forgot all the "debunking" we did a while back of all your 
fictitious beliefs of what MS had done in the past.  IIRC you had some 
pretty weird versions of history, like MS stealing DOS and reselling it etc.

Anyway, hasn't MS given the EU court a shed load of money recently?  I guess 
they just did that for fun.

Post a reply to this message

> I mean stuff like knowing which departments deal with which problems, what 
> order a customer request has to go from place to place to get stuff done, 
> things like that. Stuff that's perculiar to the particular department 
> structure that BT has chosen to implement.

Nobody expects you to know that internal detail when you join a new company 
though, it can be learnt by anyone pretty quickly.  Just the fact that she 
has worked in a large organisation with these types of systems is a benefit 
if she's looking to join another large company.

> I'm not sure how many companies need you to attach overhead wires to 
> telegraph poles,

I'm sure lots of companies have multi-building sites that need to be linked. 
I guess your mum knows the pros and cons of overhead vs underground cables 
quite well, that sort of stuff is surely needed when planning new sites.

Post a reply to this message

>> I mean stuff like knowing which departments deal with which problems, 
>> what order a customer request has to go from place to place to get 
>> stuff done, things like that. Stuff that's perculiar to the particular 
>> department structure that BT has chosen to implement.
> 
> Nobody expects you to know that internal detail when you join a new 
> company though, it can be learnt by anyone pretty quickly.  Just the 
> fact that she has worked in a large organisation with these types of 
> systems is a benefit if she's looking to join another large company.

I just ment that her existing knowledge is largely only useful to her 
current employer.

>> I'm not sure how many companies need you to attach overhead wires to 
>> telegraph poles,
> 
> I'm sure lots of companies have multi-building sites that need to be 
> linked. I guess your mum knows the pros and cons of overhead vs 
> underground cables quite well, that sort of stuff is surely needed when 
> planning new sites.

Well, maybe. I don't suppose many new sites get built very often though.

Post a reply to this message