The UK’s largest ISP has admitted it needs to improve customer service if it’s to maximise the value of its investment in sport and TV.
The company has faced long-term complaints about the quality of its call centres and the service they offer to consumers, driven in part by a decision to offshore thousands of jobs.
In recent years BT has brought some posts back in house, a move it says has delivered cost savings by “improving our processes”.
However customers have continued to report inaccurate and contradictory information, often taking to social media and the firm’s own forums to express their displeasure.
A number of customers cancelling their YouView-based BT TV service have been inaccurately informed their box will stop pausing and recording Freeview channels if they end their subscription.
And some customers offered a free upgrade to a YouView because BT’s legacy Vision service is coming to an end have been wrongly advised that the offer is conditional on them taking a £5pm subscription.
In a market update, the firm accepted: “Our customer service improved this year, but not by enough.”
Although it blames some of the poor service on record call numbers arising caused by floods and demand for BT Sport, BT says more work needs to be done to improve the quality of service to customers.
It has pledged to make “further investments” including enhancing network resilience and “training contact centre agents so they will have a wider range of skills.”