EE is to bring 600 currently off-shored jobs back to the UK in a bid to boost customer service levels.
The move means all of EE’s customer calls are answered in the UK and Ireland by the end of the year and mirrors a commitment by parent company BT to ‘on-shore’ hundreds of new jobs.
Both brands are responding to growing consumer demand for higher levels of service as shoppers start looking beyond price when signing up to longterm contracts.
EE will create 100 roles in Merthyr, North Tyneside, Plymouth and Ireland by the end of June when all EE Pay Monthly customer calls will be handled onshore.
The firm says locations of the remaining 500 jobs, providing service for EE Pay as You Go and Home customers, will be announced later this year.
EE CEO Marc Allera said: “We’re bringing 100% of our EE customer service calls back to the UK and Ireland.
“We’ve already seen a major boost in customer satisfaction by creating 1,400 new service jobs here since 2014. Now we’re creating 600 additional jobs to handle all EE customer service calls in the UK and Ireland by the end of this year, providing the best possible experience for our customers.”
Allera has also announced a commitment to boost 4G availability across the UK, moving from the current 60% coverage to 95% by 2020.
He commented: “For the average smartphone user, not-spots aren’t tolerated and 2G doesn’t deliver what they need. Customers want 4G speeds everywhere they go, and mobile operators are too used to saying ‘no’ to new coverage.
“Today, I’m saying ‘yes’, with an ambition to go further than any operator has ever gone, and with the ultimate aim of covering the whole UK with 4G.”
From today the network’s 4G services are available to customers in Shetland and the Isles of Scilly after it used BT’s fibre broadband links to expand coverage.