back to article Capita: Call centre workers, can you fall on your swords? Please?

The kind souls at Capita are placing hundreds of workers at risk of redundancy at call centres across the UK that service O2 clients, according to documents seen by The Channel. The work was outsourced to Capita back in 2013, the contract is valued at £1.2bn over ten years and is the biggest of its kind. The Communications …

  1. nsld

    Deflection through obfuscation

    A Crapita spokesman said " by making it really difficult to call us we have forced people to use our crappy knowledge base, twitter and other pointless support channels, consequently we need less meat sacks to answer phones mwaah haa haa" as he stroked his white fluffy cat.

    ftfy

    1. TechicallyConfused
      Devil

      Re: Deflection through obfuscation

      I'd laugh hard if this statement wasn't just so bloody close to the mark.

      I think though what really staggers me is that companies are STILL stupid enough to sign into contracts with Crapita. I mean their central services even treat their own component companies like crap and fleece them shamelessly yet outsiders still think its a good idea to get into bed with the worst kind of money grubbing scum outside of the drug cartels (or politics).

      Oh, wait! My mistake. I forgot. Crapita wins business by lining key pockets. Go find out who just bought the Bajan mansion and you'll find the bloke the signed on the line.

  2. James 51

    I knew a place that was over subscribed and the bean counters saw the reduced waged bill and let virtually everyone who wanted to go to go. Their off-shore operations had to take up the slack but their home office was badly affected for several years in terms of project delays and general progress as the people with the knowledge and/or authority to make decisions simply weren't there anymore.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    thumbs up for Capita

    The commentariat (self included) are usually sticking it to Capita, but on this occasion I think we should celebrate what looks like a generous and voluntary package.

    There's always some sob stories in these situations, but at least those so minded get the chance to run away on good terms with a big bag of shekels.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: thumbs up for Capita

      Agreed. I've gone through redundancy twice now, once from local govt. and once from industry and both times got the legal minimum of one week per full year of service where a "full" year must be the organisations financial year so potentially "losing" up to almost two years of your "investment" in the organisation. As it happened, in my case I had just over 12 full years in both cases so got the maximum allowed 12 weeks worth and started a new job the Monday after leaving. It would have been nice to get some acknowledgement over and above the legal minimum though.

      "three weeks pay per a year of service"

      That sounds like a decent deal to me so crest where credit is due even if on the who Crapita is, well crap.

    2. TechicallyConfused

      Re: thumbs up for Capita

      The "Great Deal" was probably enforced contractually when they tuped everyone over.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: thumbs up for Capita

        Tupe is worthless though, all a company has to do is have a "reorganisation" and your tuped t&c vanish without you being able to do a thing about it.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Out-house-sourcing. Hopefully it will soon come to an end.

    I'm sure those suffering RBS payment problems are really happy they outsourced maintenance of these creaking systems to people who don't know all the quirks and tricks used to keep them running.

  5. Dan Paul

    Double Cross

    Where do you think those jobs are going? The company or agency that outsourced work to Crapita in the first place wants an even cheaper price so Crapita has to outsource overseas. When will people learn outsourcing raises taxes on ALL taxpayers? Someone has to pay for the welfare bill.

    Word to the wise, if you ever have to do local onsite support for them; give them the shaft as much as you can.

    When every job has been outsourced, what happens then; I ask you?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Double Cross

      The welfare bill come out of different pot of money. Simples really.

      as for outsourcing

      India is not a land of cheap indentured labour any longer. The sooner the beancounters in Crapita and the like realise this the better.

      Don't even begin to mention the quality of the code to come out of India. I even hesitate to call it 'code'.

      Off to the sub-continent tomorrow to sort out a major ****-**. Couldn't even code their way out of a soggy paper bag.

      1. keithpeter Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: Double Cross

        "The welfare bill come out of different pot of money. Simples really."

        Er - what?

        UK jobs -> Elsewhere (doesn't matter where really)

        UK tax base shrinks

        Less tax raised, so less money for welfare, defence, health, education, building houses &c

        Where is Worstall when you need him?

        Coat icon: mine's the one with a copy of Grundrisse in the pocket

  6. Notas Badoff
    Pint

    Less workers, less money?

    "The work was outsourced to Capita back in 2013, the contract is valued at £1.2bn over ten years and is the biggest of its kind."

    I am confused. If they are indeed using automation and tools to decrease the needed workload, then the work performed is now less. Will they paid less on the contract? That is, is it now a £0.9bn contract?

    Or is this the triple-play coup that outsourcing until now only dreamt of - screw the customers, the workers, and the contracting company? What's that phrase, "trebles ...."

    1. TechicallyConfused

      Re: Less workers, less money?

      Why are you reciting the Crapita business model to us?

  7. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: CORRRCT BUT NOT

      The history of variously pissing on and pissing off staff by this business extends right back to BT Mobile days and "We're relocating from Euston to King's Langley. Oh, 80% of you still want to work for us. OK, we're not relocating there, we're going to Leeds instead. And by the way 'we' doesn't include most of us in the top team that made the decision."

  8. tin 2

    I love how cutting and redunancy is always called "Transformation" these days.

    1. FozzyBear

      Which of course the

      HR and marketing department use to justify either their own existance or to increase the size of their departments

      1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
        Flame

        Re: Which of course the

        Will the HR dept see some 'rightsizing' now that there are less bods to 'look after'?

        Nah. Thought not.

        What I'd like to do to most HR departments I have had the displeasure to encounter in the last 40+ years of employment. --> See Icon

  9. s. pam Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    O2's support staff are rubbish

    as a business and private customer O2 is quickly falling into the sewers so fast it serves them right to be outsourced to a Tandoori Helpless Desk...utterly hopeless, argumentative and feckless.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: O2's support staff are rubbish

      Having just endured a completely pointless support exchange where I wanted to know how much they would charge to call a specific number, from a mobile on contract, I cannot disagree.

      Useless, unable to understand a telephone number and just plain evasive.

      Shambles.

  10. GarethJ
    Flame

    Get out while you can

    My advice would be to get out while you can, grab the money and don't look back. I left in 2009 and have not regretted leaving for one second.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Get out while you can

      Seconded. But it looks as if the money is much less than I got.

  11. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    Bury

    What quite a lot of people who've been on the wrong end of this companies "service" would like to do to its senior management.

  12. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    'A Capita spokesman sent us a statement, saying more customers are using digital channels "rather than traditional customer service telephone channels" to log issues.'

    My one experience of this was before the Crapita take-over so I can only imagine it's got worse. All I wanted to do was change a number from contract to PAYG. I tried the email route which was clearly handled in India. After several weeks I gave up & phoned for a PAC. Leeds arrange the PAYG on the spot. But I wish I'd got an email address for any of my old colleagues there, if any of them had survived, to send them an archive of 21 emails to and from the incapables.

  13. Hubert Thrunge Jr.
    Meh

    Will any of this matter when Hutch merge 3 with them and rationalise the lot? CRAPITA may find themselves outsourced! I have to say though, being an O2 business customer, and only ever speaking to Leeds, I've never had bad service.

  14. PeterM42
    Facepalm

    Not surprising

    If their idiot call centre staff ACTUALLY did what their customers wanted (first time), they would not NEED so many call centre staff.

    Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    giffgaff anyone?

    Next stop: close all call centres and go online only where it can take days to get your problem sorted.

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