Jobs joy as BT takes on 120 agency workers at Thurso

BT has reinforced its commitment to its most northerly UK contact centre by announcing that the vast majority of its agency staff in Thurso are to be given BT contracts.

The 120 advisers, all with more than two years’ service, look after customers throughout the UK, and are currently on agency contracts with Manpower.

Kaye MacDonald, BT customer service director, said: “We’re rewarding our longest-serving people with permanent BT jobs, in recognition of all their hard work over the years.

“BT Business and Public Sector has a virtual team working in the newly-re-furbished contact centre. The team of specialists offer a very high level of customer experience for global, major, public sector and business customers who have an incident impacting their service. The contact centre owns the incident offering full end to end ownership.

We have a highly-engaged team at Thurso with the drive and experience that our customers rely on, and this latest commitment follows a significant recent investment in our site facilities and systems.”

The purpose-built call centre in Thurso Business Park was BT’s first Highland contact centre, opening in the Caithness town 24 years ago with just 27 staff.

Launched by former BT chairman Sir Iain Vallance, it was named Alexander Bain House after the Caithness inventor hailed as the father of the fax machine.

Thurso is a 24/7 operation and is one of only four BT centres handling disaster recovery across the UK.

Their client range is vast and their next call for help could be from a small retailer with a couple of shops, a major High Street retail chain, a school or police force.

Customer experience is BT’s top priority. In the last year the company has recruited 3,600 new people into customer-facing roles at its UK contact centres, and continues to recognise the importance of retaining experience by converting skilled agency workers to permanent employees.