What was the very first call centre that you ever visited?
For me it was the a software distributor on the Great West Road in Brentford around 1989/1990.
I can't remember the company name, but they had around 30 sales people taking inbound calls on the phone. They had put in an ACD system but we taking most of their calls on direct DDI lines.
It was Sitel India where I got my 1st call center profile and was serving US customers on accounts like walmart, compuserve etc
I bet that was a large call centre. How many agents were on site there?
CPC - Computer and Electrical Spares Catalogue - I spent 3 months in the accounts department temping!
BT Customer Options in Bristol, an outbound call centre with 1000+ staff, great atmospere
It would have been the first call centre that I worked in... The Lottery agent "hotline" for GTECH Corporation in New York. they were responsible for running the call centre for lottery agents who had lottery terminals and who sold lottery tickets and scratchcards... I eventually managed the hotline, and then begain setting up other "hotlines" across the US whenever GTECH won a new contract... among other things of course...
@applebyd Sytel... thats just down the road from me... and you're next door to Camelot.
I joined in 2001 I think..Oh yes, it sure was with non-stop shifts all adhering to the US time zones of course 24/7. Am not sure of the exact numbers though
One early one that impressed me was First Direct in Leeds in Jan 1992. It had around 400 seats at the time.
I was so impressed I signed up as a customer the following day.
GPR:
Right next door.
My forst job was comissioning the ASDA@ home contract.
A nice idea using an outsourcer to set up and iron
out the bugs then take it in house!
Stuck in the trade ever since {EVIL GRIN}
DaveA
I worked for the MM Group in Bristol but on the direct mail side rather than the contact centre. My boss then, Jeff Smith is now the Chief Exec of Teleperformance UK - small world!
I once visited the Oracle Call Center in Redwood Shores in California. The buildings were in the shape of a giant disk drive (the old Wincheter disks)
The reception area was half the ground floor and had a baby grad piano in the corner.
Now that was a company earning too much money! I wonder what it is like now?
My first contact centre visit was to Capita in Sheffield, I worked for them during my student days. I remember being most impressed by the training effort, as they took in 100 new starters every fortnight, or something like that.
First call centre i visited was Racal Vodafone, when there were less than 50,000 connections and mobiles would never take off!!!
I can recall getting a gift from them 2 years later to celebrate 500,000 connections at the time that was a major milestone.
My first contact center was Sitel in Stratford upon Avon, I worked there for 7 years!
Approx 400 seats, 24/7/365, I worked in the Inbound Bureau, on the phones, in Quality Assurance, then training.
To go to a global corporation as my first CC was a great experience.
It wasn't glam, or fancy, but the people there were fantastic and were committed to delivering.
Mine was on my first day at T-Mobile in Doxford Park in Sunderland in 2002. It's a pretty big site with about 850 agents and another 150 or so back office staff. I remember thinking that if the business needed several call centres this size, the customer base must have been huge - ad it was! Around 12 million at the time!
Mine was in NCO Manila Philippines under Amazon.com.It was such a great experience to work with Amazon. Team leads are great and even if it my first call center job, i never difficulty adapting the trend. :)
mine was a UKI-Partnership call centre in the midlands, england. i think it then change to RBS and now closed down (thats what the press say)
The first Contact Centre I ever visited was TNT (later to be bought out by Ceva logistics) who were an outsourcer for B&Qs largest home delivery contract. This was a complete change of direction as I had previously worked in education however I loved it. I was also very lucky that I had a manager who identified my potential and within 3 years had developed my career to Duty Manager of a 125 seat operation. What this did for me was to actually give me a passion and belief for investing in my staff and I take this ethos with me into new posts I have had since.
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