Once again, Lloyds TSB, the UK banking giant, is planning to outsource more jobs to India. Whilst CallCentreVoice is unquestionably a global community and has to therefore take a neutral stance on the matter, I have my own thoughts which I’d like to share with you both as a customer of the bank and as someone with concerns for the UK call centre industry.

I’m a firm believer in commitment and having the balls to see a thing through. Lloyds TSB seem to believe in jumping at the latest supposed cost-cutting measure, and to hell with the livelihoods of those who have given a commitment to them in terms of their own careers. When so much is made of ethics in modern banking - Smile, for instance, taking a positive ethical stance, and other banks such as Natwest, committing to no outsourcing, job losses, branch closures and so on - I find it strange that Lloyds TSB see fit to turn their backs on the established base of quality workers they currently employ.

As a customer of Lloyds TSB, I intend to register my protestation by closing my accounts and writing a letter to the national press. Big corporates need to be reminded that UK workers should be respected and that the people of the UK may turn against them should they persist with what is essentially a greedy policy.

Lloyds TSB, I put it to you that you reap what you sew. May your customers desert you, and your profits become a thing of the past. Lloyds TSB, you should learn from your rivals who are not outsourcing at the expense of the good people of this land. Lloyds TSB, I colour you greedy, unethical and out-of-touch with public opinion.

Feel free to comment, if you reckon I’ve gone too far, or if you wish to play Devil’s Advocate and fight in Lloyds TSB’s corner.

John

Well the first time since I was about 13 a diary entry:-)

Well not really that, hands up who in the UK didn’t manage to keep a diary for 3-4 days after reading the Adrian Mole books?

I suppose Johns comments in another bloggy bit about Firefox and Micro$haft deserve the full attention of a rant(y)(ie) sp? post.

At the moment Micro$erf have a full and dominant monopoly and despite various attempts by the American courts (substitute minor slap on the wrist if you wish) to limit the company little has had any affect. Micro$hit have a reputation for intimidation, Cite1 Cite2 Cite3
However on a few occasions they have got a bloody nose out of it. Cite1 Cite2

As a few people know I’m not the worlds greatest M$ fan and keep my interaction with them to a minimum. So what can we do?

Well, first change your browser, for the first time this month Internet Exploders share of the market dropped below 90%, not alot you may think but consider they had a 97% share at the beginning of the year, use something else! John likes Firefox, I like Opera. There are others that are as good, Enigma, Omni, Avant, Deepnet, Safari etc…

Second change your Mail client from Outflow or Outflow Exxpress to ANYTHING BUT. I use Eudora, Pocomail is good others include, Gemini, Pegasus and Fox.

Why have you done this? Because with 90% using M$ products the smaller markets aren’t victim to the worms, virri, phish and HTML exploits that plague the M$ Products. Of course you still have to be sensible but the chances of acidentally clicking a link and infecting your PC are dramatically reduced.

Third. Change your OS. The only reason I have Windoze on my box here is my ISP won’t support Linux RedHat, or at least don’t supply the interface software for domestic customers

Fourth. Look into Open Office as an alternative to Office 2xxx. Again all the Macro Virri go away. For an example of the differences between Excel and Calc (the open office Spreadsheet) see the animation on my site

There are options out there.

Comments welcome

DaveA

I’m writing this mostly as a test message - so please don’t expect it to be of any interest.

CCV have kindly accepted my offer of posting any relevant industry news here, and I look forward to doing so with others as this community expands. In the mean time if you have any news that you feel is relevant (this is a big opportunity for all you usually suppressed suppliers on CCV) please send it through to me at ccv@darrylbeckford.co.uk and I’ll gladly research and publish it.

Some *really relevant* industry news for you all - I got engaged at the weekend.

Sorry, I couldn’t not post it. I’m too excited.

Regards,
Darryl

Well, it’s been a long and difficult year; with the help of my father-in-law, we renovated the rear of our home and installed a new open-plan kitchen, turned a dining room into a second lounge, knocked walls about and a whole host of other things. Someone told me that, due to the slope of the land immediately behind the house, we’d need to remove the paving slabs that were causing the rainwater to run up against the wall, causing some rising damp. Someone else suggested digging up the compacted earth and infilling with stone chips. Who would do all of this? Moi, of course. That was tough work, digging three 16′ channels down to a depth of two feet, and shifting the compacted earth in builders’ bags and into the back of the trusty steed, Uncle Ravnikov*.

I digress. The upshoot is that we spent a huge amount of time and our own summer doing work on the house. It’s been worth it, but it has meant that other things haven’t happened. Such as the threatened CallCentreVoice .NET rewrite, my summer ‘lose the gut’ campaign and of course holidays.

So, my nearest & dearest suggested we ought to take off for a few days and as such we have chosen to fly to Prague and freeze. ‘Cause it’s winter. To paraphrase Billy Connolly, “We Scots are a strange bunch. We live in a cold place, and every now and then we migrate, saying ‘Come on, I know a colder place!’".

So, spare batteries and film are ordered for my little Contax G2 (I might talk about cameras one day soon), the animal-sitter (Gail) has agreed to help out, and we’re heading off in at the weekend. Splendid.

Neither of us have ever been to Prague before, so it’s the great unknown. Many people have, of course, beaten a track before us, and everyone is very positive about this beautiful city.

Oh, I’m open to suggestions as to where we might go - bearing in mind it’s close season. I’m hoping for the following:

• Great architecture so that I can take photos with the Contax;
• Decent food (especially for T.’s sake as she’s a veggie;
• Fairly quiet streets (photos again, y’see);
• Good beer; I’m a big fan of those cloudy Belgian beers, and hopefully there’ll be similar in Prague;
• Good duty free - can anyone say Eye Pod?

So, when I’m away, hopefully Dave & Darryl (our first blogging volunteers) will keep you all entertained and keep the momentum up. Nothing worse than a blogging vacuum, eh?

John

* You’re probably wondering why our car is called Uncle Ravnikov; maybe when I’m stuck for ideas one day in the future, I might explain…

You might have noticed a few changes around the main community. You might be wondering what Firefox is - although I suspect the vast majority of you might have heard about it by now.

If not, let me take a few moments to introduce you to what I believe is the way forward for web browsing. Up until now, most people have been using one of the various versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, otherwise known in the trade as ‘Insecure Explorer’ due to its shoddy security model and susceptibility to hacks, exploit and other nasties. Despite its flaws, it remains the most widely used browser around today, which is testament to the power of the Microsoft monopoly. It may be notoriously shoddy in its standards compliance, vague in its OS:Application boundary and extremely high risk due to its buggy code base; it may be a cumbersome user experience with its proliferation of pop-ups and pop-unders; it may have hooked corporates in with its disastrous ActiveX technology. Yes, it is all of those things, but until recently it was for many the only real choice.

Choice. There it is, that word again. We now have a new kid on the block. Firefox is a new browser which has emerged to much acclaim in the past six months or so. It has recently had its first ‘proper’ release, version 1.0, which is free to download and offers many benefits over Insecure Explorer:

• Tabbed Browsing;
• A non-embedded-in-the-OS browser engine;
• Effective searches;
• Full standards compliance;
• It’s quick;
• It doesn’t over-egg the features pudding;
• It’s a small download;
• It’s not Microsoft, therefore it has no hidden monopolistic agenda.

…and so on. All in all, it’s a big improvement over the Microsoft offerings, and there’s a definite sense of parity amongst various on different operating systems - for example, Firefox 1.0 on my Powerbook runs almost identically to that of Firefox 1.0 on my desktop PC. Try that with IE for the Mac versus IE for the PC - disastrous!

So, you might be wondering why I’m writing this article? Well, two main reasons. The first is that Firefox is, like CallCentreGurus, an essentially non-commercial venture with the agenda of making life better for its users. So, we are in a sense brothers-in-arms. I can really relate to their cause, as corporate independence and free services/software do not likely bed-partners make.

The second reason is that it’s great. In the next few months, I will be re-designing CallCentreGurus to be fully standards compliant. To my own discredit, there are bits of the site which really do hang together with sticky-tape and glue, and I want to put that right. The target platform will be Firefox, and because Insecure Explorer is not standards compliant, things may ultimately not look so pretty when that browser is used. However, it’s nmt all doom-and-gloom as I will ensure everything still works in IE. It won’t, however, be our recommended browser any more.

The days of IE dominance may well be coming to an end. We’re putting our money where our mouth is and supporting Firefox, and I can only hope that other sites do the same, to ensure that this superb fledgling browser becomes the number one choice in internet browsing on all platforms.

I’d welcome any comments on this subject, and I hope that you will all download a copy of Firefox for your machines and at least give it a chance to win you over. It won me over!

John

Welcome to the CallCentreGurus weblog. Please see this post for more details.

We’re also interested in any contributions anyone might like to make - after all, as we have always stressed, this is your community and if you have something to say, we’d be happy to give you the platform to say it.

Contact us if you want to help. Or if you find any problems.

Best wishes,

John

Hot off the press: a lollipop lady* has been ordered to keep patrolling at her school - even though it closed four months ago. Sharon Grice stands outside the empty building in Burnley twice a day, while there is no one to help the former pupils who have moved to a new school 400 yards away. The council wanted here there in case anyone still crosses there.

Madness! Another example of a really stupid decision from Them Who Make Silly Rules (TWMSR). A pet bugbear of mine, you might say…

* School crossing patrol for those of a non UK persuasion.

My friend Dave, a moderator over at CallCentreVoice, has frequently posted about the woes of weeding out their Administrative ‘VoiceMail box. However, that doesn’t seem to stop messages from members and non-members alike, some of which are nothing more than begging letters, others of which are just bizarre.

When CallCentreVoice was first devised, it used publicly email addresses so that members could contact us. However, that was a bit silly in retrospect as the lowlifes who deal in spam* eventually forced us to abandon that idea and I devised the ‘VoiceMail system as a basic-but-effective means of passing private messages between members.

So far, it’s worked well enough (with some limitations) but the public ‘Contact Us’ facility seems more often than not to be a repository for all sorts of weird and wonderful nonsense.

Can I just emphasise why it’s there? I know this is a bit of a moan but I’d prefer to go on record and save the CCV moderators from having to wade through the noise to get to the odd message that’s actually relevant and worth reading.

Contact them for direct questions to one or other of the moderator team on matters relating to the CCV site. That might mean login issues, or questions about what is and isn’t allowed. Suggestions and ideas for improvements are welcome. As is being told about any bugs, both functional and cosmetic, so that they can be reproduced and fixed.

However, they have no jobs available, cannot help you with your visa, don’t want to use your outsource facility and so on. It’s not what it’s about.

CallCentreVoice is a collaborative community for call centre matters, not a personal assistance or business development agency. There are plenty of other sites you can go to for that stuff.

So, before you contact them, think about whether it’s really something that the CCV team are likely to either want or be able to help you with.

John

* I mean, I don’t want a mail-order degree - I’ve got a real one - and I don’t need viagra. And in any case, I’m quite happy with the dimensions of my bits, thank you very much Mr Spam-Monger.

On Scotland In Late November

One of the great things about living and working in Scotland is the weather. OK, so I lied. It’s miserable at the best of times, and in winter it’s just plain grim. Not that I want to give any of you the impression that Scotland isn’t a great place to be - it is - but there’s no denying that in the queue for a good climate, Scotland certainly wasn’t first… So here I am , early morning in Edinburgh. It’s still dark, yet I’ve been up for two and a half hours. I’m at work before daybreak and I’ll not leave the office until after dark. Ergo, a sunless existence…

Frosted Rabbits

We keep rabbits at home - two dwarf lops, who I’ve no doubt I’ll take about at some future point. Anyway, though we originally brought them up as house-rabbits (more on that later also), when we started working on the house earlier this year, we decided that the time had come they have a run in the garden. So, this is their first winter.

Now, we treat our rabbits like members of the family. Well, not quite. After all, we wouldn’t dream of keeping Granny in a hutch or feeding the in-laws on a diet of carrots and straw (though my dear wife, being a vegetarian, probably would see that as a good thing). However, our buns get a lot of attention and we’ve grown to appreciate their little personalities. So, given that it’s late November and getting quite cold, I do worry about their comfort as any rabbit owner would.

My better half, being away to see a play called “The Producers” down in London this past weekend, left me in charge of all the animals. Last night, in between bouts of getting this blogging software to actually co-operate (I managed, thanks to persistance, coffee, the WP support forum and some luck), I took pity on the rabbits and decided to give them a blanket, which I draped over their hutch. That done, and a couple of carrots later, I headed back indoors.

This morning, 6.15am: popped back out with their breakfast and some fresh water, to discover that the blanket had frozen solid. To readers in properly cold places, such as Canada, that’s probably nothing. You’re probably used to twelve foot snowdrifts and the like. However, here in the UK we’re notorious for being completely incapable of adapting to our moderate climate. And so it is with me! The rabbits, on the other hand, seemed completely fine albeit a tad peeved at a night in the hutch (like any self-respecting modern bun, they like their freedom). Resilience and big ears, what more can one want?

Let There Be Light

Well, that’s the idea. However, having popped down for a cuppa, it’s now nearly 9am and though I can see the offices over at the other side of the park, it’s a bleak, monochrome world. It’s easy to forget how much we depend upon good lighting. It’ll come as no surprise to any photographers, but light definitely affects our moods, and so on a day like today, it’s easy to feel a bit glum and negative. Especially if you’re stuck in an office with flourescent, flickery lights.

One thing I always wonder is why, given companies’ adherence to Health & Safety guidelines, is more attention not paid to effective, individual lighting? I have no easy way to adjust the light levels around my desk, other than to bring in a lamp and then suffer the ‘thou shalt not connect thy electrical appliance without testing’ abuse from Them Who Make Silly Rules (TWMSR).

I’m firmly of the opinion that every individual should have the right to choose their own lighting preferences. We shouldn’t have to fight City Hall (and TWMSR) to do it, it should Just Be.

Ah well, perhaps the sun will shine and the day will blossom…

After we kicked this idea around for a few months, it’s finally here. I have to admit that I’m hoping it will enrich the call centre community, and give it another dimension.

Running a community isn’t always plain sailing. We’re big supporters of the CallCentreVoice community, which always strives to recognise the fact that it is people who drive our industry. Acordingly, we set out to try to inject a little personality and humanity into the mix by launching our own fledgling weblog, CallCentreGurus. I hope that you enjoy our ramblings from this point onwards.

With our blog, we’re going to try to pick up topics from the discussion community and happenings within the industry, as a basis to provide a different slant - opinion, reaction, commentary, blethering* - here’s the place for it.

* blethering: Scots phrase for blabbering on. We’re good at that! You’ll soon find out…