Npower is threatening to scupper the “good news” story of energy price freezes after revealing plans to axe nearly 1,500 jobs as part of a restructuring of its call centre operations.
According to reports, three Npower call centres will be closed, in Peterlee, Thornaby, near Middlesbrough and Stoke as 1,470 jobs will be outsourced to India. A further 550 front call centre staff will keep their jobs, but be transferred to Capita, the outsourcing giant that already handles calls for O2, BMW and the National Trust.
Union leaders at Unison said the plans would further damage Npower’s “tarnished reputation” for customer service. Matthew Lay, national officer for business and environment, said: “Npower have consistently let their customers and staff down by not investing enough in the workforce, technology or the latest customer service techniques.
“This has led to a huge number of complaints which the company seems to think they can deal with by shifting the responsibility to somewhere else – including to India.”
He added: “What does this say about their commitment to staff when Npower have kept them on tenterhooks waiting for the axe to fall for weeks.”
The cuts will stoke political fury over the actions of Britain’s energy suppliers given recent figures from regulator Ofgem which revealed profits at the ‘Big Six’ rose 75% last year. Npower was last week named the most complained about energy firm in the country, receiving almost three times as many complaints as its closest rival.
In October 2011, Npower was fined £2m by Ofgem for failing to deal with hundreds of customer complaints.
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Oh dear , costs before customer service , the wrong way round – http://t.co/1AiFO1b11D