A rapidly growing BT contact centre that has seen royalty, top sports personalities and Pudsey Bear pass through its doors is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
The centre in Westbrook, Warrington - where 800 people are employed carrying out a wide variety of work including customer service and sales of products such as broadband, TV and BT Sport - celebrated its milestone birthday with a visit from BT Sport football expert and former England striker, Michael Owen.
Michael Owen brought a cake to celebrate with the centre workers, toured the site and took part in a question and answer session with the people working there as well as posing for some selfies and handing out signed photos.
The contact centre has a come a long way since it opened in 1996 and is growing all the time with 181 people recruited in 2016 alone and recruitment is ongoing to support BT’s goal to answer 90 per cent of UK customer calls in the UK and Ireland by end of March 2017. Earlier this week, BT announced it will be recruiting for another 500 jobs in customer service, with Warrington being one of the key sites to benefit.
The last 20 years has seen lots of people coming and going at the centre including Prince Philip, who had a tour of the centre in 1998 and Daley Thompson who carried the Olympic torch through the building in 2012.
As the contact centre is used for charity telethons, such as Children in Need and Red Nose Day with around 120 BT volunteers from the region giving up their time to answer phones each time, even Pudsey Bear in his famous yellow spotty attire has visited!
Two people who have been at the centre since the start are Leander Lamonby and Lisa Hill. Leander, who is now site administrator to the senior centre manager, joined as a telemarketer in 1996 making outbound sales calls.
Leander said: “I absolutely love my job here at the Warrington contact centre. We are very team orientated and I enjoy my day to day work providing admin support and organising all sorts of events here. The location is also great for me with the transport links and also the shopping nearby to nip out at lunch time or after work.”
Lisa Hill started out in 1996 in the local communications and events team and now provides business support at the centre. Lisa said: “We have evolved so much at the centre, not only the décor but the products we sell and the support we provide to customers such as longer operational hours. Our business team alone has doubled in size in the last year. Twenty years is a blink of an eye to me, time has gone so quickly.”
Becky Pierce, a member of the customer service team, has worked at the centre for 19 years so has seen a lot of changes too. Becky said: “I’ve worked at the Warrington contact centre since I was 17 when it was my first job as a telesales sales advisor. It feels pretty much like home to me now and there are always great people to speak to and never a dull moment!
“It’s amazing how much BT has grown over the years. When I started we sold just phone lines and loyalty discounts but now we have a massive portfolio of products.
“BT is a great company to work for and no matter what job I’ve had within BT, the people are always amazing to work with.”
Sam Calvert, director of sales at the Warrington site, said: “I'm really proud of everything that the teams in Warrington have achieved over the past 20 years and I'm delighted that they have reached this impressive milestone.
“After two decades we’re still hiring and growing our presence in Warrington – in fact we will have recruited 181 people in 2016, so thank you Warrington and here’s to ongoing success!”
Nearly 9,360 people are directly employed by BT and its EE business in the North West – equivalent to one in eight employees working in the region’s IT and communications sector. In Cheshire, this figure is around 1,376 people. In employment terms, BT and EE’s impact in the 2015-16 financial year was larger than the North West’s publishing and broadcasting sector.
For recruitment opportunities at the Warrington Contact Centre click here!