BT is to create hundreds of jobs over the next year to fulfil a pledge to stop using Indian call centres after customers complained that they were unable to speak to workers in Britain.
The communications giant which has more than 10 million customers and has used call centres in Bangalore and Delhi to supplement UK operations, said it will move to answering 80 percent of consumer calls in Britain by the end of 2016.
It has more than 20 call centres in the UK, including contact centres in Glasgow and Dundee, but BT were unable to say how many of the new jobs would be created north of the border.
Thirteen years ago it announced it was closing four-fifths of its call centre operation with the loss of 2,200 jobs over two years. It said it would cut its presence in Scotland where it had 3,000 call centre staff - from 10 sites to three, concentrating much of its traffic in Glasgow.
The Scottish changes were part of a plan to axe 53 call centres across the UK.
That coincided with the opening of call centres in India. These are now to be used for other back-office functions which do not include direct contact with customers.
BT said it has already created more than 1,000 new UK jobs with "some" in Scotland in preparation to meet their customer care commitment.
John Petter, chief executive of BT Consumer, said: “Our customers have told us that they would prefer to speak to a contact centre in the UK when they call us.
“When we launched BT Mobile earlier this year we located customer service in the UK and our customers have valued that. We think doing this for our other products is one way in which we can boost the service that we offer customers.
“This move will secure thousands of existing UK jobs and create new UK jobs. Our offshore partners have provided a good level of service for our customers and we will still have offshore partners to help us to deliver various campaigns and services.
“However, we believe that now is the right time to commit more investment to the UK and that this is something that customers will appreciate.”
The development has come as demand for BT services was expected to grow in the wake of it gaining valuable new live football rights.
BT had been offering its BT Sport channels free for its broadband customers since August, 2013, until this season, when it gained exclusive rights to live Champions League.
Having paid £897 million for the three-year rights to Europe's top club competition fronted by Gary Lineker, it announced a £5-a-month extra cost for all those wanting access its channels. Those with its broadband product now have to pay £5 a month for its standard definition channels.
Every one of the 351 games in Champions League competition are being shown live, with the main ones on the new BT Sport Europe channel and others via the red button.
BT reported that five million homes were taking BT Sport, nine months after the channels went live making it one of the fastest-growing TV services ever launched in the UK.
Latest Broadcasters' Audience Research Board figures show BT Sport 1 was reaching 204,000 a day in the first week of September, a 51,000 drop on the previous year and still considerably behind Sky Sports 1's 1.29m audience.
Last week the consumer group Which? reported that not being able to ring a call centre based in the UK was the nation’s biggest customer service bugbear. Nearly half of those surveyed by the organisation said they were irritated by call centres not being based in the UK.
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