BT Chairman Sir Iain Vallance yesterday opened BT Scotland's latest call centre at Alness in Easter Ross and forecast that its 100-strong workforce would double in nine months, writes David Ross.
Ardroy House on the Alness Industrial Estate is providing telephone helpline support and advice for BT's burgeoning Internet and multimedia market.
Sir Iain said: ''This #1m call centre operation is here today largely because of the skills of the Highlands and Islands workforce and builds on the success of our Thurso call centre, which now boasts 400 jobs and is a major contributor to the local economy.''
Ardroy House, a former factory, was converted by the Lec, Ross and Cromarty Enterprise (Race), which backed the move with funding packages worth #298,000 plus training costs of around #200,000.
Mr Iain Robertson, chief executive of Highlands and Islands Enterprise, said: ''This project is a testimony to the success of our ongoing joint venture with BT Scotland to bring digital telecommunications to the North of Scotland, an initiative which has already opened the doors to more than 1400 jobs in the IT sector.''
As well as manning BT's Internet services helpline, the Alness centre is supporting customers involved in trials of BT's new pay-as-you-go Internet service.
''The trial is being held in Northern Ireland before a planned, national roll-out in October,'' said a spokesman.
''A simple software download via CD, floppy disk, or directly from the Internet provides customers with access to the Internet without need for fixed-term contracts and monthly subscriptions.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article