Vodafone dashes call-centre claims

Vodafone New Zealand says claims that it is a bad employer are "rubbish", says TVNZ.

Vodafone spokesperson Paul Brislen said information released yesterday by the Unite Union was inaccurate. The union claimed Vodafone is a bad employer because it is refusing its call centre workers a pay increase for the second year running.

But Brislen says 60% of Unite members did receive a pay increase last year. "Although it is not an across the board pay rise, it is a pay rise," he told ONE News tonight.

The Delhi Traffic Police instructed all call centre cab operators to install global positioning system (GPS) units in their cabs so that their movements can be tracked, reports the Hindustan Times.

Call centre cab drivers are infamous for rash driving and resultant accidents in which many people have been injured or killed, and about 1 500 call centre cabs ply Delhi roads daily.

"We have categorically asked all call centre cab owners and operators in a meeting to immediately install GPSs in their cabs. This will help us to prosecute the cabs that will violate traffic norms on Delhi's streets," says Ajay Chadha, chief of police, traffic.

With three recent acquisitions and the release of new 1TB plans, the number of customer phone calls Australian ISP iiNet has had to take in its call centres has increased significantly, according to ZDNet.

iiNet is reported to have kept up thanks to proactive social-media monitoring and a legion of home-based customer support representatives that have said to be more productive, and produce happier customers, than their office-bound peers.

According to iiNet, it has been backed by a host of call management technologies, and remote workers have proven invaluable to the rapidly expanding ISP, which recently acquired around 113 000 customers of AAPT's consumer division for $60 million, all of Netspace's customers for $40 million and Westnet's for $81 million.