Stockport call centre gearing up for busy winter

Date: 28/10/2011

A contact centre in Stockport that may use 0800 phone numbers could be looking to purchase additional call routing or divert solutions over the coming months.

In 2010, the north-west British Gas site received 67,000 calls over the Christmas week and is expecting just as many enquiries again this year, the Manchester Evening News reports.

As a result, the centre is upping its staff levels and ensuring 80 per cent of its 1,000 engineers are available over the seven days.

Director of British Gas Services Chris Jansen explained that even though the organisation starts to establish a winter contingency plan in March, the high demand last December took them by surprise.

He added that "it was much colder" than anticipated and the company is "expecting similar conditions in 2011 with our service centre in Stockport expecting to take a similar number of calls if not more".

Telecoms firm Plusnet recently introduced a new 0345 number meaning people with not be faced with high charges when they contact the enterprise using their mobile phone.