Agra to have BSNL call centre this month

Even though Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) prides itself on being India's largest telecom company, it hasn't so far been able to shed its sarkari background.

But now, taking a cue from the private telecom companies, BSNL is trying to develop a corporate company structure, and as a first step, the company's district headquarters in every telecom circle will be equipped with a customer support call centre, linked to an all-India toll-free number, to increase the company's interaction with its subscribers.

Talking to Business Standard, P K Srivastava, general manager, BSNL Agra circle, said the company's experiment with the Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS), installed at every telephone exchange, had been successful but it had also reduced the personal touch that the company had been providing in its services.

To again increase interaction with its subscribers, the company has decided to set up call centres in every telecom circle and Agra will be among the first few cities on this list where this call centre will be established by the end of this month.

He said though BSNL employed the largest number of line maintenance personnel, compared to all other basic telephone service providers, the efficiency level of these personnel was not up to the mark.

These personnel will now be provided with mobile phones by the company to keep them constantly in touch with the company's local office.

He said the company was experimenting with a computerised system of fault booking, by which as soon as the complaint was booked by the local call centre, the lineman of the corresponding area would be immediately informed about the fault through SMS and efforts were on so that the fault could be repaired in six hours.

According to the general manager, BSNL has tied up with Nokia to improve its mobile services and a main switching centre of 400,000 lines is in the process of being set up in Agra, and it will serve the mobile telephony needs of Agra and its nearby towns, enabling the company to compete with private mobile companies.