Eir boss under f ire for blaming woes on Sligo call centre
EIR’s chief executive partly blamed the location of its customer care centre in Sligo for its widespread poor service in the pandemic.
Carolan Lennon told an Oireachtas committee that it was a ‘mistake’ locating the Eir customer care base in Sligo as she said it took ‘longer’ to train employees in the county.
The telecoms operator chief later clarified her comments stating that the mistakes made were by her and ‘ her management team’ and that Eir is ‘committed to Sligo’.
However, her remarks at the committee sparked outrage among ‘irate staff at Eir and from the business community in Sligo’ according to Junior Minister Frank Feighan, who represents Sligo-Leitrim said.
Ms Lennon was appearing before the Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications Networks to address Eir’s poor customer service, and she admitted that customers had faced ‘unacceptable wait times’ and she apologised ‘unreservedly’ for this. Outlining the reasons for the poor- quality service, she said: ‘There was no history of contact centres in Sligo before we got there, which meant that when we were hiring local staff, and people travelling from the environs, many of them came in from retail or hospitality.
‘That was a challenge, it took us longer to train them.’
She also blamed remote working, a reduction in staff numbers and IT issues for the disruption to Eir’s customer service operations.
The committee heard that of the 5,354 complaints between July and September to communications watchdog ComReg, a staggering two thirds of those alone related to Eir.
Ms Lennon said she was not surprised by the high level of complaints. ‘If a repair goes wrong or a member in here wants broadband for a constituent, they do not contact Sky or Vodafone. They contact the head of Eir. We do all the repairs, all the installations, so as a result we are likely to get more complaints,’ Ms Lennon said. ‘That’s not to excuse it.
I’m not saying that the service over the summer was acceptable or even where we are now is acceptable, it isn’t.’
Ms Lennon added that Eir had lost up to 80 staff during t he pandemic, t hat t he number of calls other staff had been able to deal with had decreased and that the volume of calls had also shot up.
Fianna Fáil TD Timmy Dooley said he was ‘shocked’ that 80 people gave up their jobs between March and July in the midst of the pandemic.
When Ms Lennon told the committee that call staff were being paid a salary of between € 21,000 and € 23,000, plus bonus, Mr Dooley said he ‘shouldn’t be surprised then if the wages are that low’.
Ms Lennon replied: ‘We will have to agree to disagree, I don’t believe that’s the issue.’
She added that once the first l ockdown restrictions had been l i f ted, the company started hiring again.
Eir was forced to release a statement after the meeting to clarify Ms Lennon’s controversial comments on Sligo. Ms Lennon said : ‘When I spoke of mistakes made in relation to Sligo, I wish to clarify that I was referring to mistakes I, and my management team made in underestimating the complexities of building a care centre on a greenfield site. We have a talented team in Sligo and we also have every support we could ask for from the IDA and regional authorities, which we are grateful for.’
Mr Feighan told the Mail afterwards: ‘ Her comments were misinformed and out of context but I appreciate her clarifying her comments.
‘You can’t blame your issues on staff.’
‘Wages are that low’