Broadband and mobile giant VMO2 (Virgin Media and O2) has this morning announced that they’re partnering up with the Institute of Customer Service (ICS) on a new certified training programme for frontline contact centre staff, which is designed to help them better handle “complex and sensitive customer interactions“.
Over the past few years the operator has been putting a lot of effort into improving the quality of their customer service (support) teams, which has already helped to reduce the volume of complaints they attract (i.e. a nearly 50% reduction was seen last year) and also resulted in better outcomes (70% of complaints are now resolved within 24 hours).
The new training programme aims to build on that by supporting significant customer service improvements through a bespoke and officially recognised training programme for contact centre staff. The first group of employees has already completed this “intensive training programme“, which is said to have strengthened the skills needed to manage customer relationships and build trust.
The programme focused on practical techniques that deliver real service impact, including developing deeper customer relationships, understanding different service styles and customer types, enhancing emotional intelligence and empathy, and handling “challenging interactions” (a polite way of saying that not all people are easy or polite to deal with).
Alan Stott, VMO2 Director of Customer Contact, said:
“Investing in our people is one of the most important ways we can improve the experience we deliver to our customers. This certified training programme gives our colleagues practical skills to better understand and support customers, resolve issues more effectively, and build stronger relationships. Ultimately, it will ensure our customers receive a consistent, empathetic and high-quality service every time they interact with us.”
The new programme supports prior improvements, such as the adoption of Lumi AI to support agents with real-time prompts and insights from millions of previous customer interactions. Not to mention other tools that automatically summarise conversations, helping save agents time and reduce wait times for customers.
VMO2 highlights how the “latest” Ofcom data shows complaints against their service fell again last year by almost 50% (here). But while this is true for Virgin Media, they have perhaps knowingly overlooked that quarterly complaints against O2’s mobile service more than tripled in Q4 2025. Hopefully the new training scheme will improve the situation – it’s “now being rolled out more widely to agents … including to additional frontline teams and partners“.
