SSE staff to be redeployed after cold calling ends at Thatcham centre

On Friday, SSE, based at Pipers Way, announced that it would be stopping the practice of cold calling - a decision which will affect 70 posts in its Thatcham office. However, the company has now confirmed that it intends to redeploy the affected employees within customer services or other departments within the company and is confident there will be no redundancies.
A statement from the company said: "SSE intends to redeploy these employees to other jobs within customer service or other areas of the company wherever possible.
"A small team will be established to deal with inbound calls from potential customers but they will not make unsolicited outbound calls."
Group managing director of retail, Will Morris, said: "Nobody likes receiving a sales call out of the blue and so we are stopping it.
"It doesn’t matter that other energy companies still do it, or other industries for that matter, cold calling is not something that a company like SSE - committed to providing an excellent customer experience - should be doing any longer.
"We want to be a company that sells itself, one that is recognised for being the best in its sector and one that people choose to buy from.
"This decision to end unsolicited calls is part of becoming that company and demonstrates that we are dedicated to delivering what customers want.”
In future the company’s energy supply brands – Southern Electric, Scottish Hydro and SWALEC will only contact customers they already have a relationship with or potential customers who have previously agreed to a call.
Research carried out by consumer organisation Which? found that eight out of ten people asked had received an unsolicited call in the last month.
Eight per cent had received 50 or more and a quarter of the people asked said they felt intimidated by cold calls.
Mr Morris added: "Our customers are the most important people to us and we are constantly looking at ways we can deliver more of what they want. We are a company that listens and we will not be shy to make other changes when it is what our customers would like”.
As well as the Thatcham jobs, about 30 roles in St Mellons, Cardiff, will also be relocated to other jobs within SSE.
In April, SSE customers were urged to seek compensation from the company after Ofgem announced it was to be fined a record £10.5 million for ''prolonged and extensive'' mis-selling.
At the time, Ofgem said that it found ''failures at every stage of the sales process".