As part of the company\u2019s ongoing efforts to remove persistent pain points and improve customers\u2019 experience, Virgin Media O2 reduced the number of calls transferred by its agents by 1.3 million in 2025 \u2013 saving customers around 1.45 billion seconds of their time
\nMilestone achieved as a direct result of cross-skilling 5,000 support agents, simplifying team structures and delivering AI-led improvements to the automated phone system
\nLatest Ofcom statistics show that complaints about Virgin Media O2 have fallen by more than 50% over the last 12 months<\/p>\n
Virgin Media O2 saved customers a collective 1.45 billion seconds of their time last year \u2013 equivalent to more than 24 million minutes or more than 400,000 hours \u2013 after introducing AI and upskilling teams to improve how the company handles customer phone calls. Together, these improvements led to the company reducing call transfers by 1.3 million last year, compared with the previous year.<\/p>\n
Historically, all customers calling Virgin Media or O2 would be prompted to press a number on their handset depending on the nature of their query, with their response dictating which team they\u2019d be routed to. However, where a customer query didn\u2019t fall perfectly within the options presented, or they wanted to discuss more than one issue, customers would sometimes be transferred between teams, causing frustration.<\/p>\n
Today, the majority of customers are now invited to explain the reason for their call at the outset, with AI technology, Natural Language Understanding (NLU), used to better understand the customer\u2019s intent and connect them to an agent who can provide the support required. The company plans to fully roll out this AI-led system across all customer journeys over the coming months, ensuring more customers get the help they need first time.<\/p>\n
A comprehensive review was also undertaken to identify where and why high volumes of customer calls were being transferred. Using \u2018heatmaps\u2019 that showed particularly high traffic transfer routes, Virgin Media O2 implemented changes including simplifying teams to minimise the need for customers to speak to more than one agent. To enable this, the company has rolled out new agent training, with 5,000 employees cross-skilled to be able to provide a wider range of support to customers.<\/p>\n
As a result of Virgin Media O2\u2019s focus on improving customer service, complaints to the regulator about the company have more than halved over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n
Alan Stott, Virgin Media O2\u2019s Director of Customer Contact, said: \u201cWe always aim to provide a seamless experience for our customers and minimise the need to contact us for support. After all, nobody enjoys spending their time on the phone to their service provider, particularly when they\u2019re being transferred between teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere a customer does need to speak to us, we want to make their experience as simple, efficient and productive as possible. That is why we\u2019ve introduced AI technology which allows a customer to explain the reason for their call at the outset and quickly routes them to the appropriate team.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether with cross-skilling agents and simplifying our team structures, these improvements helped to reduce call transfers by over a million last year, saving our customers a combined 400,000 hours on the phone to us. We\u2019ll continue to invest in our people and systems throughout 2026 and beyond to ensure we\u2019re consistently giving our customers the best possible service.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As part of the company\u2019s ongoing efforts to remove persistent pain points and improve customers\u2019 experience, Virgin Media…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,60,15146,10798,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-245861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-press-release","11":"tag-pressrelease","12":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}