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Computer Shopper: What quality controls are in place to make sure that installations go smoothly?

Alexandra Legg: We have in-house quality auditors who go to customers' houses post-install. They try and go on the same day. Firstly they look at the installation from a technical/tidy point of view and secondly they ask questions about general customer satisfaction. This is then scored and fed back to the installer.

An element of our engineers' pay is based on the delivery of key performance indicators. One of these is the level of quality scores taken from these audits. This is turned into an overall quality score. It's in no one's interests to carry out a duff install!

CS: The number of different departments and telephone numbers seems to be confusing for customers and support staff alike. Is anything being done to improve this?

AL: Customers should only need to ring one number for customer care and one number for sales. The customer care number (0845 454 1111 or 150 from a Virgin Media phone) will send you through to a different centre depending on what you're calling about, but this should be seamless.

For example, broadband tech support will go through to first line faults in India. A billing query will go to our national billing centre in Birmingham. We have call centres around the UK dealing with second line faults and general account queries.

CS: We have been told that 70 per cent of calls are answered within 30 seconds. When is this timed from? Every time we've phoned, we've spent at least five minutes in queue, plus up to 40 minutes after being transferred.

AL: Our target

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is 70 per cent of calls answered within 30 seconds, but we acknowledge we're not meeting those targets at the moment. Sky removing its channels from our platform has increased the number of calls we're dealing with, plus we're also receiving an increased amount of calls from areas such as Yorkshire and the Cotswolds (both big franchise areas for us), which have been having difficulties with service due to the flooding. But we're working hard to get back on track - it's a key priority for us.

CS: The local call centre seems to be really good; the one abroad seems to be the opposite. What are Virgin Media's plans for its support in the future? Are we likely to see an expansion of the overseas operation?

AL: Under our existing broadband technical support contract with IBM, we now use a network of global centres to add additional capacity and skills to support our customers. We envisage continuing with this mix of local and international support. We invested £5.5 million in on-shore customer care in the second half of last year and have hired an additional 300 additional UK-based customer service staff in the past few months. We're working hard to integrate our off-shore centres, not just from an operational point of view but from a cultural point of view too.

CS: Why don't all of the call centres run the same software, so that they can support all customers' set-top boxes?

AL: We're getting there. We now have two billing systems (down from five last year) and should have one single billing system by the end of this year. We now have two TV platforms (down from three this time last year). But merging two cable companies, one mobile company and an ADSL broadband business is not an easy feat and we're working hard behind the scenes to integrate each part as smoothly and seamlessly as possible. But it can't happen overnight.

CS: We were put through to a prompt that gave us a choice of four billing systems, so how many are there really?

AL: I think you were in an internal call system, which you shouldn't have been put through too. As I explained, we're currently running two billing systems, with all regions being transferred onto our main ICOMS system by the end of the year.