Spin

I’m not picking on Telecom, but their press release this morning is a good example of “spin” which was the oppsoite of Vodafone’s refeshingly clear “We stuffed up, you hate the change” release I highlighted.

I got a tip off last night that the staff in the broadband helpdesk were all notified of a meeting at 8.30 am this morning. They were even told that they would be paid if they were not rostered on, to attend the meeting. This suggested that it was to be a meeting to announce redundancies as their helpdesk would be trasnferred to the Philipines.

So when I saw the press release this morning headlined “Telecom to retain its largest contact centre in NZ following extensive trials”, I thought maybe I had guessed wrong. It sounds like good news.

But no, if you go all the way down to paragraph ten, you get the details that the broadband helpdesk is indeed moving to Manila.

Now, I am not criticising the decison per se. Its awful for the affected employees who have my sympathy. But it seems the offshore call centre was getting higher satisfaction ratings than the NZ one. If you are getting better quality, and for lower cost, then it is an almost inevitable decision.

My criticism is just not being upfront in the press release at the beginning. Trying to sugarcoat the 250 job losses in NZ, by proclaiming all the jobs you are not moving offshore is not helpful. Did you think the media would be fooled and not mention the job losses because they were not in the headline? Look at the Dom Post headline.