Call centres
Earlier this month a US technology company decided to close its office in Bangalore and move it back to California because wage inflation made the economics unviable. I am looking forward to the day when call centres for UK companies move back here. It is most annoying not to be able to telephone a bank branch without having to speak to some individual in India first. The time wasted and souring of customer relations must almost outweigh the cost benefits. I was told by a man in Bombay that it is no longer possible to call a local branch of Barclays in the UK. I do not bank there but find it hard to believe that this is really true. Yesterday I rang to change the address on a store card and the automated service gave me various options, including one for notifying a change in address which I pressed. The call was transferred to India and I was first
asked the reason for my call (so much for the option service) and then transferred back to the UK. Such things are sent to try me and succeed in so doing.
posted by Whispering Walls at 1:12 pm
6 Comments:
I think you mean Mumbai ??
Hmm.. I share your frustration with automated or voice response phone systems. But there are some poor ones based in the UK - it has little to do with where they are domiciled. In fact I would often rather speak to the polite and well educated people in the Indian sub continent than some illiterate sub-educated imbecile churned out by the schools in this country.
The fact is you get what you pay for in life - most of the people who are quite happy to whinge about service are the least willing to pay any charges. So should we be surprised if the insurance and financial services companies try to cut their cost base ?
You could try moving to South Africa where no doubt it is possible to get a personal service from the Barclays branch there - but you would end up paying the equivalent of £ 300 a year in bank charges.
That said, I agree that the savings are often illusory when the risks and impact on customer goodwill are considered, and I know of one bank that are moving most of the 'calls' work back to Britain, although the 'back-office' processing is still out in Bangalore and Hyderabad.
Finally, I would make the point that often when one follows up the complaint of a customer about the accent of a person on the other end of the phone, when investigated, it turns out to be someone based in Glasgow or the North of England.
You could also try cutting up the cards of people who don't give you the service you require. Far more effective, and less stressful, than complaining and they will get the message very quickly when customer retention becomes an issue.
Thank you for your helpful comments - cutting up cards sounds excellent therapy. I'm going to get my final rant on this subject out of my system: calling the Inland Revenue makes my blood boil. I've had to speak to them regarding my late mother's tax affairs and have been passed round about five offices in Scotland, holding for at least 5 minutes to get through to each one, being told contradictory advice (yes, we must pay her first half estimated bill for this year and no, we don't need to pay anything as it will all be settled in the probate) and they still send bills with the interest clocking up which my father thinks we should pay just to remove the stress of it. To my mind, it's bullying by the state.
Tax - hmm.. now there's a topic on which almost everyone has a tale of woe. The tax credit system seems almost designed to cause stress, anxiety and depression [which combined make you 'SAD'..].
Things have not been helped by the recent merger between the 'old' Inland Revenue and the 'old' Customs and Excise. The old 'Customs' boys were always a little bit bastardly since many of their 'customers' were borderline criminals anyway. However it is one thing to want to impound someone's motor launch because they have been smuggling and owe huge amounts of VAT on a carousel fraud. People who have informed the 'Revenue' of a change of circumstance but have failed to spot that the Tax People have lost this is quite another.
Having had some experience of Process Design, and trying to simplify routines, only to then watch the whole lot later be made more complicated again by introducing 'handoffs' to third parties / outsourcing and so on is very frustrating.
I don't have any easy answers - but I can't help thinking that trying to work for a living probably is no help at all. There's an excellent book by Polly Ghazi called 'Downshifting' which will help you get out of the rat race and set up as a goat farmer in Aberystwyth, if that is your wont..
Failing that we could always get a 'Slow Boat to Sicily' and turn up on Welshcakes' doorstep and ask her to rustle up one of her fine Italian suppers..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/bombay-railway.shtml
Not sure everyone has got the hang of the 'Mumbai' thing judging by this documentary.. I suspect the locals will just say 'I'm going into town..'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6897347.stm
And this 'tax credit' story may also confirm your opinion of the 'R&C'..
You may have noticed that the most sucessful call centre businesses now advertise themselves as " UK call centres only" eg Direct Line.
M&S have already switched back.
And the companies with the worst service records all use overseas centres ( viz Norwich Union)
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