WILL CALL CENTRES COME HOME?
Largely driven by the need to reduce costs, UK companies – or certainly those involved in customer-facing activities – have been removing their contact centre operations from the British mainland and re-locating them abroad, typically to places like India. It’s a trend that began in the mid-1990s and is now commonly perceived as standard business practice by industry and consumers.
But has the rush to set up contact centres overseas now peaked? Are we beginning to see companies become less hasty to outsource their call centres in foreign climes?
The answer, it appears, could well be yes.
Last year, for example, a number of big British firms announced they would be bringing their call centres back to the UK including names like Powergen and esure. Indeed, some companies, for example Nat West, have started to use their UK-only call centre policies as a marketing tool, highlighting their domestic-based call centres in advertising campaigns.
FINANCIALLY PRUDENT
It seems there are a number of factors driving this change of strategic direction. In particular there is the commercial battleground of cost reductions versus increasingly demanding customers.
"Businesses continue to take their call centres abroad because operationally it’s seen as financially prudent to do so." says Gordon Cannon, Senior Market Development Manager in BT Wholesale. "But end-customers today have increasingly sophisticated and specialised enquiries. There are still too many people reporting bad experiences when they call customer services abroad. These customers vote with their feet. What’s the point of making a saving on one hand but losing customers on the other? It’s a dilemma that more and more businesses are having to consider earnestly."
THE COST v SERVICE DEBATE
As has been predicted by BT, more and more businesses are turning to ‘homeshoring’ as a solution to the ‘costs versus service’ conflict. Homeshoring refers to the deployment of homeworkers as call centre agents. While the rising popularity of VoIP-based networks and broadband make this ‘agent anywhere’ concept an economically viable option (i.e. supporting the drive towards reducing costs) – the call centre agents themselves are more likely to be experts on particular service issues, helping meet the needs of customers and improve satisfaction levels.
"The beauty of homeshoring is that a company’s call centre agents can be based more or less anywhere – Bangalore, Budapest or Basildon," says Gordon Cannon. "And because they can be based at home, it makes it easier and less costly for companies to recruit staff as, for instance, the agents don’t need to live within commutable distance of a particular call centre."
WHAT ABOUT COMMUNICATIONS PROVIDERS?
"Communications Providers will be very familiar with the need to balance cost reductions with high quality customer service," adds Gordon. "That’s why I’d expect homeshoring to be something they will be considering strategically as a way of getting the equilibrium right. Similarly, I’d expect them to be looking at opting for a hosted contact centre solutions such as BT’s Next Generation Contact Centre (NGCC) as a way of boosting customer satisfaction levels through empowered and dedicated agents, while keeping costs under control."
While places like India will undoubtedly remain an attractive locations for call centre operations for many years to come, technology is enabling many organisations to re-think how and where they set up their contact centres. In particular, for Communications Providers, BT Wholesale’s NGGC and the possibilities created by homeshored contact centres are likely to make a significant impact on their location strategies for years to come.
Time for the call centre to come home? Perhaps.