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Today Esure announced that they are ending their contracts with their out-sourcing centres in India.

I'm not sure if this is a direct result of much of the constant agnst amongst the UK based employees. 

Things haven't been great since Esure moved work to India, too many problems caused by the fact the staff just don't know the job.  Language barriers and also the fact that customers are continuously complaining and overseas agents are making silly mistakes, although I have no doubt that the company made great savings when the insurance market hit a bit of a troft.   Long term though I feel  that this was going to cost more as we have recently seen a trend where by we have been awarding customers compensation and writing off huge ammounts of money due to advisor error corrections.

I feel that Esure along with other UK companies including Abbey and Direct Line have taken a step in the right direction and I hope many other companies follow suite.  Unfortunately I don't see many more companies putting customers wishes before profits.

We live in hope.

I didn't actually realise Abbey had gone down this route, but am very pleased to hear it.  I gave up telephoning them a long time ago after a string of very frustrating telephone conversations with the Indian call centre where I basically ended up telling them what they had to do!  The service before it was outsourced was very good, so hopefully things will get back on track.  Which reminds me, I really must do something about those bank charges....

I absolutely detest foriegn call centres

If the customers' wishes were that strong then they'd have no customers to profit from...

Well many will view this with enthusiasm, the Call Centres are returning to the UK, & it's easy to understand why, but hold your horses.

Here's a little initiative test for you.

You want to speak to the really rather excellent Travelodge in Feltham, Middx, where you are, let's assume, booked to stay tonight, but are going to arrive late. It's a new one, opened a few weeks ago. You don't have the number, & are travelling, so you decide to ring Travelodge's Central Number to seek the number of their Feltham Hotel.

The Travelodge Central Inquiry & Reservation Number is 0870 085 0950.

Off you go, give that a try. Oh, & give my love to Lisa.

These centers are so well marketed though its hard to see their demise happening all too soon even after the recent anger over Indian staff selling details to be used for Identity theft purposes.

It does pose an interesting question however, if the Indian outsourcing market lost its credibility entirely would the American companies that invested so heavily bring back the outsourced work? We already see it happening here.

 

...Travelodge featured on Watchdog last night.....they(like airlines) overbook, so even if you've paid and have a confirmed booking... you arrive late and the hotel is full....TOUGH!!!...enjoy the car park ;D

I detest having to call 'call centers' wherever they might be. In my experience (limited thankfully) it makes little difference whether they're UK based or not. That said, I've found the 'Indian' staff A LOT less rude despite being equally incompetent as their UK peers.

...BUT...have you tried to get the telephone number from the Automated Call Centre?.....

Bring back foreign Call Centres!

Top Post!

0870 191 1819

xx

I have given up with them tbh, i dunno if thats the idea. If i get overcharged £10 for something for example i can't be bothered to go through all the hassle to get it back

Flushy's post has reminded me of another company that needs some bad press - datakits. co.uk.  Don't use them.  On 23 September I placed an order with them for a replacement phone charger - total cost inc deliver just over a tenner.  I get an email back a couple of days later saying it's been dispatched - so far, so good.  It finally turns up a week later, but that's probably more to do with the post office to be fair.  Anyway, out it comes of the packaging and I plug in my phone to charge it up, but it doesn't work :(  I check their website to find out about returns and replacements, but says not to return anything without first getting a reference number, and giving an email address.  So, I email them, and get an automated reply saying they aim to respond within 48 hours.  5 days later, still no response so I send another.  Same automated reply and no reply to either original or chasing email over next 3 days.  I sent a further email about 2 weeks ago saying I've had to buy a replacement elsewhere and now want a refund - can I please have a return number?  Still nothing other than the automated acknowledgement.   They do have details on their website of how to complain, but you can't do that buy phone or email - has to be in writing. My printer's playing up so not been able to print off the emails and send them, but I will.  I'm not going to contribute £10 to their shoddy business even if it ends up costing me more to get it back  :tikay:

Claire, ask your bank to reverse the transaction and then get a friend to witness you posting it back to them.

Having worked in many call centres and worked for companies who outsource much of their work to call centres I'd take humbrage to that remark.  I am sure there are incompetent staff in call centres but lets not lable them all with the same brush.

I think the majority with most of the call centres is the customers, in general in my experience people call into a call centre and don't really know what they want.  Instead they try and blame everything on big bad company and expect the staff to be psychic

Gary you took umbrage to a generalisation then continue to do the very same thing  ;goodvevil;

As for the quality comparison, there have been independent studies, polls and so on conducted to find out not only the attitude of the general public but also the quality of work completed home and abroad, the domestic Centers whilst ahead were only ahead marginally.

I still believe we should keep the simple jobs in this country as opposed to shipping them off abroad, we have people in this country currently on the unemployment line that can be retrained to successfully fill these positions.

I didn't mean to cause offense and I did try to qualify my statement by saying I had 'limited experience'.

I wasn't tarring everyone with the same brush. I'm simply stating that when I've had to contact call centres I've all too often found myself in the hands of rude, unhelpful and not too bright individuals and that given the choice I'd take an incompetent 'foreigner' over an incompetent 'Brit' as to date the 'foreigners' have NEVER talked down to me or been down right rude!

Like I've said before, customer service is a skilled job and takes motivated people of high ability to be done well which is why the dole queue isn't the first place I'd be looking to fill any gaps. If I was on the dole I'd be wanting to get a job that suits my skills rather than be pushed into a job that many think 'anyone' can do when this clearly isn't the case.

Its cool mate you don't have to explain yourself in truth I probably agree with you I just had a bad day where I had to deal with a few complaints from folk who had similar sentiments when I managed to listen to the calls it turned out to be a nonsense and 3 punters telling blatant lies, one of the ones i dealt with even had some very choice and colourful words about "you jocks"  :D

Whilst I see your point about forcing people in to jobs they don't want to do, some people are looking for jobs that simply are not there anymore, hence the retraining, not all call centers are customer service based roles, some are investigatory, some are sales and so on.  Whilst I do not condone imposing a job on the workless i do condone the improvement of skill sets and the expansion of available choices, hence the reason for the retraining.

Good points well made!


Cheers! BTW there's nowt wrong with 'you jocks' (foreigners...lol) seeing as my mother's from Ayr! 

Anyone who is physically fit can get a job in this country.

As for the call centre, at least if its in this country it will be a quicker call as i don't have to repeat myself 14 times because he cant understand my accent.

Eh???

ah yes...,the basic misunderstanding about call centres. To be honest I love reading these posts.
I have been in management in call centres for years (before I moved into consultancy) and for some rason some people fail to see the actual problem with them.

Call centres are regarded as cost-only to most businesses. This especially goes for the Customer Service part of a call-centre.
That's why you see most companies moving towards outsourcing their customer service to "specialist" companies (like the ones in India, RHL in Glasgow and that dump in Motherwell.)

This means that all the mother companies actually do is look at the cost from then on. they have very little to no involvement in the Customer service part of their business anymore.
The outsourcing companies don't actually care all that much about the customers as it is not "their" business (after all, they don't lose money due to poor customer service).
Outsourcing companies are hardly ever represented in meetings from their clients to discuss improvement to Customer Service. This means that a company that doesn't deal with customer service now decides on how someone else should deal with it, when they themselves have very little idea about what the issues are.

Real customer Service people, who are good at their job are always hard to find. They ussually get pretty poor pay (outsourcing companies pay rubbish) and if you want professionals you have to pay for it. It takes a very special sort of person (some would say sick in the head) to listen to 200 complaints a day and not get ticked off. Paying 5.50 an hour doesn't get you those people (in my team in IBM, in part thanks to out of hours bonusses, my agents made more then the team leaders of other teams...I only hired the best from within IBM) and Lord knows outsourcing companies only care about their cost/profit margin.


Customer don't vote with their feet, no matter what you might believe. How long have you had you account with the same bank even though they are a pain in the arse? Have you actually switched your insurance policy? And the companies everyone complains about (BT, SKY, NTL, Scottish gas/power etc.) essentially have a monopoly on the market...you can't go to anyone else but SKY or NTL for your television packages, so what do they care?

In IT (I used to work for IBM) a lot of focus was placed on Customer Service when Lou Gerstner took over. IBM doesn't give a crap that you buy it's computers..it cares about you buying their Service Agreements. (especially companies). Sure they might be a bit more expensive BUT ring IBM and see what happens? Calls answered with 10-20 seconds, engineer out ASAP. Real problems fixed within 4-8 hours. That's customer service. And that's also why IBM is the nr1 for business support these days (they were just about stone last before Gerstner decided to change it)

In Banking and insurance in Holland (when I did consultancy for an insurance firm) again, Calls answered with 20 seconds problems dealt with ASAP. The reason the banks there have to be that customer focussed is because we actually have competition between banks. You don't have that here, everything is agreed between them. Most banks are merging with eachother or have other economic ties that are unhealthy for customers. And as long as everyone in the industry does it the customers can't do anything about it (actually they will just accept it as "the way it goes")

The problem isn't that a call center is in India, the problem is that the Customer Service is outsourced, this creates a gap between the company you buy a product from and yourself.
Bringing call centers back to the UK sounds like a great idea but it's not the solution to your problems (even though the daily mail tells you it is). If you were to only deal with companies who do in-house customer service you'll ussually be much better off.

There is no doubt that the people in India are, overall, MUCH more caring about their customers then the ones in the UK. They are also MUCH better educated (people with PHD's actually answer the phone), sure they might have the occasional problem with your accent if it's very strong...but so would someone from the other side of the UK. the reason for them being, potentially, better then agents in the UK is because the pay (relatively to the UK) attracts a better quality of staff. (like I said 5.50-6.50 an hour doesn't get you the best in any business on any level)

If companies were to keep a closer eye on their customer service (or keep it in-house but the dept. in India)a nd train the staff themselves I just about guarantee you call centres in India would be celebrated by everyone who doesn't read the daily mail and thinks the foreigners are stealing the jobs..



end rant.

as usual  :goodpost:

greta post  - cuts to the thrust

the company is to blame not the call centre...they hire them , they pay them, they could if they wanted challenge the service levels or god forbid take the service back in house....but hell that would mean being accountable and we cant have that..

i bank with rbs..or natwest...they are poor basically are a selling service and are much of a muchness ...i stay with them. why?

1. i have it on file that they do not call me ..ever...they do not write to me ...ever.
2. if they break that its 50 quid a time in my hip pocket for them doing it....i`m 150 quid up at the moment
3. they have a branch...no privacy i hear you cry...true but when i go in i ask for a room every time and get it...privacy. So if i have a problem i dont end up speaking to a call centre i walk in and get a person...or i can phone the branch and get a numpty...

i keep it nice and personal and if they ever decided to go the call centre route i`d be off....call centres are the waiting room of life ...why bother

how did you get that agreement?

Byron,
 I had been getting pain in the arse marketing from rbs and had a fair bit of time wasted with "account reviews" and nusiance calls disguised as customer care
It has been ongoing for about year and a half. basically the last straw was RBS use a letter which they send . The letter gives it "can you contact us as a matter of urgency we have been trying to contact you" ...which is a scare letter. You phone them up to find out it is a marketing tool to get you to go in for a review...which is trying to sell to you. They had not contacted or attempted to contact me at all...they had e mail, mobile, work and home tel numbers to do so.

I went Tonto on them at the time and accused them of invading my privacy and marketing in such a way that it could cause alarm to the elderly etc in receiving such a letter.
 I stated that i wanted it on file in my account notes that i was never to be contacted and that any such instance would result in a formal complaint for which i would expect recompense for time wasted and invasion of privacy.

they have broken this 3 times, 3 times i have penned an epistle already prewritten and 3 times i have had the said cash.

i havent had a call in a while...

BT just this minute telephoned me to try and sell me a Broadband package (I think).
The gentleman on the other end of the line was clearly Indian.
I AM interested in changing over as it happens (The Hoff's company is bloody useless), but in all honestly I couldn't understand a word the gentleman was saying.
Bottom line, language breakdown, no resolution.