OxBowBusiness

Call Centres

I thin what you are about to read about was inevitable: the recall of call centres back to the UK.

Remember there was a major migration by many British businesses to take their call centres to countries like India. This was done Lemming like by companies merely seeking to save some money. My personal opinion is that they did little or no research and clearly had not thought through what they were doing.

One thing that has come to light is that they had not appreciated the potential difficulties of upgrading their phone systems in India ... There is a nice BBC article on this topic here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6353491.stm

I think it's sad that a lot of stress is laid on Brits as racists leading the charge back to home shores. I don't think so: of course, it is difficult to deal with someone whose native language is not your own. However, it is well known that many non native English speakers who do speak English speak it better than we natives. However, what a foreigner often misses out on is the slang and the colloquialisms. Place names and brand names are also pitfalls for the unwary: how does one pronounce Cholmondely, for example; and Bicester and Leicester?

I just wonder what recriminations there might be in the companies that are dragging their call centres back? Will heads roll? Will they finally realise that true costs are not just found by taking expenses away from revenues. There are opportunity costs and so on to take into account too.

Duncan Williamson

posted by Duncan Williamson @ 10:49 AM