I read this morning that BT is going to cut it’s Indian based operations by 4000 employees and that some of the work will be brought back to the UK. It looks like BT employees affected by recent cut backs in the UK will be filling some of the call centre jobs required.
The Times reports that at least 2000 jobs will be re-patriated to the UK. The reason for the move according to a BT spokesman is to improve customer service, though you do have to wonder whether cost cutting is a far more realistic reason, considering BT’s recent financial losses.
Interestingly this comes at the same time as reading on the Channel 4 website that people in the UK are choosing insurance companies based on whether or not they have UK based Call Centres and English speaking staff. Research commissioned by YouGov reports that ‘78% of consumers consider UK-based call centres an influencing factor when choosing an insurer, preferring to speak to somebody in this country than abroad’ and also reported that 18% of respondents would even pay more for their insurance if their company had UK based call centre staff.
Considering that BT has reduced its property portfolio in recent years, you have to wonder where they will be locating these 2000+ staff… Perhaps they will set up virtual contact centres where staff can work from any location, including home, or maybe have team members disparately located within BT buildings across the UK?
I do feel that this kind of move by organisations to bring back the ‘English-speaking call centre’ has been a long time coming. Cost cutting is all well and good, but actually listening to what customers want is far more beneficial to organisations.
Author: Karen Jones
Tags: BT, call centre, flexible working
