UK financial services companies are wasting money
anddamaging customer relations by offshoring call
centres, according to a study by
Compass Management Consulting.
Rises in personnel costs of up to 15% per annum in countries
such as India are reducing the price advantages of offshore call
centres, according to the study.
“All financial services companies should ask themselves some
simple questions ahead of an offshoring decision: ‘What are the
drivers of efficient call centres and what is the market price for
operating a call centre that helps the business remain or even
become competitive?’," said Simon Scarrott, head of business
development and marketing at Compass.
It is not enough to simply offload problem operations and
inefficient processes to other countries in the hope they will
improve, said Scarrot. The key issue is to what extent savings are
real, sustainable and continue to enhance the consumer experience,
he said.
“In too many cases, service quality is being compromised by an
offshoring decision that fails to deliver the level of savings
anticipated,” said Scarrott.
In addition to the poor perceptions of service that customers
report with offshore contact centres, language difficulties can
also lower productivity and lead to calls lasting up to twice as
long as home-based operations, says the report.
In Compass studies, listening or understanding failures occur in
an average of 4% of calls in onshore call centres.
For offshore call centres, the figure rises to 18% and each one
of these failures can lengthen the call duration by 39% to 105%,
due to misunderstandings and lack of clarity.
These longer call times mean that many
offshore call centres are far less productive than onshore
operations, when measured in business terms such as sales closed
and accounts opened, said Compass.
Compass >>
Brits prefer onshore call centres >>
Financial services saves £4.5bn a year from offshoring
>>
Sommerfield's helpdesk moves to India >>
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