[OT] Call centre locations

Have you stopped to consider that comparatively expensive workers in UK call centres may end up costing UK consumers more?

Natwest have a UK call centre in Southampton, Hampshire

They also have 1 or 2 elsewhere in the country.

Tesco have a few in Scotland (RBS i think)

"Comparatively" is double-edged. They may be expensive compared to overseas workers, but by our standards, call centre workers are not exactly highly paid, are they? No other jobs to go to, so it's the dole. They'll get a good bit less on the dole than they did in the job when they had it, but overall the UK consumer pays more because the sum of what the overseas worker gets paid and what the now ex-worker gets on the dole probably exceeds what the ex-worker used to get paid.

So it's bad for the consumer, bad for Britain, good for the company, good for the overseas workers and the countries in which they presumably pay their taxes. It's bad for Britain because buying in labour is an import which is bad for the balance of payments.

Thanks for the information.

And it's surely better to give them jobs than dishing out aid without any return? It's not as if those sort of jobs are sought after here.

Tiddy Ogg.

In that case it would have been better propping up statist companies rather than closing factories, mines, shipyards and dropping people on disability. Despite the added burden there must have been a net gain to the economy in the longrun.

However, I doubt this applies to call centre workers anyway, the churn rate for workers in the UK is ridiculously high anyway, people move on to other jobs in no time.

Good point, you sound like Brown with his swords into ploughshares.

Call centre staff of any flavour seem to cost you more than a letter to the organisation is question these days. I write in almost all cases now.

If a company ever charges you less after shipping jobs abroad please let me know. They tend to just make more profit.

But imagine all those letter-reading centres.

You mean Customer Contact Centres - where they scan the letter in the UK and send the image abroad for action. This happens with one of my insurance polices and at least some of my banking.

Any organisation (UK or off-shore) needs to use "better" staff to read letters from customers than to take calls. They also need "better" staff to write replies. The audit trail is so much better.

I think it is more complex. The churn rate is very variable between the best and worst call centres. The better run call centres realize that improving conditions, providing appropriate breaks and so on increases productivity and reduces staff turnover and associated costs.

Similarly the quality and type of work varies a lot. It makes sense to outsource certain types of jobs (the ones people here aren't prepared to do) - just as it is foolish to outsource others (e.g., directory enquiries). It also makes sense for some companies to outsource and not others (e.g., if you are aiming for quality of service as a differentiator in the market or if you have a valuable image as a local/regional company). Done in the right way outsourcing can benefit us - ISTR that we benefit disproportioantely (for example) from growth in India because of increased demands for our goods and services and from inward investment from India. Also, as countries like India become more wealthy wages rise and their competitive advantage reduces.

We should be punishing companies that provide shoddy services rather than those that outsource in a way that benefits us as consumers or shareholders.

Thom

So its not cheaper to scan the letters in abroad?

If you bothered taking the letters abroad there wouldnt really be any point in scanning them in at all. So it must be cheaper to scan them in the UK and send the images than physically fly the letters over - not forgetting the increased chance of lost items and delays.

Well it might be.

However my bank's CCC is in Leicester. They have to deal with grio credits and cheque's, letters to my local branch and instructions such as "delete direct debit to so and so and call us to confirm".

The first two items seem to stay in the UK. The paying in gets done locally. The letter to my local branch is sent back to the branch as paper overnight - meaning a letter posted first class to my business banker takes an extra day for her to read it. Instructions seem to get scanned, go overseas, are processed by some droid who may or may not call us back to confirm the action.

Surely that's good news for UK shareholders then.

I get the feeling that practically all consumer products are cheaper now in real terms than they were many years ago when they were made in the UK. For example, many domestic electrical appliances can now be bought for the equivalent of a few days average pay, whereas they used to be considered major purchases barely affordable by many people.

Chris

That is the case for products that aren't too expensive to ship.

Sainbury's had a dvd player on sale over the new year for £17.99, that's a lot less than 4 hours at mimum wage.

I bought a dvd player for my daughter 5 years ago for £199.

It's good to have access to dirt cheap consumer stuff. But the quality of a lot of Chinese stuff is absolute crap. I bought a Cheap Chinese copy of a Dremel tool and it was literally so feeble as to be actually useless.

Another downside is that our own industry has been destroyed. If anyone feels that our manufacturing industries deserved it, just think on, the Chinese are moving into food production. I stumbled across the website of an enormous Chinese food production company who produce oranges, orange juice and concentrates. All sized, graded, and quality assured to international standards.

If they do the same to our food production as they've done to our manufacturing, wouldn't that leave us a little bit erm er vulnerable ?

DG

I don't think that's what he had in mind by "domestic electrical appliances", but was thinking more along the lines of fridges, cookers, washing machines, &c