Abbey applauded for bringing call centre work back to UK

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 27-Oct-05, 07:00

LONDON – The DMA has welcomed the news that Abbey is to close its Indian call centres and return its customer account enquiries work to the UK.

The Daily Mail reported yesterday that the bank, which moved some work to India in 2003, was responding to customers' unhappiness with the service provided by around 1,000 staff in Bangalore. The Indian operation takes inbound calls regarding customers' bank acounts.

An Abbey spokesman would not confirm nor deny the story, but said the company was reviewing third-party contracts.

The newspaper quoted an Abbey insider as saying: "Given the risk to our reputation of moving the jobs offshore, you want the service to be top notch. If it isn't top notch, then why are you there?"

The Indian call centre operation will be scaled back before being shut down early next year, and the workload transferred to Abbey call centres in Milton Keynes, Teesside and Glasgow.

The news was welcomed by Robert Dirskovski, the DMA's head of interactive media, who hoped it would be the start of a trend back to UK call centres.

"I would like to believe that it's because Abbey now understand that UK call centres are now providing added value. They relate better to customers and they understand the market better," he said.

Steve Morrell, principal analyst at telemarketing industry researcher ContactBabel, said: "People talk about there being a lot of hidden costs associated with offshoring, such as the impact of customer defections.

"It appears that someone has worked out that that the cost gap between India and the UK is nowhere near as big as some thought.

"There always has been dispute about whether offshoring is suitable for contact centres. I don't think that debate is finished yet."

Other companies employing Indian call centres include Aviva, which will have 7,000 Indian staff by 2007, HSBC with 4,500 and Lloyds TSB with 4,000.

Abbey is also making a fresh round of job cuts, estimated at 2,500, in addition to the 4,000 redundancies since its takeover last year by Grupo Santander of Spain.

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