UK Bosses are in danger of letting fear and paranoia stand in the way of business, especially when it comes to call centre cost savings.

The recent announcement that British Telecom (BT) plans to set up two call centres in Bangalore and New Delhi (March 2003) to handle directory enquiries and conferencing work has stirred up corporate xenophobia of epic proportions.

Last October, a report published by direct marketing guru John Watson caused unprecedented levels of dissent and discussion in the marketing press. Entitled 'JWP Outlook. Direct Marketing: the Next Five Years', the report claimed that the UK telemarketing Industry, valued at some £3 billion per annum, would vanish within the next five years. Critics seized upon this statement as validation of their concerns. At the centre of their criticisms is the belief that "cheap" Indian labour (typically an Indian MBA graduate is thought to cost as little as £3000 compared to the average UK call centre salary of £16,000) is not sufficiently "clued up" about Britain, its geography or its culture to offer a quality service.

This is complete twaddle.

As someone who has worked in the UK direct marketing for the past thirteen years, I can say that graduates emerging out of our Universities have no better grasp of the UK's geography than anyone else. One only has to sit in on a typical addressing and data validation training session for evidence. A keen candidate at one of our sessions thought that the Scilly Isles were Scotland and that the Isle of Man was located somewhere between Jersey and Guernsey!

Editor, Charlie McKelvey's assertion in Precision Marketing magazine's 14th March 2003 leader in which he said "Debbie calling from India under the guise of my local council to ask what I thought of local services struck me as somewhat ridiculous" is a highly inflammatory remark. It could be construed as racist. Would Debbie from Dublin, calling with the same question about your local London council, been any different?

As a customer of BT I think a manned call centre where somebody actually ANSWERS the telephone would be a godsend. Having spent twenty minutes on hold only yesterday while trying to speak to BT's Accounts Department shows how frustrating that can be for UK Business. And my email and fax have elicited no response either, demonstrating the lamentable state of BT's customer service.

Interestingly, trying to find the phone number of my local cinema proved equally fruitless last weekend, as I could not recall whether it was an Odeon, ABC or Warner Cinema. As any user of BT's directory enquiries will tell you, the word "cinema" is not detailed enough and my suggestion of using "fuzzy matching" did not even get a weak laugh! Of course, if you cannot give the correct town when ringing directory enquiries then you may as well give up the outset.

The deregulation of directory enquiry services means that BT has to cut its costs and moving call centres to India is eminently sensible. Unions, representing BT workers who are most likely to lose their jobs, are threatening to call strikes. Am I am the only one who thinks this a futile exercise? There is a precedent for Britain to outsource low-paid, repetitive jobs that it cannot fulfil competitively at home. One only needs to look at our textiles, manufacturing, automotive and electronics industries as examples. Despite this, Britain as a nation still had a healthy economy.

INDIAN CALL CENTRES

The fact is that although Indian Call Centres may appear to be a threat in the short term, advances in technology and increasing automation are the major factors in job losses in the last decade. I can readily envisage a time when Directory Enquiries will be a fully automated voice recognition search of a vast database, involving no human interaction other than the caller.

But coming to back to Mr McKelvey, who attests that companies risk "sacrificing their brands on the altar of cost savings" by moving call centres to India. Good grief! My personal experience has been quite the opposite. Dealing with American firm 'Network Solutions' had previously been a nightmare as their west coast location meant the calling "window of opportunity" was about one hour at the end of the business day, usually at a time when no one wanted to pick up the telephone at the other end. Since they set up a call centre in India, however, the improvement has been remarkable. The phones are manned 24/7, the operators speak excellent English and moreover are extremely polite and knowledgeable about the their client's services. In short, it is now a pleasure to deal with them.

Indian companies take great pains to acculturise their staff to their client's country and environment. Apart from providing training, the Indian bureaux also provide services like overseas newspapers, TV and weather reports to the teams working for foreign clients. It would not surprise me if BT's new Indian Directory Services told me that the weather in London was "looking like rain tomorrow" in the future. The call centre staff themselves go to extraordinary lengths to absorb Western culture - from watching soaps to adopting English names - indeed, they have a great thirst for it. Pity then, that despite all of these considerable efforts, most UK businesses are only interested in the cost savings!

IS THE WRITING REALLY ON THE WALL?

It was only a few short years ago that the IT industry was "up in arms", objecting to fast development projects being outsourced to India and the issuing of fast track UK visas for highly qualified software programmers. In the process of trying to preserve over-inflated IT salaries in the UK market, the row got uglier with false claims that foreign programmers were somehow not as good. At that time, astronomical charge- out rates for under qualified IT specialists and the failure of a number of high profile IT projects, meant that bosses started looking to India for cost savings.

And yet, despite the dot.com crash, IT outsourcing to India and the issuing of 13,000 fast track visas, the UK IT industry is still very much alive. What we have seen is a normalisation of the industry: astronomical pay packages have gone and contractors are much more likely to stay with the same project for longer. Projects are also now more focussed on delivering within time and budget ensuring better "value for money" for UK business.

The JWP report suggests that in the next five years, low volume call centres would move in-house, high volume call centres would be outsourced to India or China and that the reminder would form a specialist call centre sector. The report does not highlight, however, the opportunities that exist for outbound telemarketing in support of direct mail, TV and other channels. Nor does it forecast new avenues for customer interaction.

Interestingly, the report states that as Eastern European economies develop, print and mailing houses will also go east, to Romania! I have not yet witnessed a great "call to arms" among printers and mailing houses to revolt against such a move. Fortunately, the report does state that JWP "does not have a unique crystal ball" and that their predictions are best guesses rather than an "exact science".

I suggest that instead of whinging and whining, we in the UK give the Indians a run for their money by offering better quality and greater value for money in building up customer relationships. Let's not forget that the UK has some of the very best advertising and marketing professionals in the world who can help us achieve this.

INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE?

Click here to download the JWP Outlook Report (14/10/2002).
Click here to read the Precision Marketing Magazine article 'Telemarketing to vanish' (18/10/2002).
Click here to read the Precision Marketing Magazine article 'BT's India call centre plan sparks strike threat' (14/03/2003).
Click here to read the Precision Marketing Magazine leader 'Paying the price of cheaper calls' (14/03/2003).
Click here to read the Precision Marketing Magazine article 'Call Centres forced to relocate to India' (21/03/2003).
Click here to read our article 'India Calls Collect' (April 2001)
Click here to read out article 'India banks on more IT Outsourcing' (October 2001).

ARTICLES ABOUT MIGRATION & IMMIGRATION

Click here to read out article 'Migrants make money for the UK' (February 2001).
Click here to read our article 'Jewels in the Crown' (March 2001).
Click here to read our article 'Asian High Fliers get easy route to the UK' (June 2002).
Click here to read our article 'Innovators Immigration Scheme extended' (September 2002).
Click here to read our article 'Party's over for Indian Tech Workers' (September 2002)