UK call centres are rubbish: Official

"Flimsy excuses" and "guesswork" are typical of the level of service customers of major name businesses are receiving in the UK from email and telephone enquiries aimed at helpdesks.

The situation reveals an astonishing lack of effective CRM (customer relationship management) which leaves businesses ineffective and unprepared to provide customers with the best service.

The pattern across the whole of Europe is even worse. According to 'mystery shopper' research from BT a shocking 95 per cent of European businesses surveyed were unsure whether an email had been received from a customer when that customer followed up their enquiry with a phone call.

Worse still, customers sending emails and following up with phone calls were often receiving one piece of information from their first communication and a completely difference piece of information from the second.

The findings are a damning indictment on the level of helpdesk and call centre service in Europe and go some way to explaining why companies are now looking to move operations overseas.

One reason commonly given for the failings of UK call centres is the high churn rate of staff and the fact the jobs often rank among the least desirable, meaning competition for places and calibre of candidates is low. This can result highly unmotivated and unhelpful staff.

Sudip Banerjee, president of enterprise solutions at Wipro, believes UK call centres are now mired in the stigma of poor pay and conditions and can no longer attract the necessary quality of staff. "It is not as if people are queuing up to take these jobs," he said. "And they do it in a disinterested manner. They don't see it as a career."

Given Wipro's interests, Banerjee is clearly an advocate of offshoring, but many other businesses are now moving call centre operations to India due to the large numbers of highly trained graduates who will battle for well-paid and sought-after call centre positions, despite fears of a patriotic backlash. The contrast between India and the UK could not be more stark.

Akshaya Bhargava, CEO of Infosys' BPO subsidiary Progeon in India, told silicon.com on a recent visit to the subcontinent: "What you've got to remember is that call centre jobs in the West are not the most attractive jobs you can find. They are staffed by temporary workers, by people in-between jobs, by people on the edge of social security, barely finished high-school and that's the kind of profile you get.

"In India the recruitment rate of any BPO company is somewhere in the region of five per cent. So for every 100 people who apply for jobs you recruit five so you get the best. They are bright, they are excited about working and they're eager to learn. It's a completely different profile."

Despite commissioning the research, some people may say BT still has some way to go in addressing problems with its own customer service. One recent tale of helpdesk woe at the incumbent telco revealed a BT worker telling a man in Wales he should "move to London" if he wanted a life without the serious line problems that were dogging him.