Call centres are 'worst' for service

CALL centres give the poorest service of all UK industries, according to a new survey. The British Standards Institute, which interviewed 2,000 consumers, found 64% of people were dissatisfied with call centres. Builders and estate agents fared almost as badly with 46% and 44%, respectively, naming them worst on the service they provide.

In many cases the perception of poor standards was based on recent personal experience. Almost half of respondents (46%) had experienced a poor quality of service from call centres, with one in every five having had a similarly bad experience from banks and financial institutions (21%), utility companies (21%) and mobile phone operators (20%).

Call centres have boomed in recent years as firms move away from expensive face-to-face services and try to improve services to customers, for instance, by offering longer opening hours. Around 800,000 people are employed in UK call centres - around 3% of all workers.

But long waits in electronic phone systems have infuriated some customers. A recent study from Citizens Advice Bureaux found 97% of people cringed at the thought of having to dial a call centre number. Callers complained of being left on hold for too long and unfriendly and unhelpful staff.

More recently, an increasing number of call centres have been outsourced to India, where the workforce is relatively well educated and English is widely spoken. Last week, insurer Royal & Sun Alliance became the latest firm to announce plans. It is transfering more than 1,100 jobs to Bangalore.

The exodus has sparked a debate about how outsourcing call centres abroad impacts on customer service.

Research firm ContactBabel handed a report to the Department of Trade and Industry in January which suggested that frustrated call centre callers end up hanging on the phone up to 70% longer when calling India than when calling the UK.

However, companies that have outsourced operations to the sub-Continent claim the workforce are highly skilled.

The BSI's research also found consumers were keen to see more responsible behaviour amongst food manufacturers and retailers, with nearly three-quarters (72%) finding labelling and nutritional information on food or drink products misleading. 92% of respondents would support moves to standardise labelling and representation of nutritional information on products.

The BSI was promoting today's World Standards Day in an attempt to raise awareness of service levels.

'BSI is working closely with many of these sectors who are anxious to improve their standards to meet the expectations of their customers,' said Mike Low, director of British Standards.

Sectors that UK Consumers
believe to have low standards