Poll saves Swinton's UK call centre

MOST consumers think companies such as the Prudential, Aviva, Lloyds TSB and Abbey, who move their call centres offshore, are more interested in profits than customer service.

Just 2% of those polled think firms set up overseas telephone operations to save money for their customers while 96% believe they are primarily concerned with swelling the bottom line. The statistics, revealed by a survey conducted by YouGov for insurance broker Swinton, make alarming reading for financial services companies hoping to cut costs by moving-abroad while not harming their business. Some 67% of those polled said they would not buy insurance from a company if they knew they were phoning offshore.

The same amount expect problems to be solved more slowly by call centres outside the UK while just over half said the service provided, whether in the UK or abroad, was worse now than it was five to 10 years ago.

As a result of the research, Swinton has decided not to close its Manchester call centre, which employs 100 people. It would prefer to foot the £1.5m annual wage bill rather than pay the £120,000 that employing the same number of people in India might cost.

Marketing director Andrew Jackson said: 'The overall costs of operating in India are probably about 50% cheaper than in the UK, but we have found that the value of having 'local' people improves the conversion rate. We believe our staff are of a higher quality for sales.'