Norwich Union have announced that 150 jobs dealing with household insurance claims will be re-patriated to the UK because of cultural differences.
Apparently these "cultural differences" actually mean "language problems", or so said BBC radio this evening.
Before we get over excited, Norwich Union are still movign another 1000 jobs out to India and will ahve 8,000 people emploed in India rather than the UK by the end of the year.
At least Dell, GE capital, AXA/PPP Healthcare and Powergen have moved all their jobs back to the UK, and deserve to do well on that basis. Certainly I want to support companies that use UK call centres whenever possible. If you want to do this, there is a website that offers advice on using UK only call centres. Click HERE to go to the job-savers website.
6 comments:
Language problems? Blarst me bor, tha's a rum ol' do...
Apparently Indian call centres do not understand problems like haveing a flooded immersion heater ?
Presumably in the same way as when I phoned up Norwich Union and got put through to India and I was told there was no such thing as a staff pension when I asked for the staff pensions department. "Of course there isn't for you" I wanted to say "That is why they sacked a UK worker and you got the job because Indian staff dont get pensions."
There's nothing wrong with outsourcing so long as the service is good.
Sounds like they've had problems so they've brought some back to the UK, which is sensible.
Going by the customer service I've had in the UK sometimes it couldn't get worse ;)
What about if outsorcing means that data covered by UK law is no longer coverered and protected meaning that your personal details are easily distributed to organised crime gans. At least in the UK you have some protection from this, even if it isn't perfect.
Outsourcing has been a way for less able senior executives to try a look dynamic and produce spread sheets and presentations saying they are cutting costs.
I admire those people working in India - and have on a number of times in the last few months dealt with them over web meetings. They work hard and are knowledgeable - but culture and understanding the customer has its part to play.
Also I've travelled to India as an Engineer to provide services in the last few years. Initially I couldn't understand why it made sense to fly me out there - especially given the vast numbers of Engineers India boasts. The answer again came down to culture - I was more willing to ask hard questions ( to which they knew the answers - but just had just not communicated ).
We should not sell ourselves short - our culture has supported high levels on innovation and strong team work. The only problem is there are no cells in the less able senior managers spread sheet to factor that in. ( It is such a shame that this may die with the current generation as the school curriculum has removed science from science education ). What will the legions of Jade Goody s we are producing do for a living in the modern world ?
Oh how I hate foreign call centres! But then again, most call centres are bad enough already. I believe that the only businesses I have had with a higher than satisfactory level of quality telephone support have been Natwest and Cisco/D-Link.
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