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Story URL: http://www.silicon.com/financialservices/0,3800010322,39164354,00.htm

eSure brings Indian call centre work back to UK
Manchester staff to take over from Bangalore next year

By Andy McCue

Published: Monday 27 November 2006

Online insurance company eSure will bring its offshore call centre work in India back to the UK from February next year.

eSure started using offshore Indian call centres in 2004 and currently has 100 agents with an unnamed third-party provider in Bangalore and Mumbai.

eSure said it originally moved the work to India as a temporary measure because it was unable to recruit enough staff at its Manchester call centre to cope with the volume of customer calls, and not as a way to save on labour costs.

A spokesman for eSure said even prime time adverts during Coronation Street on ITV couldn't fill the vacancies.

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He told silicon.com: "The pool of people in the Manchester area to fish in reduced dramatically at a time when we were growing dramatically. We had the option to outsource that work or lose the calls but we have never moved a job out to India."

But with headcount at eSure's Manchester call centre now ramping up again and due to reach 600 by January next year, the UK operation will take over the work done by the remaining 100 agents in India by the end of February.

The eSure spokesman admitted there has been some negative feedback from customers using the Indian call centres but said this had nothing to do with the reason for bringing the work back to the UK.

He said: "There are people who don't like talking to Indians and that's unfortunate and that's a problem for the UK. Everything we have had out there has been absolutely fine. We have had an immensely positive experience with very quick and good quality offshore staff."

eSure will have just under 2,000 call centre staff at sites in Glasgow, Manchester and Reigate handling all customer calls once the Indian transition is complete.