By Andy McCue, 15 June 2006 16:00
NEWS
Powergen is bringing its offshore call centre work back to the UK from India in an attempt to improve customer service and reduce the level of complaints.
The energy company, part of the E.ON group, said this week it is withdrawing all inbound call handling from India and that all customer calls will now be answered by Powergen's own advisers in the UK.
Powergen will also be bringing other call centre activity, including outbound calling and back-office work, back to the UK from India over the next six months.
Around 450 new jobs will be created at E.ON managed call centres in Bedford, Bolton, Leicester, Nottingham and Rayleigh as a result of the work being transferred from India back to the UK.
Powergen has used Indian call centres for five years but MD Nick Horler said customers will get better quality service from UK call centres.
He said in a statement: "When customers contact us they need to be confident that their query will be fully resolved quickly. Although the cost of overseas outsourcing can be low, we're simply not prepared to achieve savings at the risk or expense of customer satisfaction."
Comments
There are 13 comments. Join the discussion
1. Richard Bedo
Here here !
It's about time companies starting putting customer relations and satisfaction before their profits.
I need to contact Dell about a problem with my laptop but am put off by spending 20 minutes on the phone saying things like "pardon ?", "sorry, can you say that again" ......
It is difficult to understand a lot of call centre employees, particularly those with heavy accents on the other end of a phone.
2. anonymous
I sincerely hope that others will learn from this experience and follow the lead. I have had many frustrated moments calling those call centres in India who quite frequently have'nt the clue if your query is not a standard one.
3. anonymous
BRILLIANT news.
UK JOBS for UK people..
I cannot be bothered with trying to get myself understood, just so the person at the other end can quote directly from a script and give me answers I already know. SO, I physically put the phone down as soon as I realise I am not talking to someone not employed in the UK, when talking to a call centre.
I want answers to my problems, not compounded problems because neither party can understand each other.
4. Eric the Disillusioned
It takes guts to admit you've made a mistake and wasted a lot of money and brand value on something that doesn't work.
Well done Powergen.
The strategies and business cases for off-shoring have been too simplistic and have failed to take many significant factors into account. Factors such as intelligibility in communication, awareness of cultural differences, costs rising at astounding rates, resource ownership shifting from trusted UK organisations to fledgeling and unproven overseas ones, and benefits only being realised as a result of focusing on them rather than on cost reduction.
When you apply an integrated risk model to offshoring it doesnt look quite so attractive. When you dont apply such a model then you have to wait 5 years and spend a lot of money to spot whats long been obvious.
5. Suresh Karadia
UK companies should follow the suit and let people of this nation make decesions. We do not have to deal with brainless "we know how" attitude indian call centres and very demeaning for our GREAT COUNTRY. We have nothing in common with them but curry. They are not a poor nation but poor in heart.
Look after our jobs here and on the long run it is beneficial both for the people and our country.
6. anonymous
Good Move
7. Pete Melling
Hope this means improved service - I left Powergen because of extremely poor customer service.
The Indian call centre acted as an outpost of the accounts/billing department - no customer service at all - just wanted money I did'nt owe...!
8. Alistair Thomas
It should be pretty obvious but surely the whole point about the need for customer service is that your customer is already disenfranchised to some degree?
You designed the best system you could and yet, for whatever reason, it has broken down. Maybe there is an awful lot of user stupidity or laziness to read the simplest of instructions. It's more likely that something unforeseen has happened, incorrect assumptions or maybe something's changed.
When things go wrong you want some of your brightest and your best as part of the process. You want to identify what is going wrong, fix it for that customer and then fix the process. You need to be able to understand and relate to your customers and reach out. How likely are you to find that in a foreign country, thousands of miles away? If 'the script' didn't work for the customer in the first place, how likely is it that it will work when the operator has to spell it out? - literally!
I like Dell and not just because I'm pleased with my purchases. I've had minor problems with the delivery of both of the last systems. Both times I quickly got to someone in their Irish support team who was empowered to help. Even though I'm less than a grain of sand in the dessert to Dell, they made me feel special, valued and they'll have my business through rough and smooth so long as their support remains true to my existing experience.
By the same token, I will never buy another product from Watford Electronics ever again. They may be cheap but their offshore call centre failed to come even close to understanding my problem let alone suggesting a solution and the call cost me 25% of the original product purchase price.
9. anonymous
Blame it on the rain!
The story can be pinned as inability of the company to plan and manage the change and you blame it on the Indian Call Centers.
Mate don't forget companies like HSBC, Aviva, Dell and many others are successfully able to reap up benefits of offshore call centers. The sorry state is created by lack of planning and management. Think out of the box in the world of globalisation and try to update yourself as many americans have successfully done.
10. Praval
Readers, my only advice to you is:
try to accept globalisation; be ready and gear yourself up rather than playing the blame game. Because these small incidents cannot stop the growth of $60 billion Indian Offshoring Market. Many companies have successully managed the transition and are reaping excellent benefits from this.
The case of Powergen is a shear case of planning and change management failure rather than problem with the offshore call centers.
My request to silicon.com reporters is try not to cut the edges of the picture and present what they like to be presented.
Face the reality as a challenge rather than crticisim as a way of self-satisfaction.
11. Samuel Hughes
Good points are being made on this issue. However the main justification for offshoring customer contact is financial, which is as a few have mentioned the real benefit of globalisation. Sending application development and back office proccesses to India can demonstrate a high return but this saving is easily eroded when loosing customers. It's important to develop confidence with the customer and not alienate them through simple communication discourse.
Globalisation is defintely here to stay and the growth in the Indian markets is encouraging but by no means is it sustainable. As China reintergrates itself into the global economy it will undercut the growing middle class in India and watch how quickly the major Indian player begin to 'offshore' to China. If cost is really what Globalisation addresses and global skills develop at the current rate for the next ten years companies will be totally dependant on the customer interface as the key difference on which their markets make their choice.
Customers rule, look after them!
12. S.Lala
Hello everyone,
According to me , when a company outsource a job to another company, the employees are given the same training as par with the UK call centers.
Frauds happen everywhere and in every country.In short, Criminal are in every country. Lets come to customer service, I am currently in UK and Powergen customer service is still worse when i speak to UK call center employee, As the problem is with the Billing and administration. If the company is not doing what it promises, then how can the company expects customer excellence by mere customer service department.
Its all team work and every department has to ensure that they perform their best , thats the only way to ensure customer excellence.
Blaming other country for incompentencies is not the solution.
In UK, maximum of the call center employees are school or college dropouts with few of them Drugs addict, on the other hand the minimum qualification to work in call center in India is a University graduate. No doubt, Indians are well educated for this kind of jobs.
Interms of efficiency and Productivity also Indian call center scores ahead and this can be proved that Powergen has outsourced for 5 years in India.
Lastly, Its all about money honey!!!!If Powergen was not achieveing in terms of its expected business, call center in india would be closed very long time back.
I myself has worked for Powergen and other various call centers in UK and the experience speaks for itself.
13. S.Lala
Hello,
I have come across people who are not satsfied with Indian call cneter accent as they have to say ""Pardon" or ""can u repeat it again".
Let me get this right to everyone that Accent exists eveywhere.
Even in UK, there are different typr of Accents which the local people cant understand and they have to use words like "Pardon" or "Can u repeat it again". Imagin a Newcastle (UK) call center speaking to Customer in Scotland (UK) or a Welsh contact cneter speaking to Irish customer.
In fact, the Indian accent is neutral and everyone can understand it which was a plus point in Outsourcing business. Because of neutral accent, USA as well as UK business was outsourced.
This is enough to let that people know who create fuss about accent.