By Lisa Burroughes, 7 May 1999 00:20
NEWS The boom in the UK's call centre industry has come to an end and the next millennium will see its decline, according to The Smith Group, a provider of customer management products. The Group believes the recent decision by Egg - the branch-less banking and insurance arm of the Prudential - to do business exclusively on the Internet highlighted the strategy many call centre-based companies will decide to follow. CEO of The Smith Group, Tom Black, argues: "When the margins are low the cost of the call centre becomes less viable and more companies will turn to the low cost of the Internet. We will probably see some growth of the call centre in the next decade but the boom of the 90s is over. The call centre will be used for high value products." He added the real decline would come with the advent of interactive digital TV. A spokeswoman for Egg said: "Egg has always said that it doesn't believe call centres will become redundant but that they will remain a support mechanism for the Internet." However she added: "Since there is a trend for more low margin products to be sold over the Internet we decided to put our investment there." General manager of Wembley International, Andrew Spencer, agreed that there are certain industries where the Internet will become the primary point of contact rather than the call centre. "There will come a point when the Internet will replace the call centre for booking tickets and getting information on gigs or exhibitions - there are already bands that only sell tickets to gigs online and I think that is likely to get more popular. But that time is at least five years off and in the mean time the call centre will continue to grow."
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