Powergen shuts India call centres

[RetiredGreyFox]

Energy firm Powergen is to close its Indian call centres, with staff in the UK dealing with customers instead.

It said the move would create 450 new jobs by the end of the year and reduce the number of customer complaints.

Powergen began using call centres in India five years ago citing, like many other businesses, the financial benefits it brought.

But the firm said it was "not prepared to achieve savings at the risk or expense of customer satisfaction".

Customer confidence

"Offshore call centres may have their place for certain industries," said Powergen's managing director, Nick Horler.

"However, we believe that we can best achieve industry-leading customer service by operating solely in the UK.

"When customers contact us they need to be confident that their query will be fully resolved quickly."

The new jobs will be created at the centres in Bedford, Bolton, Leicester, Nottingham and Rayleigh in Essex.

Customers ringing Powergen will now be answered in the UK though calls to customers will continue to be made from India for the rest of 2006.

Powergen is owned by German utility group E.ON.

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5083838.stm

 

[Kol]

Lets hope a few others follow suit!

 

[Andr3w]

yeh!!!

 

[MR_Punk]

Lets hope a few others follow suit!

+44

 

[xander_uk2]

Lets hope a few others follow suit!

 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Read about this in the newspaper today (well, I say newspaper it was the mirror actually ) had been wondering how long it would take before we started seeing the call centres moving back.

Fog

 

[Roughneck]

good hopefully BT and Sky will follow suit

 

[cheets64]

Orange used Indians and trying to spell my english name and address cost me a lot of money.

 

[MrMatteh]

I see lots of companies are using this as advertising

"...we have uk call centres"

 

[AtreuS]

About time. To behonest i dont mind talking to people from india and have no problem understanding them and generally have found them to be helpful and courtious. The REAL problem is that they are not given the ability to actually DO anything about your problem half the time.
They just open a big place with loads of phones and seem to leave em to it. Actually checking systems and things like BT link checkers requires them to be based in the UK ( where we are *doh!* ) and not half a planet away. So the real failure isnt the poor guy/girl on the phone its the rubbish computer system and support they are given.

 

[POB]

good hopefully BT and Sky will follow suit

I'd sooner Sky moved there call centre to India from Scotland. I really have troubles with Scottish accents.

 

[alexakasloth]

Lets hope a few others follow suit!

 

[Loki]

Watch this used as a justification for prices to go up as the labour is more expensive in the UK

 

[Bunka]

Nice one.

It's about time things start to come back our way.

 

[Energize]

Thank god.

 

[Tommy B]

good hopefully BT and Sky will follow suit

BT lmao.

 

[Stellios]

I see lots of companies are using this as advertising

"...we have uk call centres"

Would encourage me to be honest, i hate dealing with indian call centres, especially when it comes to something complex like internet connection faults as it would be easier to talk to a brick wall.

 

[Richdog]

Lets hope a few others follow suit!

HSBC i'm looking at you!

 

[Cyanide]

Watch this used as a justification for prices to go up as the labour is more expensive in the UK

It's not as if EON can't afford it though

 

[robmiller]

Yay, the market regulating itself and doing what the consumer wants, just what those anti-capitalist naysayers claim it cannot do