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- Newslink Trends-The Global Strategic Perspective
- Juniper Research says digital wallet users to exceed 4.4 billion by 2025, as mobile drives digital payments’ revolution
- Criminals exploit COVID-19 pandemic with rise in scams targeting victims online
- Equifax says Open Banking proving pivotal to pandemic lending
- Consumer confidence in banks, credit card providers and investments remain stable as demand supercharges digital finance says Toluna research
- Mintos says Europeans are starting to embrace investing
- US banks see IT modernisation as a way to improve customer experience
- Risk mitigation in global trade depends on digitisation-Andrew Raymond, CEO, Bolero International comments
- Juniper Research new study says the volume of B2B payments facilitated by non-banks will exceed 53 billion in 2022, from a COVID-related low of 38 billion in 2020
- CMA issues fifth publication over 3 years of the service quality league table of personal and business current account providers
- Barclays says scammers take advantage of COVID-19, cashing in on nations’ uncertainty
- S&P Global report says financial market infrastructure sector's earnings likely to cool off In second half
- Global banking market capitalisation slumps by over 30% amid pandemic says Buyshares research
- Digital wallet spend in Europe & North America to increase by 40% in 2019, finds study
- Juniper forecasts mobile money transactions will exceed 200 billion by 2024
- Banks can save the world from climate change, says former UN climate chief
- Research by NatWest reveals gender divide over attitudes to saving
- Europe’s big bank problem: too much capital is trapped in the US, says Scope
- Later-Life lending market set to almost double in the next 10 years, finds report
- Barclays/Cebr report challenges nation to think differently about wealth
- Fifth of UK investors looking to debt investment, new research reveals
- Regtech will play a more important role in PSD2, says Mitek
- Banks turn to Fintech partnerships to improve customer experience, finds Fraedom
- New industry code to tackle fraud must deliver, says Which?
- New TTF report highlights loss of trust in financial services
- Arxan highlights financial app vulnerability epidemic
- SAS asks whether banks really need to choose between operations and innovation
- Which? raises alarm as almost 1,700 free ATMs become fee-charging
- Financial wellness affects half of peoples’ mental or physical health, finds report
- Study finds traditional financial institutions embrace Fintech disruption
- Grass is greener for environmentally friendly businesses, finds Barclays
- Prospective homeowners would consider a 40-year mortgage to escape renting, finds Santander
- Millennials’ needs are changing the face of banking industry, says new report
- FS is putting consumer data at risk by failing to protect mobile apps, says Arxan
- A lack of belief in their ability holds 28% women back in work, says Cambridge & Counties
- ‘Which?’ reveals Scotland has lost over a third of its bank branches in eight years
- Next downturn unlikely to be as bad as 2008, according to S&P
- FCA reveals findings from first cryptoassets consumer research
- US consumers favour single mobile app for banking and payments
- Banks suffering major IT shutdowns every day, ‘Which?’ reveals
- The US will be a key offshore centre in 2019, says GlobalData
- Debit industry changes markedly in 10 years of the Debit Issuer Study
- UK's ‘Big Five’ face ‘too big to compete’ as small challengers secure stellar returns
- Banks as vulnerable now as before crash, says new study
- Leverage ratio a constant conundrum for European and US banks, says SNL
12th July 2011
Another bank onshores call centre
Trend
Santander UK has become the latest financial institution to return call centres from India to the UK. Three existing call centres in the UK at Glasgow, Leicester and Liverpool have been expanded to handle the traffic from the two Indian call centres. Call handling was originally switched to India in 2003 and returns to this country later this month. Call centre employees have been increased by 500 and now number 2,500 in the UK.
Chief Executive, Ana Botin said: "Improving the service we offer is my top priority. Our customers tell us they prefer our call centres to be in the UK and not offshore. We have listened to the feedback and have acted by re-establishing our call centres back here.
"This is a great example of how we are redefining Santander UK and putting our customers first. This is a major step for us and I am determined that we will do even more to improve the service we offer as I plan further initiatives later this year to build on the progress we are making."
Elsewhere the company said that feedback had indicated that the offshore call centres caused frustration leading to dissatisfaction. It also stated that the move had been planned for many months.
The trend for offshoring was mainly the winning of the short term financial consideration over the long term satisfaction of the customer. In addition the financial savings projected were rarely achieved. The financial services trend to bring back call centres is a combination of some of the following factors:
- 1 Inadequate training and no empowerment off offshore call centre staff leading to the frustration of customers in getting staff to understand the purpose of the call. Many customers complain of the fact that offshore call centre staff cannot resolve issues. Faults with the financial service company in training compounded by rapid turnover of call centre staff.
- 2 Failure to properly integrate call centres. Poor customer service because customers often transferred or referred to wrong department. Internal communications from call centres often sent to wrong units leading to delays in sorting customer issues and the need for the customer to call again.
- 3 Technology communication problems. VoiP over long distances can cause delays on the line and noise on the line often leading to difficulty in hearing what the other person said and talking over each other leading in turn to the need to repeat things often.
-4 Wildly optimistic financial projections of the benefits from offshoring. The estimates factored in the saving in staff and premises costing but failing to include the additional costs from the organisation issues created. Longer call times, more frequent calls because customer has to call back, costs from time spent on additional internal communications, re-work because not done right first time, staff dedicated to co-ordination and training. The failure to consider cross-selling opportunity losses.
- 5 Failure to put customer needs first. Banks that did not offshore gained a significant advantage during this period against those that did.