03-03-2007, 02:48 PM
Don't know that this is <i>meant</i> to be a BPO backlash against India, but it will affect India:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Lloyds closes Indian call centres</b>
UK's biggest provider of current accounts makes major U-turn. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2025663,00.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Passage from India: bank switches its customer calls back to UK</b>
· Lloyds TSB union hails reversal as 'victory'
· Current account holders can ring local branch
Jill Treanor
Saturday March 3, 2007
The Guardian
Lloyds TSB, the UK's biggest provider of current accounts, is bowing to customer demands and moving calls back to the UK from a service centre in India.
The bank will even allow all of its current account customers to ring their local branches instead of a call centre in India which unions claim is unpopular.
This marks a U-turn for the bank which has routed its calls through India since 2004.
By allowing customers to call branches directly, Lloyds is also beginning to unravel a policy which began in 1994 when it opened its first call centre.
In the mid-1990s all the leading banks were opening call centres. The idea was to give customers 24-hour access to their account details beyond usual banking hours.
Eventually it meant that customers were increasingly discouraged and even prevented from calling branches directly. At the height of the dotcom boom there were even predictions that bank branches would become redundant, but this trend has been reversed of late.
Only the Royal Bank of Scotland, which owns NatWest, has continued to allow customers to call their branches directly and has advertised this relentlessly. It now appears that other banks are letting customers call their branches directly.
Barclays, which has 11.5m current accounts, is looking at ways to do this while HBOS, owner of Halifax and Bank of Scotland, is in the process of rolling out a facility for its 5 million customers to call branches.
The Lloyds TSB in-house union, the Lloyds TSB Group union, claimed that more than 400,000 Lloyds TSB customers had signed a petition saying they were opposed to having their financial arrangements handled abroad, although the bank insisted this was not the reason for the reversal.
The Lloyds TSB Mumbai call centre opened in 2004 and at its peak employed 700 staff. When it was opened, Lloyds shut a call centre in Newcastle with the loss of 968 jobs.
Steve Tatlow, assistant general secretary of the union, said: "This is a victory for common sense. Lloyds TSB's reputation has been seriously damaged because of customer dissatisfaction with having to deal with the India call centre, with customers and staff unable to understand each other."
Lloyds TSB has piloted the new scheme with 42 branches and will roll it out across 350 branches from March 7. The rest of its 2,000-strong network will be included from the start of April.
The bank's central centres take 2.25m calls a month and the bank insists only 5% of calls need to be directed to branches.
Sally Jones-Evans, managing director, telephone banking of Lloyds TSB, argued that it was changing its policy because of the introduction of an automated voice-recognition answering service last year, which had cut the number of queries to its call centres by 26% - considerably more than the 8% it had expected.
When the bank's 10 call centres in the UK were busy, customers were put through to an operation in Mumbai. The bank argues this overflow is no longer necessary.
Ms Jones-Evans indicated that the bank was unlikely to go on a recruitment drive as she insisted the change was a result of the use of the automated answering service.
When customers ring a central phone number they will be able to ask for their branch phone number and queries to the central number will be handled only by one of the bank's 10 service centres in the UK. Rivals suggested the change would cost Lloyds up to £30m although the bank would not comment any cost involved.
<b>Called to account</b>
<b>Barclays 11.5m current account holders</b>
Call centres in UK or India. Some customers can obtain mobile number of branch manager
<b>Lloyds TSB 13.5m</b>
From April, customers can ring branch directly or call centre in UK
<b>RBoS/NatWest 13.5m</b>
Customers able to call branch directly. No call centres overseas
<b>HSBC 8.5m </b>
50-50 chance of reaching UK call centre or overseas centre. No direct number for branches<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Lloyds closes Indian call centres</b>
UK's biggest provider of current accounts makes major U-turn. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2025663,00.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Passage from India: bank switches its customer calls back to UK</b>
· Lloyds TSB union hails reversal as 'victory'
· Current account holders can ring local branch
Jill Treanor
Saturday March 3, 2007
The Guardian
Lloyds TSB, the UK's biggest provider of current accounts, is bowing to customer demands and moving calls back to the UK from a service centre in India.
The bank will even allow all of its current account customers to ring their local branches instead of a call centre in India which unions claim is unpopular.
This marks a U-turn for the bank which has routed its calls through India since 2004.
By allowing customers to call branches directly, Lloyds is also beginning to unravel a policy which began in 1994 when it opened its first call centre.
In the mid-1990s all the leading banks were opening call centres. The idea was to give customers 24-hour access to their account details beyond usual banking hours.
Eventually it meant that customers were increasingly discouraged and even prevented from calling branches directly. At the height of the dotcom boom there were even predictions that bank branches would become redundant, but this trend has been reversed of late.
Only the Royal Bank of Scotland, which owns NatWest, has continued to allow customers to call their branches directly and has advertised this relentlessly. It now appears that other banks are letting customers call their branches directly.
Barclays, which has 11.5m current accounts, is looking at ways to do this while HBOS, owner of Halifax and Bank of Scotland, is in the process of rolling out a facility for its 5 million customers to call branches.
The Lloyds TSB in-house union, the Lloyds TSB Group union, claimed that more than 400,000 Lloyds TSB customers had signed a petition saying they were opposed to having their financial arrangements handled abroad, although the bank insisted this was not the reason for the reversal.
The Lloyds TSB Mumbai call centre opened in 2004 and at its peak employed 700 staff. When it was opened, Lloyds shut a call centre in Newcastle with the loss of 968 jobs.
Steve Tatlow, assistant general secretary of the union, said: "This is a victory for common sense. Lloyds TSB's reputation has been seriously damaged because of customer dissatisfaction with having to deal with the India call centre, with customers and staff unable to understand each other."
Lloyds TSB has piloted the new scheme with 42 branches and will roll it out across 350 branches from March 7. The rest of its 2,000-strong network will be included from the start of April.
The bank's central centres take 2.25m calls a month and the bank insists only 5% of calls need to be directed to branches.
Sally Jones-Evans, managing director, telephone banking of Lloyds TSB, argued that it was changing its policy because of the introduction of an automated voice-recognition answering service last year, which had cut the number of queries to its call centres by 26% - considerably more than the 8% it had expected.
When the bank's 10 call centres in the UK were busy, customers were put through to an operation in Mumbai. The bank argues this overflow is no longer necessary.
Ms Jones-Evans indicated that the bank was unlikely to go on a recruitment drive as she insisted the change was a result of the use of the automated answering service.
When customers ring a central phone number they will be able to ask for their branch phone number and queries to the central number will be handled only by one of the bank's 10 service centres in the UK. Rivals suggested the change would cost Lloyds up to £30m although the bank would not comment any cost involved.
<b>Called to account</b>
<b>Barclays 11.5m current account holders</b>
Call centres in UK or India. Some customers can obtain mobile number of branch manager
<b>Lloyds TSB 13.5m</b>
From April, customers can ring branch directly or call centre in UK
<b>RBoS/NatWest 13.5m</b>
Customers able to call branch directly. No call centres overseas
<b>HSBC 8.5m </b>
50-50 chance of reaching UK call centre or overseas centre. No direct number for branches<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->