WHATS THE ROLE OF CALL CENTRE?

1.1 Introduction

“John Riordan, vice-president of Arise International, said it was looking for at least 1,000 new workers across the UK but there was an immediate need for 300 in Leeds. 300 to 1000 jobs could be created in Leeds – in a “virtual call centre”. As, US-based Company Solutions plans to take on at least 1,000 workers in the UK this year, and wants at least 300 to be in Leeds”. Likewise, there are some other companies that are in the process of consideration of establishing there call centres in Leeds which is developing as a business hub for customer centric industries.

Leeds was targeted because of the strong customer service culture in the North and added: “There’s a trustworthy nature to the northern accent. That’s been tapped into by the call-centre industry for many years and it's an accent that travels well throughout the UK.” (Call Centre focus online 2009).

There are many recent reports that indicate some interesting findings about the call centre industry in United Kingdom and it shows some potential indications about the need of more research into this aspect. So in other words, it is not only the recession that is making news, there are also some potential debates going on call centre industry and the way it is converting into a mature industry. (Musico, 2009)

Fig 1.

Analysis of the Changes in the Structure of the Call Centre Industry, 2004-2008

(Number of Establishments and Businesses)

Year	Establishments	% Change	Business	% Change
2004	235	+114%	155	+107%
2005	390	+66%	250	+61%
2006	515	+32%	320	+28%
2007	805	+56%	375	+17%
2008	900	+12%	490	+31%

Source : Mintel (2009)

“Both the number of establishments and businesses in the call centre industry has increased significantly between 2004 and 2008. In the latter year, the number of establishments increased by 12% to 900, while the number of businesses increased by a strong 31% to 490. The average number of establishments to businesses was 1.8 in 2008 compared with 1.5 in 2004, suggesting that an increasing number of businesses operate more than one establishment.” – Mintel 2009

This is going to be a tough year for most of the business and economy of countries across the globe as the world is facing credit crunch. Most of the British companies are freezing their employee’s bonuses, salaries, or planning to cut the incentives in order to survive the difficult situation of recession.

The recession has an adverse effect on stock market due to which many companies had to reduce the corporate valuations, struggling to execute the companies’ ability. Recent recession posed new challenges for companies around the world about the value creation and how to retain the customers. Even the large companies are in difficult situation to get finance from the banks to execute the business operation. (Prosser, 2009)

During the last recession in 2001-2002, it was realised by the marketing executives that the call centre is the most effective medium of customer interaction, as the call centre business is in constant touch with customers which provides the company with valuable information’s such as customer demand, establishment of rapport building, effective service, customer satisfaction. Thus, call centre have gained an acknowledgement from management’s perception of creating values to the business (Fluss, 2009).

The modern economy is mostly based on the service industries, rather than the manufacturing based firms. The evolution of this economic trend is a reflex of the introduction of new technologies in the production freeing a large amount of the workforce to the service industry. In this context, new businesses based on service providing have emerged and grew at important rates, leading to the popularity they have achieved today. Within this wave of a more ‘modern’ form of business is included the development of the call centre industry, representing, nowadays, a source of wealth to most developed economies (Prosser 2009)