We have all been there - endless hours spent on hold, irritating music blasting in our ears, innumerable call options to listen to and when you do at last get through, for many the final straw has to be speaking to an operator who is based on the other side of the world. Latest research from MINTEL finds that, when it comes to their personal finances, the overwhelming majority of consumers (82%) would rather not speak to someone in an overseas call centre.

Although there are a number of advantages that are commonly associated with moving call centres offshore, such as reducing operating costs and a plentiful supply of highly skilled labour, MINTEL's exclusive consumer research shows that concerns about talking to call centres abroad are running high amongst British adults.

Indeed, as many as four in five (83%) adults are worried about the increased potential for account misunderstandings, while security fears are also a genuine area of concern for three-quarters of consumers (74%) - even though there is actually no evidence that security problems at offshore call centres are any more rife than in their UK counterparts.

"The research unequivocally shows that the vast majority of UK adults are genuinely worried about dealing with overseas call centre agents, which could potentially have a negative impact on an organisations' brand perception and reputation. Although there is as yet little evidence to suggest that consumers are moving providers as a result of bad experiences with overseas call centres, this negative perception should be a real concern for those businesses that have already established offshore operations," comments Todd Davis, senior finance analyst at MINTEL.

Today, many Brits have such a strong dislike of offshore call centres that even the promise of more competitively-priced products was found to hold relatively little sway with customers. Indeed, less than three in ten adults (29%) would be happy for their financial provider to use an overseas call centre, if it meant cheaper products or better rates. What is more, over three-quarters (77%) of Brits would rather deal with companies that only have call centres based in the UK.

"MINTEL's findings clearly suggest that the financial services providers which only use UK-based call centres do have a genuine competitive advantage. Strong promotion of these organisations' UK-based operations should have a positive impact on their future business," explains Todd Davis.

MINTEL estimates that there are now around 17,000 financial services call centre roles being carried out offshore.

Call centres leave Brits holding on
MINTEL's exclusive consumer research shows that the vast majority of adults find contacting financial call centres both here and abroad a truly dissatisfactory experience. The top bugbear is the amount of time spent on hold, waiting for someone to answer (75%), while not being able to understand what the person on the other end of the phone is saying is a major irritation for almost six in ten callers (58%). Around half of adults (48%) find the music gets on their nerves, while the same number (47%) find having to wait for all options to be listed or finding the service they need is not listed a major annoyance. Finally, finding the person who deals with your call does not understand your request (42%) completes the top five frustrations.

"Financial services call centres are largely failing to meet customer expectations. In particular, there is clearly an issue regarding the amount of time that callers have to spend on hold. Although managing the volume of calls during peak periods will always be a challenging task, this is certainly an area that financial services organisations need to concentrate on, if they are to improve their customer satisfaction," explains Todd Davis.

BPP Comment: Thanks to successive governments destroying capital industry, Britain is now reduced to a MacDonald's style service economy. Now they are even taking that from us! Hundreds of thousands are jobs are being lost through globalisation and the Call Centre scandal is just the tipe of the iceberg. Rebuild British industry and end the Call Centre fiasco!