HSBC creates 250 UK call centre jobs as offshore declines

It's an isolated consumer experience, rather than trendspotting but... I recently dealt with Admiral Insurance - the UK insurance company coincidentally mentioned in this article - I called late in the evening and got put through to a US-based call centre. I had a complicated, time consuming issue to resolve but it was a great 'consumer experience'. No language or understanding issues. The CSR exuded the best of US service culture.

Is the US considered a viable offshoring destination in these decisions? Presumably costs wouldn't compare to India (yet), but if service quality is an important factor...

Hi Steve,

I think that's a really intesting example and thank you for providing it. To me it highlights two things, firstly the importance of customer experience and secondly that labour cost is not the be all and end all of the contact centre business. A good experience means not only that you're likely to do business with them again (& they've saved on customer acquisition costs) but we're also writing about them and publicising it.

I think labour arbitrage is probably going to decline as a reason for offshore anyway. It's likely to be less atractive in dollar terms as the dollar weakens and India becomes more expensive but it also is now recognised as not addressing the problem in the first place. 

Interested to hear as well that Admiral are using a 'follow the sun' model for the contact centre, previously that's only been an option for the very largest firms.

Best wishes,

Alex