Call centre customer service set to improve?

A new report from analyst firm Datamonitor finds that call centre quality should be on the up

As call centres increase in the Asia-Pacific region along with the growth of the area's indigenous middle class populations, customer service in outsourcing call centre providers, which service western populations, is expected to improve, finds a new report.

This should eventually change barriers to British consumer acceptance to offshoring, recently reported by the National Outsourcing Assoication (NOA). The NOA conducted a survey of 1,000 British consumers and found that 75 per cent were opposed to businesses' offshoring call centres, mainly because they had experienced poor customer service.

A new report from analyst firm Datamonitor predicts that call centres, particularly in India and China, will improve to service the needs of the region's growing middle class populations.

“The growing middle classes in India and China will increase the sophistication on call centre demands,” said, Mona Sultan, customer interactions technology analyst at Datamonitor and author of the report.

For example, as the number of Indian mobile operators grow, the operators will be forced to provide better customer service levels to remain competitive, she said. This will cause them to invest more in call centres in order to differentiate their offerings. The Asia-Pacific populations will eventually take with them new business acumen and experience gained from working in call centres, which service their own populations, to call centres that service populations abroad, said Sultan.