Engaging Indian call centres

I read with great interest your Factfile article “The Hindustan ambassadors” (MW July 10). As a director of a large outbound UK-based call centre, I believe the challenge now for UK call centres is how to work effectively with Asia.

Caroline Parry is right that UK call centres will no longer be able to rest on their laurels because the trend for relocating call centres is unlikely to be reversed. Non-UK call centres will have their part to play in this industry now and in the future.

It is well known that the overall costs of running an India-based call centres are cheaper – but cost is far from the being the main concern behind telemarketing campaigns. Where I believe India works well with UK call centres is in business practice outsourcing, in-bound response handling and order taking.

Personally, I welcome these emerging call centre markets. However, as the Key Note findings suggest, I honestly believe that Indian call centres will never be able to rival outbound UK call centres both in terms of locality and ultimately gross sales, but they certainly do have a part to play in the overall sales and marketing process.

Jon Bartman

Sales director

Chorus Direct (part of the Data Locator Group)

Watford