Despite customers of Abbey wanting the company's servicing staff to stay in the UK, 600 jobs are off to India. This could result in customer services and the billing department jobs no longer being located in the UK.
Following a survey of customers, only 2% said they would be happy having their banking serviced by staff in an overseas call centre. The move adds to 400 jobs already done away with in the UK and will allegedly assist in the reduction of operating costs by £260bn.
Our View
The amount of companies moving their servicing operations to the Far East means obvious growth in those areas. We do wonder what will happen to the servicing industry in the UK and what it will do to the economy. But, the fact is that labour in the Far East is cheaper. The reverse is that many consumers in the UK are totally against speaking to staff in the Far East and would rather move to a UK based company.