Santander moves India call centres back to UK
Santander, the UK’s third largest bank, has decided to move its two Indian based call centres back to the UK after receiving complaints about its services last year.
In 2003 Abbey, as it was then, relocated its call centre operations to two centres in India, one in Bangalore and one in Pune.
Since then complaints have been received that an offshore call centre was ‘a frustration that can lead to dissatisfaction’.
“Our customers tell us they prefer or call centres to be in the UK and not offshore. We have listened to the feedback and have acted by re-establishing our call centres back here,” said Ana Botin, Chief Executive Officer of Santander UK.
All calls to the bank will now be received by centres located in Glasgow, Leicester and Liverpool. Banco Santander, the owner of Santander, said 500 UK-based jobs have been created from the move to help deal with the 1.5m calls they receive per month.
This is one of a series of initiatives that have been put in place by Santander to help satisfy the 165,052 complaints they received last year.
Other initiatives include opening another call centre team, a staff helpline and employing 1000 new staff in customer facing roles.
Botin says that this programme is a “major step” to “redefining Santander”.
The bank has said that these initiatives mean that 80 per cent of all complaints are now dealt with within 24 hours.
Santander have said that FSA data shows their banking complaints have fallen by 24 per cent from the first half of 2010 to the second half in response to their actions.