eSure pulling out of India

Online insurance company eSure is bringing its offshore call centre work in India back to the UK from February next year after complaints from customers.

eSure started using offshore Indian call centres in 2004 and currently has 100 agents with an unnamed third-party provider in Bangalore and Mumbai. ESure employed more than 300 staff there at its peak, but it switched the handling of complicated calls to its UK call centre in Manchester nine months ago

eSure said it originally moved the work to India as a temporary measure because it was unable to recruit enough staff at its Manchester call centre to cope with the volume of customer calls, and not as a way to save on labour costs. eSure will have just under 2,000 call centre staff at sites in Glasgow, Manchester and Reigate handling all customer calls once the Indian transition is complete.

Founder Peter Wood, who took over as chief executive last April, said that Indian call-centre staff are excellent at doing everything by the script, and but that they can lack both flexibility and a cultural and practical understanding of UK culture.

"Rule-wise they are brilliant, they stick to everything the Financial Services Authority wants," he said. “I don't want to slam India, but a lot of customers didn't like calls being handled there. We have trained our staff well and dealt with most of the problems, but customers are still not happy.”