REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

The tumbling pound and global downturn offer a range of opportunities for the UK call centre industry.

Whether you incline to the cautiously optimistic or the shamelessly apocalyptic, call it the Great Recession, the Credit Crunch or just the Downturn, one thing that is increasingly clear is that the UK economy won't return to growth any time soon.

But for UK call centres the current climate presents some genuine opportunities. First, and most obviously, outsourcing non-core business services, such as call handling, makes sense in the current economic climate.

SMEs which currently have under-utilised support staff, such as receptionists, can generate huge cost savings simply by outsourcing part, or all, of their telephone reception.

Companies which already have a telemarketing division can streamline their payroll costs by outsourcing lead generation to a UK call centre.

Even one-man bands can benefit, by ensuring that they no longer need a body in the office whenever they pop out for a meeting.

Then there is the increased need to invest in marketing. Even among businesses which have not previously invested in direct marketing, there is a growing tendency to spend, not only on telemarketing, but, also on market research, customer surveys and outreach to their existing customers. Naturally, they are choosing experienced call centres as partners rather than attempting to build a call centre in-house.

Most encouragingly, the trend for offshoring support services, at least among SMEs and regional businesses, seems to be heading into reverse.

HSBC's recent decision to outsource call handling of its less valuable current accounts - basic and standard - to India, while leaving its more valuable Premier accounts with its UK call centre, sparked outrage, not only from unions, but also from customers and the media.

Every call centre professional understands that, no matter how many episodes of Coronation Street they watch, an agent in a developing country will not understand the lives - let alone the addresses! - of the people on the end of the phone sufficiently to sell efficiently.

Yet European call centres, whose costs had seemed competitive when the pound was at its peak, are now becoming progressively less affordable. British businesses which had offshored call handling to Spain or Portugal are now bringing their custom home: with the pound close to parity with the Euro, why would they not?

As a whole, outsourcing call centre services makes more sense in the current climate than ever before. Using a UK call centre for telemarketing is a low-risk, high-return alternative to recruiting in-house sales staff. Outsourcing some or all of any business's reception function - whether overflow reception, after hours reception, or all of your incoming call handling - can slash overheads and increase business flexibility.

And the beauty of using a UK call centre is that few customers will be able to identify the cost savings a business has made. For many SMEs, outsourcing call handling to professional customer service agents improves call answering times and creates an improved first impression.

As one of our smaller clients remarked the other day, "We are always being complimented on our professional reception team."