PC World cuts off Capita call centre contract

PC World owner DSGi has decided not to renew its call centre outsourcing contract with Capita and will instead bring 1,300 staff back in house. Call centres in Sheffield and Nottingham will return to the DSGi fold on September 2. The original contract, signed in 2004, is due to finish during April. The pair have signed a six …

[Matt]

Glad I'm not there!

I used to work at the call centre in Sheffield and know they have made lots of people redundant recently - best thing I ever did was get out of there. Capita took over in the first place as DSG admitted they didn't have the know-how or ability to run a customer service call centre!

[Harry]

First thing they need to know ...

"DSG admitted they didn't have the know-how or ability to run a customer service call centre!"

The first priority of a call centre is to answer the phone promptly -- with a PERSON, not a machine. And to make sure that if a competent real person is not immediately available to take, they get the competent person to call back within half an hour and not put on hold.

Of course, with most companies the root problem is that there *IS* no competent person. For that, it makes no difference whether the person is in house or contracted, the customer will still not receive the deserved service.

It's worth investing in good people to deal with telephone problems because it does more than anything else to retain customer loyalty.

[Anonymous Coward]

These things change again and again and again and

I used to work for a major IT multinational.

When I started working for them they were in the habit of outsourcing everything.

By the time I stopped working for them they had started bringing anything in-house again.

My manager (who had worked with the company for 20+ years) said that these things go in phases depending on a variety of factors.

The one she had identified earliest was fashion. When everyone else outsourced, our company did too. The second one was cost... Nice to know their priorities were straight.

Is the reason that DSG is not continuing with outsourcing to Capita due to a problem with costing, effectiveness, lack of competency or something else?

[John Scott]

Someone learnt how to add!

Looks like someone finally realised that paying senior managers at an outsourcing company costs money! Also, I didn't think PC World could even run its self, employing staff who know nothing and charging prices that are quite frankly ridiculous!

[Elmer Phud]

Crapita

"Current conditions present a healthy flow of opportunities for Capita and the Group is well placed to continue its growth"

or

We are happy to announce that we have embarked on a venture travelling in self-propelled water vessel. The craft is to undergo extensive renovation beginniing with the replacement of the means of propulsion. Some concern has been raised about the waters that we are currently navigating and to any environmental impact upon the crew. We are confident that current procedures will be sufficient should there be any effect to staff in the unlikely occurence of a turnover.

[Chris]

Middle manager cull

"Capita recently began the process of making 42 middle managers redundant."

That's made my day, although most middle managers I've ever met have always been redundant in one sense of the word.

[Anonymous Coward]

Presumably this is a reflection of PCW having so few customers

that even their in-house support monkeys will be able to look after them to the usual high standard

[Andrew Baines]

Good news for Capita

DSG going tits up soon - this saves Caputa the redundancy costs,

[John Macintyre]

@Matt

Blasphemy! Are you saying DSGi wouldn't know how to run a call centre? Codswallop! DSGi have excellent customer service and I'm sure they're more than capable to .... hold on, my bs monitor's just gone a bit haywire, I'll get back to you...

[alan]

OMG

"By bringing the operation in-house we are taking back control of the customer experience, taking responsibility for and owning our relationship with the customer," DSGi said.

I think that bloke may actually know what hes talking about!!!

[Jim Coleman]

If you want something doing...

...do it yourself.

[Christy Stoehr]

The inmates are running the asylum!

Same old, same old. When DSGi spent millions (including redundancy to Hemel Hempstead HO staff) relocating the CS function to Sheffield, all at H.O. scratched their heads. Then they sold the whole caboodle to Capita and now they're doing a U-turn. And they wonder why their business model is ducked??

Black helicopter because that's what's needed to spirit the incompetent Directors away...............

[MnM]

employees' t's & c's

TUPE sounds good in theory, but presumably DSGi folk will remain governed thusly

1) you will know nothing

2) you will KNOW NOTHING

If DSGi's best idea is to replace Capita management with their own, well, check-mate, really. What with Tiscali going titsup, could be a signal that this recession will clear out the dross. I'm not calling the green shoots quite yet, but a judicious sprinkling of weedkiller wouldn't be such a bad thing.

I'm going with Paris as she's great at analogies.

[Anonymous Coward]

LolL

They realised that their competitors are winning business from them with great customer services. Customer are willing to pay a little more if they can get good answers and decent support.

Personally I hope PCW etc go tits up then the place I work for will pull their finger out and get their retail stores from the US and bring them over here.

[Duncan Hothersall]

Ahem

I have read the article and all comments and there appears to be no use of the word "Crapita" anywhere. I'm relieved to have addressed this oversight.

[Anonymous Coward]

Undertook a dump of Crapita

It's good to hear that DSGi are now taking responsibility for pwning their own customers. No change there then.

They don't know how to run a call centre? Rumour has it that they also don't know how to organise a piss-up in a brewery...

[Anonymous Coward]

@Harry & @ Loil Anon.

Hi there,

Me thinks you both need a bit of a reality check. Customers don't give a damn about customer service, they care about price - that's pretty much it. Customer *SAY* they 'won't shop somewhere again' but they will if the price is right and the full page add in a dodgy rag has done it's job.

The minority of people who do refuse to buy again from PCW will go to Dixons or Currys instead - oh the amount of times I heard that magical statement when working for PCServiceCall...... rolf! Oh the benefit of having more than one brand... DSGi at their finest.

[Ascylto]

And the difference is ...

"DSG admitted they didn't have the know-how or ability to run a customer service call centre!"

So what's going to be different from a Crapita-run 'service'?

[Steven Foster]

Ha. Ha hahahaha

I worked there when we got taken over by Crapita. They ruined everything and we all knew it. We all wished to god DSGi would realise their fuckup and take it back. But obviously they couldn't, contracts and yadda yadda.

It was very obvious to us all how terrible they were though. It's why I left.

[Matt]

@ Ascylto

Well, if Crapita fucked it up then they would have someone else to blame!