Lloyds ditches Indian call centres and phone 'scripts'

Lloyds TSB is to stop routing customer inquiries through Indian call centres in favour of dealing with all customer calls through its UK centres. The bank also said it planned to restore direct telephone access between customers and their branches, putting the pressure on competitors such as Barclays and HSBC, which still route all customers through central call centres, to follow suit.

Lloyds denied it was closing down its Mumbai call centre because of complaints from customers, or due to pressure from the unions. Instead, it claimed it had seen a better-than-expected take-up of a new automated telephone banking system, which meant it no longer needed so much call-centre capacity.

The bank is reallocating some 600 Mumbai-based workers to back-office jobs. The Mumbai centre only fielded calls when the bank's 10 UK call centres were operating at full capacity. But the company said that the number of customers needing to talk to an adviser had fallen by more than a quarter since it installed its automated system last year, meaning it no longer needed an overflow system. At the time it installed the new technology, it had expected call volumes to its centres to fall by just 8 per cent.

The company said the move to allow customers to call their branches direct - a service which was scrapped more than a decade ago - had been driven by customer demand. NatWest has been offering a direct line to its branches for several years, and has centred much of its marketing around the concept. Halifax restored direct phone lines to its branches for Scottish customers last year, and will do the same in England and Wales this year.

Sally Jones-Evans, Lloyds' managing director of telephone banking, said: "We do appreciate that there are going to be times when it makes sense for customers to call straight through to their local branch, and if they don't have the direct number, it can be frustrating. We always listen to customers' feedback so that we can improve the service we provide, and from now on staff will be able to give customers the direct line to the branch for when they need it."

Lloyds said it had also ditched its call-centre scripts after customers complained that they found them annoying.

Amicus, the UK's largest private-sector union, said it welcomed the news that Lloyds was keeping its call-centre jobs in the UK.