Call centre cuts costs by scrapping outsourcing venture

A major UK sports venue terminated a call centre outsourcing contract after finding it could save money by running the systems itself.

Wembley International terminated the project at the end of its five-year lifespan, and expected to gain financial advantages. These were achieved - along with other less tangible benefits.

In an exclusive interview with Silicon.com, Andrew Spencer, general manager for Wembley International, said: "One of the key objectives was to reduce the cost for the customer to buy tickets, and to bring those costs down we had to use technology. To improve our margins we used IVR to automate both information calls and complete bookings, so you can actually book tickets right through the IVR system."

Bull Information Systems helped the company integrate an automatic call distribution and a management information system, so the call-centre agents' time would be used more efficiently.

Spencer said: "The immediate impact was a huge saving in staff costs. It let us focus on the more difficult calls, therefore providing a better service. But it also allowed us to drive costs down by not using staff for the simpler calls. We've actually automated 45 per cent of all calls, and, on a peak day by as much as 70 per cent," he said.

Eighteen months down the line, Wembley is also better prepared for the future of ticket-handling - the Internet.

Spencer argues that in a few years' time, all simple ticket issuing will be handled online. He said: "I believe that online ticketing will actually reduce the need for human agents to produce mass ticketing - the simple stuff. The future of the call centre, I think, will focus more and more on customer service issues and specialist sales," he concluded.

The full interview can be seen in today's Call Centre Channel.