3 is poised to terminate just under 30 outbound call centres as part of an overhaul of how third-party call centres sell its contracts.
Around half the call centres culled by 3 are due to issues around high levels of fraud, returns, ‘never pays’ (customers not paying their bills) and complaints to 3. The other half were doing very small volumes.
The call centres were in the process of being notified at the time of writing, with some directly managed by 3 and others managed through distributors.
Among the call centres in the cull is the biggest outbound sales operation, Landmark in South Wales, which is understood to have been selling 5,000 contracts per month at its height several years ago, but dipped to below 2,000 more recently.
3 is now making broader procedural changes to how the remaining call centres sell its products, with 3 carrying out the fulfilment and have deeper involvement in the auditing of the sales process.
The remaining call centres will be called ‘approved partners’ under a new scheme of closer monitoring of sales processes by 3.