Call centre group Response awaits return call from Hiscox

By TERRY MURDEN
Published on 21/10/2012 00:00

RESPONSE, the Glasgow-based contact centre company, is expected to renew a key contract with insurance group Hiscox that will help the firm push towards a 25 per cent growth in revenue this year.

The company is benefiting from extra business from ­existing and new clients, including a recent £20 million deal with ScottishPower, its biggest ever contract that will create up 300 jobs.

The company has already renewed business with the Student Loans Company and the US embassy, and managing director Brian Bannatyne is confident that Hiscox will extend its deal with Response for another three years.

Response employs 1,000 advisers and other staff in Glasgow but the payroll has tipped around 2,300 and earlier this year it lost 950 staff to rival firm HEROtsc when satellite broadcaster Sky reduced its number of suppliers from nine to two.

Bannatyne, who joined the firm in September 2008 as chief operating officer, has been driving a change of culture since taking up his current role just five months later. He has fought a personal battle to improve terms and conditions in the sector which continues to suffer from a reputation for low pay and unrewarding work.

He believes those working in the outsourcing sector are undervalued by the public and by some clients who do not recognise the skills and expertise required to provide a vital customer service.

“The relationship between the client and the outsourcer is too often a master-servant arrangement and we have worked with our clients to change that,” he said.

“We need to be recognised as the experts who have the scale and the technology and can apply best practice rather than as a way for firms to cut their costs.”

Response, wholly owned by former Rangers owner Sir David Murray, was created in 1991 to sell football tickets.

It is now competing in a sector that employs 90,000 in Scotland across all grades and has defied predictions that it would shrink as consumers themselves handled more of their requirements online.