OUTSOURCING: report warning of brand damage is dismissed

Law firms should not be deterred from outsourcing backroom tasks to India, lawyers said this week in response to a report warning that companies outsourcing work there could suffer brand damage.

The report, by research firm ContactBabel and commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry, concluded that UK businesses moving their contact-centre operations to India will generally end up providing a lower quality of service to their UK customers.

The report said: 'A UK caller will tend to spend longer on the phone with an Indian agent but have less chance of getting their issue resolved first time.'

Patrick Somers, the head of outsourcing in the Birmingham office of Hammonds, said: 'Customers expecting to speak to a local bank might feel distanced from the bank if they are connected to an operator in India.'

He said firms should consider carefully whether they outsource telephony, but that outsourcing word-processing work was not a risk because 'it is not something visible to clients'.

Steven Chernikeeff, the operational services head at Allen & Overy - which outsourced its document production department to India last year (see [2003] Gazette, 11 September, 3) - said: 'I don't think outsourcing has any effect on our face to the world; indeed if anything our clients give us positive feedback about it.'

Milan Zala, the former City lawyer who last year set up a dedicated professional services outsourcing company in India (see [2003] Gazette, 25 September, 5), said: 'There are call centres which offer basic packages and do not know how law firms operate, but we are specialised.'

Jeremy Fleming