Outbound Call Center Featured Article

Outbound Call Center: World First Commits to Improved Customer Service

By Mini Swamy
TMCnet Contributor

Automated Voice Services may be a boon for banks and companies, but they're a real “pain in the neck” for customers. In fact, many of them have learned to dread those robotic voices that drone out a list of seemingly endless and confusing options. Many others have often been victims of having to hold for an eternity and then get impersonal messages that really don't help. Well, if World First has its way, then it's back to “Business with a Personal Touch,” and computerized messages could well be on their way out.

A U.K.-based company, World First, has turned its back on automated answer machines for good. It is the fastest growing foreign exchange broker in U.K. and has announced a new commitment to customer service. The award-winning company has committed to answering the phone within three rings with a welcoming human voice. 

According to statistics, on an average, people waste almost 20 minutes trying to get through to financial service companies, and World First believed that something had to be done to reduce the customer's woes and improve services.

World First's approach to customer service has already won award winning recognition in the last 12 months. The company was voted Service Business of the Year at the 2010 Fast Growth Business Awards, by offering foreign exchange methods that banks typically reserve for its large corporate clients. Moreover, in 2009, it won the Queen's Award for Enterprise; International Trade and has been featured on the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 list in both 2010 and 2011.

Jonathan Quin, managing director at World First, explained the company’s viewpoint: "It's important that everyone who deals with us should be able to speak directly to the person they need. All of our customers and suppliers can reach us on direct phone lines and we don't do call centers or automated messaging because we don't like them.”