Serco, a leading company that has been offering service solutions to companies for over 50 years, is taking over the contract at a Sheffield office which handles seven million queries every year.
The office in Sheffield, which belongs to Freemans Grattan Holdings (FGH), will be operated by Serco in a 10 year, £55 million deal. Speaking of the partnership, Koert Tulleners, Chief Executive Officer of FGH, stated: “We’re very pleased to be joining forces with Serco as it is a company that continues to set ever higher standards in contact centre management and development.
“I believe this new partnership presents a great opportunity for all our existing contact centre staff and will help not only to ensure that all of our customers receive the best possible service at all times, but will also provide the scope to capitalise on the spare capacity within our purpose-designed facility in Sheffield.”
The brands which operate under the FGH umbrella include: Bon Prix, Curvissa, Grattan, Freemans, Kaleidoscope, Look Again, Oli and Witt International. All of these companies have their queries answered at the Sheffield office, which Serco will be responsible for.
Serco will honour all of the current 400 staff members’ contracts, and will protect their terms and conditions. The staff will continue their roles which include: the operation of telephone calls (both inbound and outbound), emails and mail enquiries, credit applications and order processing.
Serco’s UK and Europe Managing Director, Jerry Benson, spoke highly of the ten year partnership: “This partnership is an exciting opportunity for Serco’s new Global Services capability, bringing our market knowledge and expertise in high quality service to support both Freemans Grattan Holdings and their customers.
“We very much look forward to developing our relationship with Freemans Grattan Holdings as we continue to grow our global business process outsourcing capability and the services that we provide to them and our other customers.”
The office in Sheffield, which is located close to the Motorpoint Arena, originally opened in 1997 and was, back then, the most advanced call centre in Sheffield. It boasted an indoor swimming pool as well as its own library.
The partnership is good news for the Sheffield region as many call centres are off-shored in order to cut costs. Also, making 400 people redundant in the city would have only contributed to the every growing number of unemployed people – which nobody wants.
