London has the most advanced contact centres in Europe

10 key facts about London’s contact centre industry.

• Access to qualified staff: London’s prime asset is its human capital: a large, highly-skilled, diverse and multi-cultural workforce. Given the extensive transportation links into London, the city offers a regional labour pool of over 9 million – the largest regional workforce in Europe. The quality of this labour pool has seen London highlighted as the best city in Europe to locate a business in terms of access to qualified staff for 17 years running [1].
• Access to native languages: London has one of the most cosmopolitan workforces in Europe and, with over 300 languages spoken on a daily basis, consistently ranks as the world’s richest labour force for language skills [2].  A third of London’s call centres are multilingual, providing pan-European services for companies such as Delta Airlines, Air France and Marriott Hotels.
• Sector leadership: London is the UK and Europe’s leading call centre location focusing on financial services, telecoms, hotels/leisure, retail, airlines, IT and transport and travel.  London and the UK’s South-East employ nearly 230,000 people in the contact centre industry and has a forecast growth rate of 15% until the end of 2008 [3] .
• Best practice hub: London is home to clusters of major e-CRM outsourcers such as Broadsystem, ICT group, Sitel and Prestige.
• Expert teams: London boasts the most developed network of specialist CRM consultants, recruitment agents, systems integrators and advanced telecoms services in the UK.
• Productive employees: London’s workforce produces 40% more value than the national average [4].
• Established service culture: London has a 24-hour service culture with growing numbers of firms operating around the clock. London has longer shopping hours than any other European city.
• Advanced telecoms: London has Europe’s most advanced telecoms infrastructure. London is ranked as the best city in Europe for the quality of its telecoms [5].
• Broad property options: from high-quality premises and prestige locations to cost-efficient options.  This allows companies to locate call centres close to head office and other key corporate functions. Outer London regions offer extremely cost competitive options starting as low as $16 per square foot per annum.
• Cutting-edge customer retention: London’s combination of highly-skilled, multi-lingual staff and progressive e-CRM strategy is turning contact centres into a proactive customer retention tool rather than a reactive defensive measure.
• Funding incentives: London is the only capital city in Europe that offers capital grants.  They are delivered to investors through the Selective Finance for Investment (SFI) programme, a discretionary grant or loan. The minimum threshold for applications is $20,000 per grant. Training grants are also available via local and national schemes

Think London has helped numerous companies set up or expand contact centre operations in London, incluing Delta Airlines, ICT Group and Prestige International.

Contact us to find out how we can help your company grow.

[1] Cushman and Wakefield European Cities Monitor 2006
[2] London Regional Language Network (2006). Why Try harder? A Language and Cultural Skills Strategy for London
[3] The UK Contact Centre Industry 2006: The State of the Nation, ContactBabel
[4] DTI
[5] Cushman & Wakefield European Cities Monitor 2006