A GLOBAL information processing company has chosen Worcester for its British "flagship" customer contact management centre.

Five hundred jobs could eventually be created at the state-of-the-art centre being set up by Experian, which is one of Britain's leading business process outsourcing companies.

Seven customer contact managers and a training manager have been recruited already, and 80 full and part-time customer service advisers are needed by next month. Temporary workers are also required for the summer.

Difference

The purpose-built customer care centre is housed in Kings Court, Newtown Road, on the same site as Experian's sister company, Reality.

Both are part of the US mail order giant GUS Plc, which has decided to restructure its "third party" business, with Experian taking on customer contact operations.

"We see the centre being our flagship and it will bring us the opportunity to have leading edge processes," said David Riley, managing director of Experian's customer contact management division.

The company also operates customer care services on behalf of external clients, mainly in the banking and financial services sectors - including credit application processing and remittance processing - and the retail and utilities sectors.

Mr Riley said the company had taken customer contact "one step further", mainly through its use of state-of-the-art customer contact technology, including scanning all incoming communication.

"The main difference is the telephonic equipment, which allows us to deal with an electronic image.

"The fact the customer service adviser can pull up that image in front of them means they have a better chance of being able to deal with that enquiry because it all comes back to a central file. There's continuity.

"It's about trying to give the adviser a better chance of resolving the query first time, not just about dealing with the call queue quickly."

The "intelligent application" of consumer information enabled clients to develop one-to-one relationships with their customers, he said.

The choice of Worcester for the company's flagship customer contact management centre followed a demographic analysis of Britain.

It showed that the city had a potential workforce, as well as being central to the company's clients, which are mainly in the Midlands, London and the North of England.

Worldwide, Experian turns over £1bn and employs 12,000 people, 5,000 of them employed in its eight customer contact centres in Britain.