PR Week Echo Columns

Organisation: Powergen

Analysis and commentary by Echo Research.

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Powergen spun positive coverage out of potentialy damaging issues last week, as it announced it was to pull the plug on its Indian call centres, "Energy giant brings calls back to UK" (Glasgow Evening Times, 15/6). It was neither castigated for its previous "frankly appalling" customer service (Mirror, 16/6), nor hounded for its "embarrassing U-turn" (Sunday Herald, 18/6). Indeed, Powergen showed that it had learnt from its mistakes, and intended to put the customer and its call centre advisors at the forefront of its reorganisation strategy. "Although the cost of overseas outsourcing can be low, we're simply not prepared to achieve savings at the expense of customer satifaction", said Nick Horler, Powergen's managing director (thisismoney.co.uk, 15/6). Further, rather than a policy volte-face, Powergen's reversal decision was viewed as part of "a nascent trend of companies moving jobs back to Britain" (Independent, 16/6).

The move also attracted positive feedback from various third party sources, particularly in relation to forthcoming job creation at Powergen's UK call centres. Amicus union boss, David Fleming, said the annoucement proved "a welcome vote of confidence for UK call centre operations", and he hoped "other companies contemplating moving their operations abroad [would now] balance the potential impact on their services and brand" (Finextra, 16/06).