More than 1.3 million Europeans will be working in call centres by 2003 - a compound growth rate of 12 per cent a year - in spite of fears that the Internet will destroy telephone-based jobs, a new report forecasts.
Datamonitor, the market analyst, believes the Internet will slow down - but not halt - call-centre employment growth. Call centres have been the biggest job-creating phenomenon in the US and Europe over the past decade.
Up till now, they have been places from which companies offer goods and services by telephone. Increasingly, they are being transformed into multimedia centres handling all forms of contact with customers.
Integration is accelerated by "customer relationship management" - the fashionable theory that companies organised on functional and product lines should restructure themselves around customers' needs.
Datamonitor bases its forecasts on more than 1,000 interviews with managers in seven countries. It says the UK will continue to have the most jobs - 426,000 by 2003, compared with 335,000 now - but growth will slow from double-digit rates to 6 per cent a year.
Germany, the second-largest, will grow fast from 175,000 to 263,000. Italy and Spain will expand rapidly, but Ireland and the Netherlands should see more sluggish growth.
Call centres have been accused of being sweatshops, with staff having to handle call after call using repetitive formulae. Ms Kathleen Klasnic, Datamonitor's consultant, said the increasing complexity of technology, products and different contact channels would raise skills and salaries.
But she argued that companies that have so far used call centres to drive down costs would have to improve training.
The report says the proportion of call centre contacts made by e-mail will grow from 5 per cent to 18 per cent by 2003, but telephone will still account for 72 per cent.
It says managers face big challenges as the issues become more complex. Merging a company's call centre with its website can create culture clashes. But most felt integration of telephone with the web would reduce costs and improve service.
