Shop Direct alters centre structure

By James Hall

Published: 5:30AM GMT 29 Jan 2010

The retailer, which used to be called Littlewoods, said that it has more space
in its contact centres than it needs to handle the declining volumes of
phone calls from customers. Less than four years ago, 33m calls were taken
through its contact centre, compared to only 19m calls today.

"Customers are choosing to transact through the web and manage their
accounts online," the company said.

Following a review, Shop Direct is proposing to close contact centres in
Sunderland, Newtown and Burnley. The company is proposing to bring up to 350
new roles into its remaining sites by introducing flexible shift patterns to
accommodate the changing shopping behaviour.

Mark Newton-Jones, Shop Direct's chief executive, said: "We recognise
that this is a very difficult time for those teams affected by the proposed
contact centre closures.

"Over the past five years, the proportion of our online sales has grown
from 18pc to account for over 60pc of our business today resulting in excess
capacity and space in our contact centres. We are a strong and growing
business and we need to adapt to reflect the way our customers choose to
shop with us."

Shop Direct Group is owned by Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, the owners
of Telegraph Media Group. The retail company has annual sales of around
£1.7bn.

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