Britain's biggest bank, HSBC, is routing calls from its poorer and less profitable customers to call centres overseas — while more affluent customers are more likely to be dealt with in the UK.
A customer’s personal rating — based on their wealth and financial records — is automatically graded when they make a call to HSBC and give their account number.
The more affluent and potentially profitable customers are then answered by call centres in Britain, while the lower-ranking customers are more likely to be routed to India, Manila or Kuala Lumpur.
“It’s a scoring system,” an HSBC spokesman confirmed last week. “If you are scoring high, you will be dealt with in the UK. You are more likely to have complex needs.”
The filtering system is used on all HSBC’s standard current accounts. It is likely to provoke further anger among customers who have complained about poor service and long waits while dealing with offshore call centres.
The practice of routing calls according to customers’ rankings has been exposed by a whistleblower who helped work on HSBC’s computerised call centre systems. He said giving priority to more affluent customers undermined the bank’s claim that the level of service on its standard current account was the same wherever calls were answered.
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