The John Lewis department store chain has announced plans to cut costs by closing its 25 in-store call centres which employ 700 and replacing them with two centralised ‘contact centres’. The new centres will recruit 500 staff, including people transferring from the existing call centres, but with uncertainty over how many would make this move, the company was not able to give a figure on likely redundancies.
Profits in the employee-owned company fell 50% in the first half of 2009.
Source: www.guardian.co.uk