Call centre jobs at risk

The furniture firm has announced that it aims to merge its customer contact arm at another base in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, with the Manvers call centre to close next March.

It has now started consultation over the move with 138 employees.

The Dearne Valley call centre handles general customer service queries and complaints, while the Peterborough contact centre currently supports central customer distribution orders as well as general customer service queries and case handling for kitchen and bathroom installation services.

The company said both sites were "under-utilised in terms of seating capacity".

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"The fact that we operate in two sites comes with some significant drawbacks in terms of cost, consistency, productivity, duplication and impact on the shared resources,” said a statement issued this week.

“Further to a comprehensive review, in which a number of different scenarios were considered, IKEA proposes to amalgamate all customer contacts in the IKEA-owned Peterborough site which would result in the closure of the rented Dearne Valley contact centre facility on March 23, 2011.

“These changes would allow us to serve our customers in a better, faster and more consistent way by offering them a complete and integrated experience through a combination of self-service technology and multi-skilled co-workers.”

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