Garlands Call Centres goes into administration
The Board of CJ Garland has announced that the company has been placed in administration and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) have been appointed joint administrators.
The appointment of an administrator follows decisions by a number of Garlands’ largest clients to move their outsourced customer service activity to other centres, many in low wage countries including Asia and Africa.
Trading under the name Garlands Call Centres, the company is a leading UK operator of outsourced customer contact centres and one of the largest private sector employers in the Tees Valley and South Tyneside areas.
Under the leadership of its founder and Chief Executive Chey Garland, the company has built a blue chip client base in the mobile network and broadband areas – and an international reputation for delivering quality service. These achievements have been recognised by a host of prestigious awards including UK Outsourced Contact Centre Service Provider of the Year in 2007 and the ‘Learning Skills and Training Award’ at the North East Business Awards as recently as last month.
Chey Garland in happier times
By 2008, Garlands’ employee numbers had grown to around 3,000 in four contact centre locations – three in the Tees Valley (Hartlepool Marina, Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees) and one on South Tyneside (South Shields).
In 2009, however, the company was told that it had lost much of its work for its large broadband and mobile operator clients as these companies sought to take cost out of their businesses. Despite battling extremely hard – and in difficult economic conditions – to gain new business to replace this work, the company was left with contracted work for only 1,500 employees by early 2010.
In the last month, three of these mobile and broadband clients served notice that they are to move further customer service work out of Garlands – leaving the company with infrastructure and overhead costs that the business cannot afford going forward.
Under these circumstances, Garlands’ Directors have had no choice but to place the company in administration.
The administrator has subsequently decided that the vast majority of Garlands’ activities will close from today with the exception of one client account that will carry on trading with Garlands as usual until further notice. A number of essential support staff will also be retained to assist the administrator.
Chey Garland, who built Garlands from a start-up debt collection business in 1981, said:
“I am absolutely devastated by the course of events. The North East is losing a world-class contact centre business – one that took 30 years of hard work to build and just eighteen months of economic recession to destroy.
“My heart goes out to all the people who have worked so hard to make Garlands a success and who will now lose their jobs and face hardship through no fault of their own. The management has fought tooth and nail to save the company and the support we’ve received from our staff and business advisors has been truly outstanding.
“What particularly saddens me is that the work of so many of our skilled and hard-working advisors and managers has been transferred abroad – and for cost-cutting and not quality reasons. Delivering quality service at a reasonable price has always been our passion but in the current economic climate, it’s proven impossible to build and run a quality UK contact centre business (with all the training and infrastructure costs that entails) that can compete price-wise with companies on the other side of the world.
“The Garlands’ Board has had no choice but to appoint an Administrator and we will liaise with PwC to assist our staff and clients at this very difficult time.”
Tweet19 May 2010
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Comments on: Garlands Call Centres goes into administration
I am afraid not, I was one of the unfortunate ones who got made redundant from that call centre and from day one me and many others were treat like dirt.
Chey Garland and her management team ran that company into the abyss and there was no way out after that.
Management were told time after time that they were relying on too many broadband and mobile contracts to keep the company afloat which was a risky business in this bad economic times.
Garlands lost clients from the utilities companies which provided a good reliable source of business for the company but choose to take the easy route and go with the broadband and mobile companies which didn’t pay off.
Garlands was even recruiting new staff up until a few weeks before it closed,
The staff really worked hard at Garlands and I hope everyone affected gets other employment elsewhere.
But the blame for the company’s demise rests solely on Chey Garlands shoulders and the management team employed, I bet they all have jobs now to go to.
Posted by John Brown — 1 Jun 2010 @ 9:24 am
When under educated people like Chey Garland (ex debt collector) manage anything it always ends in tears – the woman was a nightmare to deal with and just simply an aweful person!
The North East is well shot of this despot!
Posted by Truth is.... — 3 Jun 2010 @ 2:17 am
im one of rhe people made redundant and to be honest it is all mainly down to 2 factors, yes garlands did not get any more contracts but also the new CEO of vodafone decided to get cheap labour in egypt which both ruined jobs for the north east and even tho vodafone dont seem to realise has had a huge detremental effect on their consumer base as how many people honestly want to discuss accounts with someone outside of your country?? (not being racist just the view i had put to me numerous times i recieved calls from people who spoke to that perticular call centre
Posted by freakish1 — 6 Jul 2010 @ 2:03 am
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