HCareers in the UK down but not out....

After five years in the UK market, www.Hcareers.co.uk, the global hospitality niche recruitment site has decided to merge all operations to their North American HQ. A good source tells me that the last six months have financially been some of the healthiest Hcareers have ever experienced here, however the “cut throat” UK market has made profitably operating in the UK tough, therefore they will now be operating the UK site from North America .

Questions

1. is it possible to service customer accounts from offshore (8 hours behind) via helpdesk?
2. is UK market so different that lack of local knowledge will be a massive hindrance?
3. is it possible to sell to customers in an incredibly competitive market a not massively well established site from offshore?
4. is "merging operations" just a euphemism for running the site down to closure at the end of customer contracts? (bit like Northern Rock!)

Answers

1. probably - most sites do not receive a huge amount of incoming queries and as long as you are efficient - its possible
2. not really - difference schmifference - the UK is not so unique - same principles still apply
3. virtually impossible
4. almost certainly