Offshoring an inappropriate choice for call centers

Language and cultural barriers impede successful call-center outsourcing

A few weeks ago, I discussed some of the things to think about when considering outsourcing - specifically offshoring. I noted that, among other things, language and culture barriers were an issue you definitely needed to take into consideration.

This is especially true if you're considering outsourcing your call center operations - you know, those folks who handle the phone all day, taking orders, putting out fires and handling technical problems associated with your company's products. These people are the front line of your organization - you can't afford to have a customer hang up, angry and ready to find a different source for their needs because the Customer Service Representative (CSR) he or she spoke with didn't have a solid grasp of the language. Or worse, if they did have a grasp, their accent was so heavy it was indiscernible.

A recent story in Network World headlined "Offshoring closer to home" (http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2005/0311nearshore.html) brings the point home quite well. The story, by Network World Senior Editor Jennifer Mears, talks about the Mobil Travel Guide (http://www.mobiltravelguide.com/mtg/), the aristocratic listing of top hotels, rated by the famous "five-stars" rating system. In the case of Mobil, language wasn't as big an issue as the requirement for CSRs to have a solid foundation in U.S. geography. (Although I'd imagine the difficult-to-understand CSR phenomenon probably came up in decision-makers' conversations as well.) So Mobil opted to outsource its call-center activities to Canada where, as a former CIO for Mobil claims, Canadian teachers do a better job of teaching U.S. geography than U.S. teachers do.

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A few weeks ago, I discussed some of the things to think about when considering outsourcing - specifically offshoring. I noted that, among other things, language and culture barriers were an issue you definitely needed to take into consideration.

This is especially true if you're considering outsourcing your call center operations - you know, those folks who handle the phone all day, taking orders, putting out fires and handling technical problems associated with your company's products. These people are the front line of your organization - you can't afford to have a customer hang up, angry and ready to find a different source for their needs because the Customer Service Representative (CSR) he or she spoke with didn't have a solid grasp of the language. Or worse, if they did have a grasp, their accent was so heavy it was indiscernible.

A recent story in Network World headlined "Offshoring closer to home" (http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2005/0311nearshore.html) brings the point home quite well. The story, by Network World Senior Editor Jennifer Mears, talks about the Mobil Travel Guide (http://www.mobiltravelguide.com/mtg/), the aristocratic listing of top hotels, rated by the famous "five-stars" rating system. In the case of Mobil, language wasn't as big an issue as the requirement for CSRs to have a solid foundation in U.S. geography. (Although I'd imagine the difficult-to-understand CSR phenomenon probably came up in decision-makers' conversations as well.) So Mobil opted to outsource its call-center activities to Canada where, as a former CIO for Mobil claims, Canadian teachers do a better job of teaching U.S. geography than U.S. teachers do.

Here's the takeaway for call-center managers considering an offshoring move: You must consider the important elements that your CSRs cover with your customers on a daily basis, and if one or more of those elements can't be expertly addressed when you offshore your call-center, better pick a more local geography. Canadian workers fit the bill because they speak high-quality English, and yet one offshore outsourcing consultancy, cited by the article, claims you can reasonably expect to save 15% to 20% in operations costs by basing your operation up there.

Years ago, I worked for a large satellite TV company. At the time, the company had five call-centers and a plethora of customers of different ethnicities to serve. One of the large language problems managers ran into was the need for Spanish-speaking CSRs. The way they solved the problem was to locate one of their call-centers in El Paso, Texas. We had a fairly sophisticated telephone routing system that sent calls from Spanish-speaking callers to the El Paso call-center. I imagine today the same decision would probably place a call-center in Mexico, where operational costs are greatly diminished over U.S. operations. This same sat-TV company today has a call-center in the Philippines for its PAC-rim customers.

To further drive home this point, one reader who wrote in regarding this point, said: "I was dumbfounded by the fact that the 4th variable [as listed in the newsletter] was that of 'Language and cultural barriers', not the first. I'm employed as a Customer Service Representative for a U.S. corporation and the first indicator expressed by many customers is the fact that they were not able to understand [my] colleagues located in Asia and South America.