* Offshore outsourcing: Well trained vs. poorly trained
I received many comments following the column “Could frustrated consumers reverse the offshore call center trend?” In fact, I received more e-mail on this topic than any other.
I always appreciate the feedback. The funny thing is, no one commented on the question posed in the article: Will companies listen to consumers and pull back support to domestic call centers? What people did want to say had more to do with venting about their frustrating experiences and comment on why it can be so frustrating to work with an offshore call center.
One reader wrote, ” After reading your article and thinking about it for a while, I concluded that the real issue is not onshore vs. offshore, it’s well trained vs. poorly trained – although the Indian English accent can be an issue.” This comment is consistent with many others. Training is more the issue than where the call center is located. I personally have had good experiences and bad experiences with offshore call center staff. When I am patient and listen past the accent, I have generally received very good assistance with some very technical issues. I have also had some very bad experiences with poorly trained staff or staff with no authority to go beyond a basic script.
Another reader wrote, “I deal with one vendor, in particular, that has support in India, the states and Canada. When I connect to India – CLICK. I don’t bother because each time I talk with them, my blood pressure rises and I know I’m going to get better service from the states and Canada.” Customers will change their behavior to adjust to offshore call centers. They may be wise enough, as this reader was, to figure out that calling back at a different time may yield a different call center. They may just do business with someone else is in the future.
I recently had a very positive experience with a company that had clearly outsourced their call center, but had put a very wise and flexible process in place. My call was answered by a young woman with an Indian accent, but very well spoken. She was clearly following a script, but when my issue required a variance from the script, she informed me that she needed to transfer the call to another representative. The transfer took several seconds and it was obvious from the clicks on the phone that the transfer was to another physical location. The call was then taken by a young man with a clear eastern U.S. accent. He was not working from a script that I could tell and he was able to work out my issue to my satisfaction in a very flexible manner.
The lesson for call center managers from the example above is to ensure outsourced staff have sufficient English skills and a script that allows them to jump out at the appropriate point and hand off the call quickly and cleanly to someone who has the training and authority to vary from the script when required. A tiered approach with sensible scripting and flexibility can allow basic calls to be handled cost effectively by the first tier, with more complicated calls handled by a second tier of more skilled staff with some authority to act beyond a script.
Frustrated customers will scream at whoever they are talking to once they have surpassed their personal threshold for poor service. And poor service can be delivered domestically just as effectively as it can be delivered by an offshore outsource provider. The root of the problem is bad business processes…poor training, tight scripting, call center staff with little or no authority to focus on solving the customer issue. Heavily accented English and sticking painstakingly to a bad script serve to aggravate the situation, so offshore call centers need to be particularly careful to start with a good process design.
Only time will tell if customers can speak loud enough for companies to hear the pain and change their call center practices. This could be to switch back to a domestic outsourcer or bring the call center back in-house. It could also mean re-evaluating processes and blending outsourced first tier with insourced second tier call centers to bring forth a flexible solution.
