Call Center Outsourcing May be Losing it’s Allure
I’ve been working in the call center environment for years and it seems that the pendulum may be swinging back to bringing back the work from overseas. While there is a place for outsourcing some work, many companies are finding that although cheaper, the supporting costs and customer cost may be much higher than expected.
A good example of this can be seen in the technology sectors. Companies like Dell are beginning to see that although initially cheaper, the “quality” of support obtained from international call centers is not up to the U.S. customer expectations. The result is a drop in customer loyalty and a breakdown of the customer relationship.
Another issue is cost. Crunch the numbers and outsourcing a lot of call center work looks pretty good. The problem is that the bean counters can’t quantify all the costs. A good example of this is an engineer in high tech needing to contact support for a new IP address. How much does it cost the company if getting the new IP address takes 4 hours? Ans: much more than they saved by sending the call to an international call center.
The other major consideration that’s usually minimized is the inconvenience factor. Managing a call center resource partner 1/2 way round the world can be complicated simply because of the time factor. Although many accommodate the U.S work schedule, the fact remains that real time action needs contact when needed and this means the U.S business needs to be flexible and manage the relationship even during the off hours.
More to come…
So the thing is….
One of the newest technologies that seems to be growing in the call center environment is that of virtualization. That is, people working from home in a virtual or electronic call center environment. This is actually a great way to provide better customer service while keeping the work in the country of origin.
From an employee standpoint, there’s the savings of travel, DSL provisioning usually provided by the company, and a flexible work schedule.
Call Center Reality
Call Centers continue to be managed with people being blamed for the lack of efficiency. Until manager recognize they are not robots, it will be impossible to fix the systemic problems in this environment. What’s interesting is there are some call centers that actually have a less than 20% attrition rate.
These are the exception and not the rule however with most having 50% or higher employee turn over rates. Hmmmm