CRM - May 2008 - (Page 42)

OUTSOURCING OPTIONS allowing them to perform well as customer service agents. Technological advances, in particular the rise of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and multichannel capability, have also led to the re-emphasis on nearshoring, according to Kokes. “VoIP has been one of biggest changes I’ve seen in [10 years] in terms of your ability to quickly scale to really get on-demand,” he explains. He also says multichannel capability—allowing for the use of interactive voice response, chat, email, and live agents—has made outsourcing possible beyond brick-and-mortar contact center locations. Latin American countries have done their part to be a home to this technological innovation by establishing “reliable and economical communications networks required to deliver high-quality voice and data traffic available across several countries in the region,” Shankardass explains. issues for Indian contact center agents. A recent study by the CFI Group,“Satisfaction with Contact Centers Drives Customer Loyalty,” took a close look at Americans’ perceptions of and experiences with contact centers both at home and abroad. The report concluded that customers who believed they had reached a contact center overseas rated their overall satisfaction with the service experience 26 points lower than those who assumed the contact center was U.S.-based. Sheri Teodoru, the author of the CFI Group study, says while location was not the only driver of negative perceptions of offshore services, it was definitely a viable factor. “The single biggest issue— and biggest source of dissatisfaction—is that the first-call resolution was statistically and dramatically worsened in outsourced [contact centers],” she explains. “Clearly there is a language barrier which may hinder the representatives’ ability to solve the call, but it’s the fact that [customers’] issues aren’t getting fixed that’s the problem.” DeSalles agrees that India, and offshoring overall, is facing some issues. “There is a migration away from large outsourcing deployments like India to more strategic ones home-based in [the] U.S.,” he says. “Consumers are very dissatisfied.” Despite the backlash against offshoring, many are quick to point out that India still maintains a large presence in the industry. “India will continue to be one of the big near-term winners of English-language support and supply,” Kokes predicts. Avaya, for example, is satisfied with the outsourcing services it has been using in India since the early 1990s, according to George Humphrey, the director of service line management for its global managed services organization—and the company has no intention of leaving India to find offshoring services elsewhere. While Indian outsourcers may still be major players, they also seem to be adapting, expanding their U.S.-based operations at roughly an annual rate of 40 percent and their European ones by 60 percent, according to Gartner—possibly to fight high agent-attrition rates and a perception that the India base of the industry may be hitting the skids. “Indian outsourcers are starting to move to bring facilities to America, which is a very interesting trend,” DeSalles explains. “What Indian outsourcing providers are essentially saying is,‘If we’re not successful in our country, we’ll bring our outsourcing to you and use U.S. agents.’” A company hedging all its high-quality customer service bets on one outsourcing model may open itself up to serious risk. (See sidebar, “Diversify, Remember?” at left.) With new technologies allowing for a diversified global footprint, those not taking advantage may be left behind: There may not be universal agreement on the best outsourcing strategy, but everyone believes a company cannot be truly great unless it can deliver the best in customer service. “Exceptional customer service is a key differentiator,” DeSalles says.“It is separating good companies from great companies.” And that, in any gambler’s book, is what’s known as a sure thing. Contact Editorial Assistant Christopher Musico at cmusico@destinationCRM.com. 42 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MAY 2008 www.destinationCRM.com WHAT ABOUT INDIA? The global press was quick to ordain India as the hottest country in outsourcing, and then was just as quick to note the country’s hiccups—from customer dissatisfaction to the rash of medical DIVERSIFY, REMEMBER? While there are many new options available to companies looking to outsource their contact center operations, many observers suggest that no one option can stand alone and deliver the customer satisfaction consumers expect—and that may be the biggest option of all: Today’s technologies let companies “be flexible and give businesses and companies outsourcing choices to diversify their global footprint,” says Andrew Kokes, vice president of marketing for outsourcing provider Sitel. There are several reasons to make sure contact center operations have a mix of in-house, nearshore, offshore, and even homeshore facets—a set-up commonly referred to as a hub-and-spoke model. Michael DeSalles, strategic analyst at Frost & Sullivan, says having a blended model is important in terms of geopolitics. “It mitigates [the danger of] having too many agents in a single geographic area, which is extremely risky in case of a natural disaster or pandemic,” he explains. “So [companies] may decide to keep their own in-house contact centers and expand with nearshore facilities [in places] like Canada and Latin America.” DeSalles also says having a blended model allows companies to benchmark performance within and between different contact centers. Even proponents of home agents say it’s still too early to look at simply having a virtual call center to run all contact center operations. “I think it’s premature to tell the world, ‘Blow up your call centers and send everyone home,’” says Azita Martin, vice president of marketing for Santa Clara, Calif.–based contact center technology provider LiveOps. “But companies owe it to themselves to start looking at the homebased model—whether it’s outsourced [or] they’re sending their own agents home.” http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - May 2008

CRM - May 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Is CRM Too Hard for Microsoft Vendors Go Virtual For Feedback Sense-sational Marketing How UGC Can Benefit CRM DestinationCRM Dashboard Price Check, Aisle 5 Required Reading The Moving Target The Excellence Myth Seven Steps to SOA Success And They're Off! Are You Ready to Party? Skin in the Game The Right Numbers Secret of My Success Re: Tooling Connect Pint of View

CRM - May 2008

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