Response Design Corporation: Media Center

The balance between cost and quality that U.S.-based call centers have struggled to maintain is now surfacing in relatively new offshore operations. Many U.S. companies have outsourced their call center operations because call-handling costs can be as much as 80 percent lower in far-offshore locations such as India and the Philippines. However, if organizations that outsource parts of the customer-facing process encounter customer defections and hidden costs, these potential savings will be negligible. Several researchers predict that more than 80 percent of organizations that outsource customer service and support with the primary goal of reducing cost will fail.

India’s call center industry is wrestling with this cost versus quality balance as they struggle with employee hiring and turnover. On September 13, the Economist noted that Indian call centers have grown exponentially and are hungrily gobbling up personnel. They are requiring managers to spend more resources training less-qualified employees. In addition, the long night-time hours endured by call center employees are beginning to take their toll on worker morale. As Indian workers hop from job to job, attrition rates have reached 40-50 percent annually as compared to the 26 percent of annual negative attrition (workers leaving the company) that Response Design’s LeapFrog!TM participants report.

Sam Chopra, president of the Call Center Association of India (CCAI), which represents approximately 60 of India's 400-odd business outsourcing firms, claims that the practice of checking employee references is sometimes lax. As a result, a few fraud scandals have come to the attention of U.S. customers, alarming a public increasingly protective of their private information.

U.S. companies will continue to pursue foreign outsourcing opportunities. However, offshore companies are not immune from the challenges faced by U.S.-based centers. They need to learn to invest in their people in order to better balance the cost and quality of each customer interaction.

Response Design has been helping companies maintain this balance by (1) knowing how to hire the right people, (2) training experienced frontline agents to be good supervisors, and (3) implementing people-friendly processes. Its Uncommon Call Center concept addresses how to partner with offshore companies through its “Outsourcing Fundamentals – The Request for Proposal Suite.”

Response Design – Creating the Uncommon Call Center®.
Response Design Corporation® helps professionals get more from their in-house or outsourced call center. It is the how-to source for learning how to meet customer’s expectations through expert management. www.ResponseDesign.com

For additional uncommon call center ideas don't miss RDC’s blog at www.responsedesign.com/corner.html.

Contact: Kathryn Jackson, Associate, KJackson@ResponseDesign.com