Successful stories on efficient outsourcing

 is urgent to distinguish offshore outsourcers that are run by U.S.-based, established teleservices agencies and those that are run by an entirely non-domestic business entity.

U.S.-based teleservices agencies that maintain offshore facilities bring with them the experience and tight management that the new offshore outsourcers lack. Therefore, if an offshore outsourcing facility is largely managed and controlled by an experienced U.S. agency, even mature projects can make it in an offshore country. This difference is essential and should be remembers when you read this discussion of offshore outsourcing, because those whom I have interviewed are largely grounding their discussion on non-U.S.-managed outsourcing entities. Mike Budde, the President And CEO of Advanced Data-Comm, Inc. pointed out the following reasons when asked why his customers were unhappy with the offshore outsourcers: extremely slow customer service response, poor handling of data and file transfers and short of technical knowledge, including an inproper understanding of telephony. He added that different accents created further problems for one of his customers. That customer's project was at first solved by a group of hand-picked agents who spoke English well and performed adequately. However, when the project developed, the next group of agents had much thicker accents. As a result, communication became more difficult and the project's success rate declined dramatically. As for Mike, some offshore facilities are over-extended and lack the management or technical knowledge to solve problems. To be sure, Mike admitted that offshore outsourcing development is here to stay. However, he believes issues like quality concerns, poor communication skills, cultural barriers, deficiency of telephony knowledge and middle management experience will hold offshore outsourcers back. Mike summarized his opinion perfectly: "If you go offshore because of low cost solely, then you probably don't care about quality.” When asked about how he keeps his agents happy and initiative. Mike said that, "In our company, we ensure that our customer service staffs are happy with a smile on their face. I can't change the nature of the job, but I can change the working environment.. That's why we treat our agents with dignity, with full respect for the individual and we truly care about them. That's what will always on the phone when they call us." He also added that, "A less-supportive and unpleasant environment leads negative attitudes, unnecessary stress and that is also showed in the voices of the agents. It is the responsibility of every manager, in each call center, to a pleasant, rewarding and innovative environment.” Mike concluded by quoting Advanced Data-Comm.’s belief: "Our mission statement calls us to be pleasant, polite, professional and accommodating at all times. Usually, a less-supportive environment, coupled with communication difficulties, will result in lower efficiency. Companies that go offshore only for lower costs and that can not take frustrations in customer experience into consideration will probably have lowered customer loyalty and retention." Mike readily agreed that, "To quantify customer loss due to poor customer experience is not easy." However, he continued, "Even though it is difficult to quantify, you are unwise to ignore it.” "Some offshore TSRs have perhaps greater dedication to their jobs and consider call center work with high regard." stated Jon Kaplan, President of TeleDevelopment Services, Inc., a highly respected international training, consulting and management recruiting firm. He mentioned that their work ethics and job responsibilities in some offshore countries are prominent. They perceive telemarketing jobs as a great career opportunity. He then said that, "If we could have that kind of attitude and environment in our call centers, it will be needless to go offshore.” He continued, "The major difference from most offshore providers is the deficiency of strong middle management. The offshore industry is so young in these offshore countries that the depth of knowledgeable and experienced middle management is severely deficient. Many companies have to send members of their management team again and again to these offshore locations to help develop and strengthen productivity - and quality -related processes. Uasually they find that once they leave, their efforts are in vain. So many companies are troubled with the cost of housing their U.S. staff with their selected vendors offshore to make sure and monitor knowledge transfer." Jon added, "Training is also going on to be an issue. Many offshore companies spend a great deal of time and money only to provide agent training for accent reduction, customer service and selling skills, but not investing appropriately in high-level training.

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