Just as manufacturing jobs moved offshore 20 years ago, so now is customer service. The trend, fueled by market demand for 24x7 phone and e-mail support, and business' need to control labor costs, has given rise to the same arguments that skeptics made a generation ago about off-shore manufacturing jobs. Chief among them: (1) foreign workers aren't as skilled; (2) foreign workers take good jobs away from Americans; (3) workers (particularly those in developing/emerging economies) will be subjected to oppressive conditions; and (4) we have a choice. Each of these statements is emphatically wrong.
Culture Clashes
The first argument might be viewed as patronizing. But there are accent, idiom, culture and consumer expectations issues to consider. Fact is, customer service in the modern sense is an American invention. Anyone who has traveled widely knows customer service in the rest of the world is often much worse than at home. Indeed, the perky professionalism that is the hallmark of US agents tends to be regarded as suspicious, demeaning and subversive outside our borders.
That said, contact centers popping up in such distant locales as India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Barbados are providing American-style service. Customer feedback indicates comparable levels of quality among domestic and offshore agents. Robb Krieg, vice president of operations at on-line travel company Expedia, notes, for example, that the firm's outsourced Manila contact and fulfillment center, which handles a small portion of customer calls, consistently scores "at the high end of the curve," in customer surveys of Expedia's nine centers. Amazon.com achieved similar results from its e-mail contact center in India, says Bill Price, founder of Driva Solutions and a former Amazon.com vice president.
Why the favorable performance? For starters, Expedia, Amazon.com and other outfits have "accent neutralization" initiatives that help agents to speak slowly and to include American idiomatic expressions in conversation. Second, foreign support agents are often better educated than American counterparts. That's because high competition for jobs in developing countries allows for more rigorous screening of applicants. Mike McClure, vice president of marketing for Talisma, a provider of CRM solutions and outsourced technical support, says its Bangalore contact center hired 200 new positions last year out of an applicant pool of about 30,000. Employee turnover, he adds, has been low compared to US rates because agents in developing economies have a higher status than in North America.
As to the second argument - that contact centers take good jobs from Americans - consider this: With more than 70,000 call and contact centers in North America, finding qualified agents is a major concern for many managers. And keeping agents after they are hired is a royal headache. In some regions of North America, more than 5% of the labor force is employed by contact centers. But Driva Solutions' Price says the maximum sustainable rate is 2% to 3%. Upshot: Many companies are as likely to cite labor availability as they are lower labor costs as a reason for opening contact centers offshore.
And what about the third argument: that there is a risk of unregulated and potentially oppressive working conditions? With respect to the centers discussed above, conditions are quite good. Talisma's Bangalore outsourcing center, for example, was built in a campus style similar to Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Both Talisma and Daksh, the Delhi-based outsourcer used by Amazon.com, supply free transportation and hot meals to agents. Agents at these centers are comparatively well paid and invested in the success of their employer. Some even receive stock options.
Accepting the Inevitable
Finally, do we have a choice? I think not. Historically, as populations have become more prosperous, they have demanded more service while becoming less willing to provide the necessary labor from within their own ranks. Foreign workers have frequently been imported to fill low-wage labor positions. But technology now allows some of these workers to stay at home. The benefit to emerging economies is obvious: decent jobs in a clean industry; investment in regional infrastructure; expanding tax bases; families kept together. The benefit to North American consumers is also clear: more service at a better price with little or no decline in quality.
-Peter Gurney is managing director of Kinesis, a leader in helping companies plan and execute customer experience strategies. Peter can be reached at pgurney@kinesis-CEM.com
