Is call center location a factor when choosing an outsourced call center?

Troy,

Location is an absolutely legitimate and important consideration when selecting an outsource call center partner for all the macro reasons raised by Niek, but also for some equally important micro reasons. Alignment between the outsource partner and key functional areas within your organization - Marketing, Sales, Order Processing, Product Development, etc - will be necessary, particularly at the start of the partnership. Location can contribute or detract from achieveing this alignment. Training is a critical function which requires alignment and co-ordination with the outsource partner. Again location can contribute or detract from this alignment.

Finally, and perhaps more fundamental than any consideration, is the perspective of your customers - current and prospective. How will your organization's relationship with its existing customers change based on the location of your outsourced call center? Could this relationship potentially be enhanced by choosing one location over another? Would the selection of a particular location enhance or harm your ability to attract net new customers?

Cheers,

William

Location is absolutely a factor - not only for the points that William and Niek identify in the impact to the customer relationship and experience but also is a factor for very pratical technical and disaster recovery reasons.

For example, an outsourcer that is located in a geographic region that is subject to weather, geological or political conditions that can affect your outsourcers ability to have staff that can make it to work, have continuous connectivity to the necessary tools to perform the function(telecom and network connectivity), and allow the outsourcer to access a potential staffing base are key.

The outsourcer should also complement any centers you wish to keep in-house from a location standpoint for DR and time zone purposes. If your in-house center is located in Florida, an outsourcer in a non-hurricane zone would enable back-up coverage in the event of a hurricane. (It would be bad to have all of your centers down because of one hurricane).

Language is also an important consideration. If you have a need to support languages that you find difficult to staff (such as Russian or French Canadian), it would be ideal to locate a outsourcer in a location that can provide educated staff who can provide support in that language with the appropriate cultural context.

Consider your customer base location and demographics and MAKE DARN SURE that you have solid SLAs with teeth (financial penalties) for quality, sales (if applicable), resolution rate, and technology stability.

You can find a directory of domestic (USA/Canada) Contat Centers to outsource your calls to at http://www.atsi.org/assnfe/companydirectory.asp?SEARCH_TYPE=7&SnID=458599223

But before you consider sending your Call Center work overseas - just ask your friends & neighbors about their experiences.

I’m sure that some of your friends will tell you that they’ve occasionally had the experience of dealing with a Call Center Agent based in the USA who was clearly a poor fit for the job - and who delivered a poor caller experience.

But when it comes to describing their experiences dealing with a company that has shipped their Call Center work overseas - the vast majority of your friends will tell you that they generally have a hard time understanding – or being understood by the Agent – and that their call is typically being handled by a ‘script reader’.

The Call Center Agent is your ambassador to your customers. The human voice of the Agent provides your company’s human face. Much of the time when a customer calls it is because something has gone wrong. If the caller cannot understand the Agent due to accent issues or communicative style - the problems are compounded. The caller can become agitated and the company may wind up losing a customer and future sales. In the present economic environment, just hearing a foreign accent could trip that trigger. Losing dollars chasing dimes is not a wise long-term Customer Service Strategy.

Corporate Social Responsibility is considered an important factor in business success today. Companies are thinking twice about employing workers in countries with poor human rights records - or lax labor standards such as India.

Ask your friends what they think about the exploitation of Labor. Call Center workers in India experience abuse & exploitation to a degree and on a scale that would be viewed as criminal in some instances by North American Courts of Law. For example; Indian Call Center Agents are treated as 21st Century ‘cyber-coolies’. They work graveyard shifts - under high pressure – in work environments where liberal attitudes to sex and club drugs are encouraged and thriving. Colluding employers have set up “Blacklist” data bases - containing the details of their Call Center employees - so that “negative insider elements” can be detected at the recruitment stage. Workers in their hundreds are fired without so much as one cent in severance pay.

Overwhelmingly your friends will tell you that they want to speak with a Call Center Agent from their region - who is typically better able to serve and communicate with them. Probe a little deeper – and they’ll also tell you that they’re opposed to shipping Call Center jobs overseas – and particularly to countries with poor human rights records - or lax labor standards such as India.

From the Jan. 2010 Issue of Site Selection: “Offshoring calls to India works in very limited situations. Interaction with clients and understanding the culture & environment of clients doesn’t work very well at all. The direction of the industry is to bring these customer facing jobs back to the USA.”

The latest Labor Market Outlook from the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development in the UK: “UK companies are bringing back call centre operations to the UK from India. Most of the companies that we deal with are looking to keep call centre staff in the UK wherever possible because there is a significant increase in the level of service and customer satisfaction provided."

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