Key factors for small businesses in deciding to off-shore?

When I made the decision to use an onshore vendor rather than an offshore vendor, the most important factor to me was to maintain my company's reputation for responsive, effective customer service. I talked with agents for several offshore vendors and I know it is unPC to say this, but I had difficulty understanding many of them and I didn't want to put my customers through this same experience. Fortunately I was able to convince my management that the communication factor would affect our credibility, and the perceived quality of our service was already one of our major competitive advantages. The fact that the total cost of support onshore was less than 1% of income and going offshore would have cut it to around .05% of income didn't hurt - my management had a lot of other areas where cuts would translate more effectively to the bottom line.

This is an area we are very focused on, specifically outsourcing for small and medium business, whether off shore on onshore... the reason why we focus in this market segment is that we feel that it has traditionally been underserved as it relates to outsourcing. As so much of the business process outsourcing has been implemented for large multinational companies, we feel the lack of control and transference of culture and focus for small medium business has been a challenge to really be able to successfully look to outsourcing. The advent of technology and the tools now allow companies to manage extended resources from their office, or from anywhere really, is burgeoning a whole new era of what I call rightsourcing. Having the right resource available for the right amount of time for the right type of interaction required at the right price for that small or medium sized business is the key. We have focused on implementing solutions that enable small medium business to effectively select, hire, train manage and communicate to on a real-time basis contracted resources that are very closely managed by the business management teams directly – more of a co-source. Clearly there are processes and technology that must be in place to enable this to happen, but once in place, the control and the ability for a small or medium-sized business to expand and augment their resource needs with direct contracted resources that are right for their needs is a powerful capability. Customers are able to select hire, schedule, manage and monitor delivering in-depth visibility of what that remote worker is doing for them for the amount of time that they have been contracted. This can be leveraged for support, sales, accounting, replying to e-mails, chat sessions, or whatever is needed to get the job done. The marrying of the right resource with the task at hand and to be able to do it on a global basis provide small medium business with an incredible advantage that wasn't here just a few short years ago.
To summarize, get the right resource sourced with the right skill, for the right amount of time and money while providing direct management control to ensure culture, process, and outcomes are met. For this to be the right fit for a small medium sized business there needs to be a willingness to want to manage the resource in a co-sourced model. One implemented we have see some great results with access to a global network of independent contractors that empower SMB to rightsource for their business needs and save money in the process.

With the technology available today, off-shoring isn't much of a technical challenge anymore. The issues that I see companies dealing with are the following:

Public Relations: With today's economic climate, if a company is off-shoring its call center just to save a few bucks, it is going to come back to bite them. Buyers sometimes actively look for U.S.-based call center for support. A few years ago, I had the majority of customers opt for HP over Dell just because the HP support was based in North America. It became a joke with customers that they would call support and get a very Indian-sounding operator who said their name was Bobby or Jennifer.

Customer Service: I know it's not politically correct (I never am!), but callers typically don't receive the same level of service from an overseas agent. Companies spend lot of time and money trying to teach agents how to converse in American English, but the nuances take years to pick up and need face-to-face interaction.

Financial: This was the main reason most companies looked at off-shoring, but recently other countries have started charging more for their services. For instance, India has become less desirable than the Philippines because of pricing. Many areas have taken away the price advantage and priced themselves out of a market.

The three above reasons are why companies are starting to bring jobs back to North America. They've found that, in the long run, it makes business sense.

I know I'm not the typical call center caller, but a question I routinely ask when I call a business is "Where is your call center"... The answer is always very interesting. I have had excellent services (and nice chats) with agents around the world. However, as previous posters have said, I quickly lose my patience (and I'm very patient, even with thick accents - I like to talk to people from other places) when we find ourselves at an impasses, and incapable of communicating.

I have seen a lot of companies over the last few years begin pulling their call centers back to the US, and seating thousands of agents in the process. The best reason I can see that companies might do this is the public backlash and perceived problems without off shoring their contact centers.

In a medium where communication is key, having speakers who can't communicate effectively is sure to be a deal breaker.

As you did not indicate the number of positions that you would consider outsourcing, you may run into some issues with large outsourcers either off shore or in the U.S. of not wanting to accommodate you due to a small number of seats or charging you an extraordinary high price.

Also having a small business you run the risk of losing your hard earned service reputation much more readily because of the poor service provided by offshore agents.

A more viable solution may be to establish a Viirtual Contact Center for your company with Work At Home Agents. With the cost of web based technology and "pay as you go" solutions it will allow for more control and an economical solution.

Hi All,

I would surely like to add a point here which is missing..You can look for a company which is USA based and have offshore contact center,which will give you the benefit of not running into trouble of different culture or appointing someone onsite,and interact with people on table and explain them the business need n process flow..Lot of esteem members here mentioned on "pulling back" point which is in some point true due to some reasons but offcourse not related to "different culture".
We are Atlanta,Georgia based company and have our center in India which has successfully migrated lot of processes for Middle and small enterprises.Our management is from GE and we follow GE policies for business migration and Six Sigma and we are successful.

Surely the price is a factor but apart from that you are just outsourcing some part of the business and the core is still onshore and your team is giving 100% on that adding more business to your organisation and your offshore team is not only boosting your sales/leads/customer service but also allowing your core team the much needed time to think out of the Box..Its a win win situation for all.

The world has understood the meaning of Outsourcing and its advantages.Need to have the VOC ( voice of customer ) regularly to keep updated about the feedback

Regards

Hello
Many business people like to think that because of the fact that offshore agents did not have US english accent, that simple fact will kill the off shore market, wrong, if you look all the studies, the off shore market is growing year after year.
Sure american people prefer to have US accent, but the numbers are talking themselves. The arguments that many companies are coming back is just to make people in US feel good, but there is also a lot of companies who are going off shore each year.

Just ask your friends & neighbors about their Call Center 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 & neighbors 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 a sales prospect. The human voice of the Agent provides your company’s human face. If your prospect cannot understand the Agent due to accent issues or communicative style - the problems are compounded. The prospect can become agitated and the company may wind up losing a sale. In the present economic environment, just hearing a foreign accent could trip that trigger. Losing dollars chasing dimes is not a wise long-term Call Center Strategy.

Companies are also re-examining the impact of sending their Call Center jobs overseas on their corporate reputation. 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. 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 & neighbors will tell you that when they are contacted by telephone – 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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