Offshoring: the real truth

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) December 2, 2011 -- Offshoring is like marmite ; you either love it or hate it. We are all aware that the backlash against offshoring has been vicious. With well known brands moving overseas customer contact centres back to the UK to great media fanfare, it has been assumed that offshoring has ‘failed’. This might be the case for companies looking for inexpensive customer service functions. However, companies that are still being forced to make cuts – is it time to re-examine what really went wrong with offshoring?

Offshore operations don’t fail because they are based overseas, they fail due to ineffective planning, poor communication between client and provider, and unrealistic expectations. If you do decide to offshore all or part of your customer service function, I believe there are 5 steps that must be taken to achieve success:

1. Get the best value
It should not be about the cheapest solution. Find an outsourcing partner who will work with you to achieve realistic expectations.

2. Align processes with your business objectives
Make sure the processes you have in place are the right ones and are aligned with your business objectives. It’s no good offshoring bad processes – you will simply have bad processes overseas.

3. Outsource some areas of your customer management services

Consider the option for only outsourcing certain customer management functions to certain types of customers based on their value.



4. Change your perception of overseas agents
Don’t assume that your overseas agents are any less capable than UK agents as the majority are highly educated, really care about their work and can exceed customer service expectations.

5. Stay in touch
Stay in constant communication with your outsourced partner and be realistic about the level of support management time you may need initially.

In my opinion, following on from its success in hosting the World Cup, many organisations should take a fresh look at South Africa as an offshore destination. Whereas India’s pitch to the rest of the world has always been based on cutting costs, South Africa has been keen to put across the other benefits of a country that prides itself on people power. South Africa can offer; greatly reduced operation costs, knowledgeable, skilled, highly motivated workers, cultural affinity and neutral accents and an established call centre infrastructure.

Overall, I believe that offshoring, at least in South Africa, should be considered for companies that want to improve their contact centre performance. Our experience in South Africa has achieved positive results for clients. For this reason, we invest heavily in South Africa as our key location for providing exceptional customer services.

More information can be found online at http://www.chaseresponse.com/blog/

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