Dec
3
WRITTEN BY:
Roger Barlow
Thursday, 3 December 2009
The practice of outsourcing call centres and other services to overseas locations has been around for many years and, from recent announcements, is still growing. However, I’ve had two recent experiences with telcos which bring to the fore the lack of ‘localness’ with off-shoring.
From a commercial point of view, off-shoring makes a lot of sense: resources are cheap and, in some areas, the expertise is as good as local talent … well, not as good as Frame’s talent of course!
But there is always a lot of discussion around the issues with quality of service, language barriers and cultural differences, with many naysayers deriding the enterprises that are sending our local business overseas. At the end of the day, we now live in a global economy and we need to think and compete globally. This capability will only grow stronger with the continual investment and development of networks linking the world (
the national broadband network,
Pipe Pacific Cable, etc.).
My doubts about off-shoring started with the demise of my home ADSL connection, and the customer service I received while trying to get it fixed.
A few weeks ago, I got home from a business trip to find a local blackout after a major Sydney thunderstorm had hit my area. Not only was my PC kaput, but my ADSL was dead. Let me tell you, I felt completely isolated as my PC acts as my media centre, and I live on the net.
The company I bought the PC from was fantastic. I called Monday morning, explained the problem and my dependence on the black box under my desk. By that afternoon, the guy had driven one hour to my home with a new motherboard, power unit and other spares ‘just in case’. He then rebuilt the PC, checked all was okay, and even emailed me the next day to see all was still well. Now, that is service. I paid a bit more for my PC at the time, which now seems like a great deal.
I have been with my ISP for over 6 years. I have supported them continuously, moving from ADSL 1 to 2, adding voice services, and recommending them to my friends and family. The main driver for me was cost: I see the service as a commodity and will go for the best deal (mix of quality of service and price). Unfortunately, my ISP has its call centre overseas (in Sri Lanka) and could not quite match the local PC guy. They blamed the copper line, they kept me holding for hours, they even had me walking up the street to check my modem with neighbours. Now their intentions were good, they really wanted to help, but I felt there was isolation—a level of understanding missing that they just could not grasp. It has taken nearly 10 days to resolve.
As an interim measure I went and bought a 3G wireless broadband stick from a major telco, hoping I could just plug it in and at least communicate with the outside world. Hmmm, not quite the experience I hoped for. Another call centre, this time in the Philippines, and I found myself talking to someone who had no idea, let alone technical knowledge. His only solution was to take it back to the store and get another one (it wasn’t broken, just a dodgy Vista driver). He then put me on hold for over an hour ... I wanted to wait to see if I was eligible for the Guinness Book of Records with the longest time kept on hold, but I had to hang up to get lunch for the kids.
From my perspective I can really understand the commercial realities and benefits of off-shoring, but, costs aside, you want to deal with people that can work, communicate and really understand things on your local level.