By Steve Ranger, 8 June 2006 15:15
NEWS
Poor processes - rather than exotic accents - are to blame for problems with offshore call centre operations.
Mike Havard, managing director of consultancy CM Insight, said it's not fair to blame call centre agents when offshore operations run into trouble.
Havard said: "There are incredibly bright people that you will be doing a disservice to if you blame them for failure," adding that complaints about the accents of call centre operatives being difficult to understand are often a way for customers "to say something is different".
He told the Offshore Customer Management conference in Cairo this week: "Consumers want to be respected and have their call taken seriously but too many companies do dumb things to customers - and that's not an offshore issue."
Havard said conversations with customers should have one of three main aims: to reduce the cost of interaction; to make the customers spend more money with the business; or to drive loyalty, thus reducing the cost of sales.
Paul Hopkins, registration and fulfilment manager at loyalty scheme Nectar, said the performance of its offshore call centre in Mumbai improved when staff were put through additional training.
He said: "The Indian call centre was finding it very hard to pick up on the emotion in the call," meaning they would try and cross-sell extra products at inappropriate times.
He said the training, which worked to improve their listening and questioning skills, had "changed the mindset" of the agents and added that customer satisfaction metrics from the Indian site are now better than from Nectar's onshore call centre.
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1. Steve Simmons
Poor English & unintelligible accents can be a real problem, not just a failure of customer acceptance of the change. I have had to deal with countless offhore centres while handling probate on my deceased parents estate, and WITHOUT EXCEPTION the service has been appalling. And this has been not only offhore but also outsourced UK based call centres. I believe the real problem arises from the removal of the direct customer relationship. The call centre operative is working to rules set to satisfy the corporate client, not the individual end customer. Until the outsourcers/offshorers succeed in writing call centre performance contracts to align with customer needs, they will continue to get customers angered and frustrated. As a result I have taken several pieces of business elsewhere. Unfortunately not enough people can be bothered to walk away, so the companies don't learn.