Which got me thinking: why can’t companies connect their frustrated American customers to knowledgeable American service reps? I don’t have anything against people who speak differently than I do, but when you’re frustrated with an appliance or electronic gadget, the last thing you want to do is engage in an unwieldy linguistic guessing game.
But the corporate view of customer service is not about public facility — it’s about making sure you don’t return the product (profit for them) through the assistance of someone abroad who gets paid a small fraction of what he or she would be paid in the United States (more profit for them). This is, after all, the capitalist system.
Simply put, the corporate approach to outsourcing customer service hinges on a number of key scenarios which include the following:
- Changing business model: If a company makes a dramatic and decisive shift in the way it’s set up — such as opting to offer 24-hour customer support — outsourcing can be an effective way of both cutting costs and making sure that someone is always available regardless of the time of day. This also helps if the company chooses to offer tech support in other languages (e.g., Spanish, Chinese, German, etc.).
- Growth: If a company experiences a sudden surge in growth, it naturally follows that the number of customers or clients it serves will increase accordingly. In order to satisfy this new volume of customers, outsourcing service reps is often a good investment.
- Money: This is probably the most common reason corporations choose to outsource jobs, a trend which began back in the 1980s. The operation of a full-service customer relationship management program can be significant with the attendant phone systems, software, call centers, and actual employees necessary to meet demand. Outsourcing to a third-party company already equipped with such a setup is an easy and reliable way to forgo such expenditures.
- Learning models: A new or small business looking to set up its own customer service office may want to outsource initially to learn the fundamentals of operation. Once they have achieved a significant level of mastery, they may set up their own in-house customer service center.
- Volume: Business and call volume change with each season, and companies may opt to outsource all or a portion of their customer service if they are engaged in a high-volume season where the in-house capacity simply cannot satisfy customer needs. Seasonal assistance may be required when companies experience call volume that is erratic and unpredictable.
