I recently read an article that gave me insight into the very broad, rapidly changing, call center industry. One of the first exposures I had to automated customer service was with my mortgage company. After several attempts to talk to a person and getting caught in the hold loop, I decided to refinance with another mortgage company. I sent a letter to the bank president telling him why I would not do business any longer. I never heard back from him.
Another experience I had was with Earthlink. I had been an Earthlink customer for five years. When their customer service and tech service went to India I couldn’t understand the tech support agents. As a result, I cancelled my account. They lost a good customer.
Now here is my point; from my perspective, you could predict that moving call centers off shore would be a huge customer service problem. I wonder if the chief executives implementing the outsourcing were so focused on the increased profits outsourcing would create, that they were blind to the negative effects it would have on customers like me.
A recent idea called “home shoring” is a very good solution to the poor quality of customer service. Personally I will not do business with a company that hires non Americans for their call centers. I believe that the public is fed up with the poor service and will welcome the “home shoring” strategy. This strategy involves using home call agents to take customer service calls by customers. While moving a company’s call center off shore saves two thirds of the cost of operating call centers in the U.S., home shoring allows companies to save one third of the costs but in addition, give a higher level of customer service and a happier customer base.
By Bill Cherry
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