Emotional Discussion

A couple of responses to this update:

1. Here's a post from Simon Harries, a UK based marketer, on the Emotions of Outsourcing

Eric,

I have another view on this. I recently had to contact AMEX customer care because of some lost traveler's cheques. The result was most disturbing. I spent around 3 hours on the phone altogether on 5 or 6 different calls- speaking to people in the Philippines and Utah. I would not fault the people I spoke to, they were all polite and friendly, but the service was pretty poor, purely because of lack of local knowledge.

I was in France and called a free number. So far so good. The sheer lack of local knowledge (or any European knowledge) showed by the people I spoke to, however, caused massive inconvenience. They took far too long over every single step (apparently concerned to follow a very tight script and, if any details fell outside their precise terms of reference, having to put me on hold in order to consult a supervisor).

When they eventually found a solution (which involved me calling the local UK Amex office where I bought my cheques in order to find the exact numbers- not visible on the Amex system) they told me that a local bank would reimburse the money. This was when I realized how far away from me they were. They were unable to recognize any French place names except for the limited number of large cities on their database. They then sent me to a bank that no longer did business with Amex (having spoken to THEIR call center rather than the branch). They had the address wrong on their database, meaning that I first went to a bank with a similar name (that definitely did not do business with Amex) before going to the right bank (according to Amex) where I was told that, whatever their call center said, they were NOT going to give me any money.

Despite the free number, I was now reduced to calling long distance at high rates on my mobile to sort out the problem while my entire family waiting on the sidewalk in sweltering heat on what was supposed to be our holiday. In the end, the Amex agent in Utah sent a money transfer to the post office and, a further 45 minutes' queuing later, I had the cash.

Now I am not sure this problem was caused by the offshoring of the service, though I am convinced that it was a factor. Having just written a case study on the wonders of the Amex customer service system, however, I wished that I could go back and rewrite it with a large health warning all over it.

I was on holiday and it took me from Saturday evening till Tuesday 5pm to get my cash back. It took me well over 3 hours on the phone (this is an underestimate), much of it at very high mobile phone rates, plus about 2 hours in various queues. I think that the offshore call center makes fine sense for Amex shareholders but I, for one, will NEVER use any service from Amex ever again. Life is too short.

The technology is there but the skills training, careful supervision and, above all, the sheer detail in the knowledge is not there yet. You cannot provide a complex and sensitive service on the basis of a dumb generic script and a dumber database, especially when it is not kept up to date. My advice to Amex is don't you ever tell your customers that anyone in a city 8000 miles away is going to do something on your behalf unless you have spoken to the people who actually have to deliver the service. Call centers speaking to call centers? What a laugh! Guaranteed to be wrong pretty much every time...

All the best,

Simon

=============================

2. From Dean Blomson in Australia

Thks. The point you make well is that this works, provided it doesn't undermine the customer experience AND customers are not parochial i.e.. are happy to view themselves as part of a global system. The issue in selecting an off-shore call centre is that it is often a double whammy - i.e.. both offshore AND an 'outsource deal'. The key ingredient is not only reducing cost-to serve and keeping service levels constant for your mass market channels (low cost, high volume, low? touch) but really understanding what makes the measurable difference in the customer experience (and what the performance tolerances are). I suspect that the companies that get it right do so NOT because they have been driven primarily by reducing cost thru' outsourcing (and land a sweet deal), but because they have first ensured that they really understand the desired/required service experience. This has allowed them to ensure that the interactions and touch points can in fact be made more consistent thru' outsourcing in one place, if not barring some accent changes, and that thier customer base in the main will be appreciate that.