I've got nothing against outsourcing, per se. In fact, outsourcing mundane business processes leaves the more thoughtful, interesting work for the rest of us.
Three different companies with which I do business have outsourced their call centers to eastern countries. Although the call center companies work diligently to teach their operators mid-western, American accents, it is painfully obvious you're talking to Dubai and not Des Moines.
But the real problem I have with them lies not in their language skills, but in their inability to solve my problems. Talking with one of these customer representatives is like having a conversation with a robotic parrot. They've learned canned responses that were meant to cover every question or problem that might arise. Detecting subtlety is not their thing. Often, the same answer is repeated back to me even though the question has, from where I sit anyway, changed significantly.
This creates an extremely frustrating consumer experience. Something is definitely lost in translation.
Some of it, due to cultural and language differences, cannot be avoided. But knowing this, companies who outsource to this pool of workers should strive diligently to compensate for it. Deeper training and inculcation into the company's brand, products and procedures is needed. The conversation with the customer must move beyond reading flash cards.
Just because the labor is cheap, doesn't mean the customer's experience should be treated as less valuable.
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