Outsourcing Times

Lay-Offs to Cut Costs

In an attempt to cut costs and improve productivity, Office Depot Inc., the second-largest office supply retailer in the United States, has either laid off or relocated nearly 900 of its call center employees, as an aftermath of shutting down eight of ten such centers. Their work has been outsourced to third party call centers or to virtual ones where home-based agents take care of customer needs. The company hopes to save $15 million annually through this consolidation process. TMC Net reports:

Employees there say they were never notified about Office Depot's long-range plans to eliminate traditional call centers. They only began to worry that the company was considering layoffs when workers from West Corp., a leading outsourcing company, came to the call center a couple of weeks ago and job-shadowed them.

Is Caller Abuse Worth It?

Contact center workers in India are already subject to various problems at work including having to travel at odd hours, strict supervision, the pressure to perform above standards day after day, and the burnout that comes with working long hours in night shifts. Their cup of woes, which is already full, is now overflowing with the abuse they have to put up with customers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia who are angry that they have to get their problems solved by people who are half a world away.

It's a case of misdirected anger. The rage at the company is being dumped on the hapless call center agents who are only doing their job. Perhaps part of the callers' frustration is the fact that jobs that should have actually gone to their own kind are being carried out by foreigners. Another reason is that agents are often asked to ape the American accent so that people back home will not know where their calls are being redirected. But this tactic does not work too well as callers more often than not identify the tone of a foreigner.

Indian call center workers have the double advantage of good English skills and the ability to work with discipline, which is why India is the most-preferred outsourcing destination for the West. With around 350,000 people currently employed in the call center industry that is generates earnings of $5.1 billion annually, organizations cannot afford to let the problems of their call center employees pass without any action being taken. Failure to do so will result in qualified workers moving on to greener pastures.

Burgers From Afar

Fast food giant McDonald’s is outsourcing a few of its operations to agents who work in a call center. Their job is to take orders and relay them back to the relevant restaurants through the Internet. The Santa Maria-based Bronco Communications handles calls from 40 restaurants scattered around the country, while Illinois-based Verety has hired home-based agents to do the job. The call centers have been in operation for the past 18 months, and have weathered protests ranging from the idea being “bizarre” to low voice quality which results in agents having to repeat questions or customers having to repeat orders.

While McDonald’s claims this system decreases the time between orders by a few seconds, the agents are paid only the minimum wages, and are subjected to constant scrutiny. Their system flashes the number of minutes they were away on a break, and they have to click on a pop-up that appears every now and then in around 1.75 seconds to show that they are on the job.

Philippine BPOs facing dearth of skilled workers

Now it is the turn of Philippines to feel the heat of the BPO boom! What I mean is now call and contact centers coming up there have begun to face a dearth of skilled workers. So much so that Philipino politicians have now started asking the Philippine government to withdraw the incentives that are in place for attracting foreign investment into call and contact centers. Instead the incentives should now be given to those firms which are giving training to Philippinos to become skilled at call center and contact center work. At present Philippine-based call and contact centers are the cheapest compared to those anywhere else in the world, but the big question is how long will they be able to hang on to this advantage?

Read more: Senator challenges govt to rethink incentives for BPO firms

African cos waking up to call center business

African countries such as Nigeria are fast realising the games that can be played in BPO space if you have plenty of  cheap labour. Call and contact centers are fast coming up in that country. Admittedly BPO operators there are still operating very much at the low end. The good thing is if more and more players begin to crowd the low end of the market, competition will force those with more experience - such as players in India - to graduate into higher levels in the value chain. There are benefits for the buyers too. Competition from new destinations such as Nigeria and other African countries will further push down costs of outsourcing call/contact center activity. This once again shows how competition somehow creates a win-win situation for all. For an insight into the Nigerian market:

Read more:  Setting the benchmark for outsourcing contact centers

Dell starts Philippines call center

Dell, the world's largest producer of personal computers, has begun operations at its call center in the Philippines. The call center, which provides customer and technical support to Dell computer users abroad, received its first inquiry from the United States on Monday when its initial 167 employees started work in a suburb of the Philippine capital, a Dell statement said. Dell plans to increase its staff to 700 shortly, it added.business.balita.ph reports:

The company said it chose the Philippines for the center "primarily because of the strong language and communications skills of its work force and a robust telecommunications infrastructure."

The Philippines, with a large, educated, English-speaking population, has emerged as a major location for call centers and business process outsourcing with this sector generating estimated revenues of 1.12 billion dollars last year.

Accent no more on accent

After being at the receiving end of many jokes, Indian BPO companies at last seem to have realised that it does not pay to merely worry about training its call centre recruits to speak with an American, British or Australian accent. Thank god! They have now begun to realise that it would pay more to put the accent on problem solving skills of call centre recruits rather than on the accent with which they speak.

Initially most of these companies were under the belief that their American clients or rather  customes of their American clients would be pleased to be spoken to in their own accents. But research has shown that what customers really want is not some put-on accent but an effective solution to their problems. Now Indian BPO companies are putting their emphasis on training recruits to think on their feet and provide effective solutions when customers want them. The Economic Times reports:

More and more call centres are now shifting focus to getting the job done and queries answered effectively rather than getting the accent right.

Egypt builds infrastructure to attract customer contact outsourcing

In a bid to open Egypt as a leading destination for customer contact outsourcing, the country is gearing up to provide the necessary infrastructure to attract outsourcing contracts. The government is building a subsidized call center training facility, offering free trade zones, and promoting awareness all around of Egypt's preparedness to meet outsourcing requirements from around the world.

The country hopes to project its advantages of multilingual capabilities, neutral accents, and central geographical location vis-à-vis the US, Europe, and Asia. If Egypt succeeds in its bid to attract volumes of outsourcing deals from the West, India will feel the challenge to its dominance in this outsourcing industry. CIO Today reports:

Speaking at the Offshore Customer Management International Conference in Prague last week, Adel Danish, chairman and chief executive of Xceed Contact Center, based in Egypt, stated: "The government is behind the industry as it creates jobs, takes people off the streets, and encourages them to think positively."

Aliant Inc. outsources 129 jobs

Atlantic Canada's dominant telecom company Aliant Inc. will outsource 129 jobs from its call centers' help desks to a non-unionized company. About 100 temporary wrokers are also going to lose their jobs at Aliant. The National Post reports:

Penny Fawcett, a local president with the CEP, said there are concerns Aliant may continue to shift work to the non-unionized call centres to bolster the company's bottom line. Last year, the union was involved in a bitter, five-month-long strike with Aliant, with outsourcing being one of the major issues. 

Outsourcing in the Australian telecommunications sector increases customer complaints: John Pinnock

In releasing the annual report for the telecom industry in Australia, telecommunications industry Ombudsman John Pinnock warned that there is a significant increase in the number of customer complaints in this sector. He attributed this to outsourcing of the call center requirements.

According to Pinnock, outsourcing in the telecommunications sector reduces the control of the telecommunication company over call responses. At the same time, the outsource provider lacks the customer knowledge that is essential in dealing with customer requirements. Pinnock identified the companies where most of the complaints were located. PC Advisor reports:

Pinnock said complaints were consistently much higher in the telecoms industry than in banking, insurance and finance. Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association CEO Graham Chalker said the number of mobile phone subscribers in Australia is nearing 19 million, and argued that the report should be looked at in context.