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Outsourcing Issues
by on March 16, 2004
Quoted from Silicon.com, in 'Truth about Offshore Outsourcing' debate at the Institute of Directors earlier this week, Nasscom VP Sunil Mehta said: "There has been some anecdotal evidence [of poor service] but service levels are independent of geography. They depend on many things."
Poor service has forced Dell to choose leaving their outsourcing partner in Bangalore, India. Apparently, the knock-your-shoes-off style of customer service is extremely important for the US customers.
Various factors, such as cultural and working style factors, might have played some roles in the service output. Delay in responding to customer needs and wants is a big boo-boo in the States, for instance. However, for other cultures, waiting in a long line is a part of live and promptness is not as important as being properly addressed.
Cultural relativity is probably the culprit in the recent Dell's and other company's decision to exit their outsourcing agreement with offshore suppliers. Provided that this issue is addressed properly, financial resources spent wouldn't be worth the objective to outsource in the first place.
Poor service has forced Dell to choose leaving their outsourcing partner in Bangalore, India. Apparently, the knock-your-shoes-off style of customer service is extremely important for the US customers.
Various factors, such as cultural and working style factors, might have played some roles in the service output. Delay in responding to customer needs and wants is a big boo-boo in the States, for instance. However, for other cultures, waiting in a long line is a part of live and promptness is not as important as being properly addressed.
Cultural relativity is probably the culprit in the recent Dell's and other company's decision to exit their outsourcing agreement with offshore suppliers. Provided that this issue is addressed properly, financial resources spent wouldn't be worth the objective to outsource in the first place.
Permalink: Service Quality
Trackback: http://publish.creative-weblogging.com/publish/mt-tb.pl/1202
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Vote for Service Quality:
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Rating: 6.00 out of 3 vote(s) cast.
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Response from:
Hanns-Oskar Porr
(03/22/04 2:22pm)
Response from:
Roger Kosak
(04/08/04 9:19am)
EVERY software product we use that has offshore support is totally unsatisfactory. When the script readers cannot answer the question they hang up. This is not a random occurance, it happens every time. This costs us significant amounts of money to hire a consultant to come in and help with a major problem. In several instances, no fix is possible so we work around.
Response from:
Sholl
(06/04/04 9:42am)
Culteral differences are one of those quasi-invisible factors which planners sometimes overlook.
The examples here focus upon direct customer service. But equally, I have just been reading on the Outsourcing Forum ( http://www.outsourcingforum.nethttp://www.outsourcingforum.net">http://www.outsourcingforum.net ) a couple of threads which highlight difficulties with direct communication between outsource provider and recipient.
I suspect, as in so many areas, the key to minmize the difficulties is extremely detailing agreements: defining as many scenarios as possible. No tan easy solution, but firms need to understand that outsourcing is not always the easy option.
The examples here focus upon direct customer service. But equally, I have just been reading on the Outsourcing Forum ( http://www.outsourcingforum.net
I suspect, as in so many areas, the key to minmize the difficulties is extremely detailing agreements: defining as many scenarios as possible. No tan easy solution, but firms need to understand that outsourcing is not always the easy option.
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Dell is an exception, because Dell has always prided itself on customer service. If their outsourcing provider could not work at Dell's high level of quality, naturally they would endanger their reputation and they pulled out.
But that is not the case for many other companies. Sadly, as far as customer service is concerned, the quality you get overseas may actually be better than the one you get here...
It probably depends on the individual company, but in general, more companies can benefit from doing this than not.
For a good discussion, see:
http://www.seinquest.com/content/Wiki.jsp?page=OffshoreOutsourcing