The Dell case might be an exception, but the best practices are yet to arrive. Outsourcing trend is in its early development stage, in which many issues are to be addressed properly.

A good match is a must from the beginning, which requires excellent evaluation skills from the outsourcing company. Soft skills issues, such as cultural barriers, for instance, would impose future conflicts if not properly addressed early.

The fine art of customer service lies in the ability to show empathy. Cultural barriers may cause some problems in understanding the nuances needed to resolve matters in the best and most polite ways possible.

Do we have Nordstrom's knock-your-shoes-off level of customer service to showcase on the Outsourcing Walk of Fame yet? I'd doubt that.

Customer service is probably the trickiest skill to transfer to workers of different cultural background. It might sound trivial, but it requires a lot of preparation, mostly in the areas of communication skills finesse.