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The Hidden Cost of Outsourcing
Alien54 writes to tell us CNNMoney is reporting that outsourcing may not be as big of a bargain as some might think. From the article: "With consumers enjoying more choice than ever before, evidence is growing that great service is essential for long-term customer retention. To cite just one example, a recent survey of pension policyholders in the United Kingdom found that 75 percent would leave their current provider if they experienced bad customer service."
To cite just one example, a recent survey of pension policyholders in the United Kingdom found that 75 percent would leave their current provider if they experienced bad customer service."
If this were true, Dell would not be the number one mfg of computers after losing 75% of their base. How many people here have called tech support and gotten someone with a thick Indian accent named "Steve"?
The problem (if you can call it that) is that Dell offers decent CPU's for cheap. Rather it be for the home or business, people are more willing to take the chance on a computer that's $200 than their competitors.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
The article is terse, inapplicable to those many markets which are almost entirely price-sensitive, and ill-supported. Pension policies don't really compete on price; they are about service and ROI.
And people often say that they will take their business elsewhere, but then stick to the cheapest vendor when push comes to shove. Self-report is not the best indicator of actual behaviour, especially for a hypothetical.
What's a pension?
How about intellectual property? Spend millions of dollars in the U.S. on research and development and then outsource the manufacturing to China and then wonder why the Chinese develop a very similar product. Duh!
Outsourcing does not mean, bad service. It's about getting a service from abroad with most probably lower costs. It's evident that same quality of service taken from India, or China is a lot cheaper than the one taken from US or some other European countries. Companies should be more selective on outsourcing, then they won't lose customer due to bad service, but in no way there's a direct connection with outsourcing and bad service.
The author is thirty years behind if this the first time he's run across this idea. There have been shitloads of studies done over and over again that show that most (i.e., >50%) people leave/switch because of shitty service from their existing supplier/provider/brand/etc.
It's a good thing that inhouse customer service can't be terrible!
Seriously, this just means that you have to be careful who it is who provides your outsourced service just like you'd have to be careful who it is who provides your inhouse services. The big difference is that outsourced service contracts are generally easier, quicker and cheaper to terminate and replace if they're don't meet the agreed standard.
"a recent survey of pension policyholders in the United Kingdom found that 75 percent would leave their current provider if they experienced bad customer service."
People say they will take action all the time. How many actually do? Well they do take action. They tell all their friends how shitty "the company" treated them. They go into detail about how "the company" doesn't care. And then next money they send "the company" a check for the bill.
Replace "the company" with practically any business name.
From the article, "you'll soon figure out that competing solely on price is a fool's game"
Quote below taken from DNUK's website
Often this is not the case. As a part-time marketeer, I can tell you that often what I do to lure customers away from my competition is:
1) "educate" my target segment to expect a higher level of service (change their expectations)
2) tell my competitor's customers that my competitor does not offer that higher level of service (given the new expectations, make them feel unhappy with their current provider)
3) make damn sure my own company offers the higher level of service when my competitor's now-unhappy customers go looking
4) don't compete on price; higher service can demand equal or higher price
5) repeat as necessary
Believe me - I'm not the only out there doing this either.
But since this is nothing new and Dell continues to sell it also means that either this does't happen to a lot of people or people just don't learn.
I buy from local shops and NEVER call in with a problem. I put the defective product on the counter on a shopping day (thursday evening or a saturday) and speak loudly about how I want it repaired or replaced. Works wonders. Over a phone they can and will try to tell you that a brand new HD is supposes to show badblocks or that a single wrong pixel in a lcd is acceptable. It is offcourse. If your stupid.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This is the thing nobody apparently gets.
It is an utter waste of time to study scenarios where customer orders product and pays for it, vendor ships product, customer receives product, end of story.
The _important_ metric is always the worst case scenario where the customer ends up falling in between the cracks in between different departments within a large organisation, nobody the customer contacts has responsobility, nobody has authority, nobody has motivation, nobody has their ass on the line if it escalates.
Anyone can sell acreage on the moon, you judge a company or business by how badly its worst mistakes fuck customers over, and you place the responsobility for that exactly where it belongs, on the directors conference table, and let it run down right through the company.
The reality is the bigger the company the more likely its reaction to a fuck-up being escalated through inaction is to undulge in ever more psychopathic behaviour.
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Okay first the disclaimer:
/.ers on this (maybe I should be submitting this to Ask /.) Is the quality of the outsourced job really terrible?
I'm currently working as a Customer Support in a local company in Malaysia where we help our client's client (mostly from the US and UK) troubleshooting their generic computing problems over the telephone.
Anyway, I've been working for a almost a year now and from what I've seen, the company I worked for has been recruting really skillful/talented people (most of them have CS degrees from Australia) to do the support.
However as you may know, most of these people speaks really poor, non-standard English. To make the matter worse, most of them (including me) have problems with our clients' American/English accent. Personally I'm sad that I've had clients that hanged up on me because they couldn't understand me in some occasions.
Okay so now, I would like some opinions from my fellow