Outsourced Call Centers Losing Feasibility?

Daniel Pronych writes "BusinessWeek is running an article about how outsourcing call centers in India are no longer an 'inexpensive option' for American companies. These shops are now striving for better outsourced work from the U.S. and Europe multinational companies; many are fed up with U.S. clients trying to continually lower prices. New Delhi-based EXL Services, for example, terminated a contract with Dell Inc. because EXL was losing money in the deal."

Comments

Re:More government tax on corporations who outsour

[m0rph3us0]

The funny thing is all of your ideas ARE anti-capitalist. No one is accusing you of being anti-capitalist, you are simply proposing solutions that are anti-capitalist.

Whether capitalism benefits or does not benefit us doesn't make your ideas any more or less capitalist. Just because people will turn to welfare if insurance doesnt exist, doesn't make welfare any less socialist. Welfare is simply one aspect of socialism in the American government. It doesn't make any sense to try and avoid socialism through more socialism. If the law that made tarrifs eliminated welfare then maybe you would have a point.

At least most capitalists have the balls to call their ideas capitalism rather than trying to label socialism capitalism. Just say it, you like socialist policies. I don't in general, but it's a free country so no one is going to put you in the gulag or send you to be reeducated cutting sugar cane if you want to change a law.

I don't need to "flame" you for being anti-capitalist its clear to anyone who can read and knows what capitalism means knows that the state using taxation to redistribute wealth is as anti-capitalist as it comes. Exactly which of your ideas aren't anti-capitalist?

Business models

[kippers]

The reason why people don't like outsourced call centres isn't usually because they are in India (however if it has lead to loss of local jobs people dislike that too). It's because things are generally made harder. The people in India aren't generally very good at speaking English, and commonly fail to understand what you are trying to say. They also generally are of little help. If you have a problem, you are either put on hold, or relayed a manual (which you have probably already read). They also are usually rather powerless - there *is* very little they are able to do - they are just made to 'deal' with people - and this just annoys most. Since they usually know so little about the subject you are calling about, working with outsourced call centres is just like flogging a dead sheep. They also probably think the same about dealing with angry customers. It's all about profit now, not customer service, and not about keeping the customer happy. If the customer is unhappy but they stay with the company - then their business model is working. However if you leave the company, you just receive the same level of service elsewhere.

Re:Feasibility

[umkhhh]

in a sense you are right. It usually worked like this:

1. a brilliant manager comes to a new cunning plan to save the company zillions of talars, grosh or whatever - there is this new fashion it is call eeeeee outsourcing let's outsorurce my dep. I do not need these lazy overpaid bastards anyway.
2. proposal is being made everobody agrees after all even Wanker Weekly wrote about it
3. majority of customer service engineers are freed fromtheir duties a new CC in Zamunda is opened
4. Due to layoffs the share price of the corporation is higher than ever - the brilliant manager is rewarded according to his achievments and he has less duties: instead of talking to lazy bustards he has now only one manager in Zamunda to talk too in case of problems or free lunch.
5. the customers stopped complainig - excellent the brilliant manager says: the new policy works we even have unpredicted profit - no complains. We saved zillions of tallars, got rid of complaining customers and improved the quality - all in one go - we are better than head and shoulders.
6. unfortunately book keepers notice that orders fall as custmers are pissed off: they either cannot reach the CC or they can but after struggling with new voice manu they find out that the person on the other side of the phone does not understand a word or even if s/he does it serves no purpose as s/he does speak with accent so heavy as it were made of plutonium.
7. the briliant manager is either given a golden hand-shake or promoted depending on clauses in his contract.

Every new fashion in managment works the same way: short lived fascination and then covering arses of the responsible possibly declaring the whle excercsie as a big success. Downsizingworked the same way (was it not Amtrack that was so successfuly down-sizing that they did not have any body to drive their trains anymore?)

Sombody was talking about silver bullets around here? It looks like one only the silver is faked.