More contact center work appears to be leaving the offshore, driven back onshore. The forces are a combination of customers’ issues with service quality and rising costs in those nations.

As the calls become complex—self-service taking on simpler interactions once handled by agents and were among those offshored—customer/offshore agent cultural differences come to the fore.

These factors, coupled with customer frustration and impatience, lead to difficult, time-consuming and ultimately more expensive interactions offshore both from raw cost and customer satisfaction—and business retention--perspectives.

No matter how well one trains offshore agents, there are key lessons that can’t be taught i.e. truly understanding others’ cultures. These insights can only be gained by living in their countries and immersing in their ways of life.

The U.K. is on the bleeding edge of this repatriating contact center trend. The Guardian newspaper reported July 8 that financial services firm Santander will close all of its Indian contact centers and shift all calls to the country. This follows similar moves by competitor Lloyds Banking Group and New Call Telecom.

Santander’s existing contact centers: in Glasgow, Leicester and Liverpool have added a total of 500 new positions which match those lost in India reports the paper. Contact center training has been taking place over the past few months.

“The move comes after the Spanish-owned bank topped complaints tables compiled by the Financial Services Authority and customer research found they regarded Indian service centres as one of their biggest frustrations,” says The Guardian.

Ana Botín, who heads up the bank in the U.K., told The Guardian: “Improving the service we offer is my top priority. Our customers tell us they prefer our call centres to be in the UK and not offshore. We have listened to the feedback and have acted by re-establishing our call centres back here.”

On the other hand onshore contact center quality needs to rise to the challenge. A disturbing new report sponsored by Avaya (News - Alert), the Avaya Contact Center Consumer Preference Study revealed that just 20 percent of American consumers said they receive excellent customer service from call centers.

While domestic agents may have no trouble understanding domestic customers that does not necessarily mean they excel at meeting their needs: especially as customers become rightfully more demanding. American educational standards are notoriously deplorable and too many young people in the workforce lack the needed job discipline report contact center staffing professionals. American employees have sometimes been referred to pejoratively as “gum-smackers”: an action that says it all.

In contrast in many nations contact centers attract top quality and highly motivated employees and for good reason, namely the stark contrasts in living standards between the socioeconomic classes. Contact centers represent a step up the ladder: below which is abject poverty.

The quality issue is going to get more critical. Industry experts report that not only are customers are becoming more demanding in today’s slow growth/social era but more firms are offloading complex tasks, like insurance and mortgages once undertaken in offices to contact centers. Customers who have reached out to contact centers—increasingly over their wireless devices--will not have much tolerance with agents who take their sweet time and make mistakes on matters affecting their individual lives involving their scarce disposable income, and time.

The repatriating movement means that the time is now to effectively train and manage contact center agents. That means equipping coaches, supervisors and managers with the skills needed to make sure that these new onshore contact centers are a success.

To that end the RCCSP Professional Education Alliance offers a comprehensive array of in-depth contact center training and certification courses offered at conveniently located venues across North America, plus virtually and optionally onsite, conducted by leading professionals. Click here or call 708 246-0320 to learn more.