Here’s a great anecdote: At one international call center, an agent was (after a time) discovered to be ending each customer call with the words “I love you.” When his supervisor finally intervened and asked him for an explanation, he stated that he had wanted to show customers that he cared. Which is great. However, most North American customers don’t really enjoy spontaneous confessions of love by strange customer service representatives. Culture mismatch is one of the many reasons why a lot of offshore outsourcing projects don’t succeed.

It wouldn’t take you too long with a calculator and even ballpark figures to determine that offshoring your call centers could potentially be one of two things: a huge cost savings or one of the biggest expenses your company will ever face. So how do you make sure it’s the former and not the latter? A new white paper by Mark W. Brodsky and Dina Vance of Ulysses Learning makes the point that following best practices in hiring, training and management is the number one tool in ensuring success for an offshore call center.

With today’s increasingly uncertain economic forecast and the constant pressure to reduce costs, many companies have outsourced their call center operations to offshore or “near-shore” facilities like Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean. By offshoring, companies can save money and find a highly educated and skilled workforce. However, cultural differences, heavy accents, inadequate training and insufficient hiring practices can lead to poor customer satisfaction experiences, causing a loss of customer loyalty and ultimately, a loss in sales. The offshore outsourcing model is fraught with failed experiments. It’s also full of success stories.

According to Ulysses Learning, when it comes to customer service, U.S.-based customers expect a certain level of customer experience. If the customer is calling to resolve a problem — a billing dispute, a malfunctioning item they purchased, to change travel reservations — that customer is often frustrated before he or she even picks up the phone. So when the customer reaches a customer service representative with an indecipherable accent who can’t even solve their problem – requiring them to speak to a supervisor or worse, call back multiple times – customers become justifiably angry at the entire organization. Your organization. And the next time that customer makes a purchasing decision, it’s likely he or she won’t choose you.
So what’s the answer? Training, training, training is the answer.

First, according to the white paper, it’s important to understand why some offshore call centers have failed. The most obvious issue, states the paper’s authors, is customer service reps with heavy accents and hard-to-understand names. Accent neutralization training and taking Western names can help overcome those challenges. But research also shows that if the agent is truly helpful, the significance of the accent dissipates.

Frieda Barry, President and Chairman of the Board at the Call Center Industry Advisory Council (CIAC) concurs. “We’ve all heard complaints and remarks about the accents of offshore agents. Interestingly, it’s been our observation at the CIAC that when the agent creates a connection with a customer, the accent is irrelevant – it’s a total non-issue. Regardless of where they’re located in the world, most agents are smart and if properly trained and empowered, they can deliver a successful customer experience.”
The deeper challenge is cultural, according to Brodsky and Vance. Many of the behaviors that Americans expect from a customer service representative are (literally and figuratively) foreign to international reps. U.S.-based customers expect a rep to offer empathy, ask thoughtful questions, use strong word choices and take control of the situation. However, in other countries, some of those traits are deemed offensive, which means that you can’t expect an overseas rep to instinctively employ them.
According to Ulysses Learning, there are four key aspects to consider when creating the foundation for a successful offshore call center.

They are:
1. Brand consistency
2. Hiring and recruiting practices
3. Training
4. Management

Brand Consistency
Regardless of where a call center is located, the average customer service agent typically handles 100 or more different customer calls per day. These busy people are the number one representatives of your company. So if you’re going to entrust this to an offshore or near-shore call enter, you need to make sure they are managing your customers in an effective way that supports your brand. This can be accomplished through training.

Hiring And Recruiting Practices
Before staffing a call center, it’s important to determine what you require in a call center agent in order to meet your customers’ service expectations. While customer service skills such as empathy, questioning, listening and confidence can be learned in training, the right recruiting practices help ensure that your call center’s reps have the core competency to deliver service and are more likely to “get” both the product and service skill cultural training.

Training
It’s vital that training cover are product knowledge, technology and soft skills. With the right tools and learning skills, most customer service reps can readily learn a company’s product. Technology training is another consideration. Depending on your product and actual call center tools, your agents will need a certain level of comfort and proficiency with technology and software. Another crucial aspect of training is the focus on the customer service skills and culturalization.

Management
A key benefit of offshoring is that an organization can significantly increase its staff- to manager-ratio because labor is cheaper overseas, allowing for higher supervisor to agent ratios. With extra management, agents can receive more feedback more quickly.
Ulysses Learning recommends a combination of simulation-based e-learning, facilitation and coaching. At many international call centers, the reps are learning along with the customers – a situation that risks of alienating customers and harming the company’s brand. CiS

To read the full white paper with recommendations and guidance on training, visit www.tmcnet.com/1693.1