It all starts with a phone call to your supplier of whatever...
If you wish information about your account in English please push "1". (you push 1)
If you wish to know our hours please push "1" If you wish to know the balance of your account please push "2" If you wish to speak with a representative please push "3" (you push "3")
All of our representatives are busy now please wait your call is important to us (music comes on)
Thank you for waiting you will be served faster if you stay on the line. (you wait five minutes)
Thank you for holding our representatives are busy right now. (you wait another five minutes)
Hello can I help you (thick Pakistani accent - you have contacted the call center in Pakistan)
You ask your question. You receive a boiler plate response that you ask to be repeated three times as you can not understand the person. It sounds like Abu at Homer Simpson's Quickie Mart You realize that the answer does not fit your question. You ask to speak to the supervisor. You are placed on hold.
You wait for five minutes. Then ten minutes then the line goes dead.
Welcome to the world of automated phone answering machines where your call is important to us. Welcome to the world of bullshit!
The bottom line here is that the company you are dealing with can't afford to service you because its too expensive so they farm it out to a call center in Pakistan or India or a local call center in an area of high employment and low wages that hires hundreds of low paid staff desperately searching for jobs. The bottom line is that your call is not important to them and they would rather not talk to you because when they talk to you they loose money. They don't mind taking your money. They have staff for that. And they don't mind promising you the world to get your business. They have staff for that too. Its just that once you are a customer any money spent on you takes away from their profits and they don't want to do that. Here is your bullshit. Thankyouverymuch! Now go. To hell. Thankyouverymuch again. eh. Hahahahaha.
IS THERE A BETTER WAY?
Yes I think there is a better way. First of all companies need to understand basic business a lot better than they do now. They should buy our book on business YOUR VERY FIRST BILLION. In 420 pages it explains how business really works. Too many businesses are attempting to cut corners, cheat, screw their customers and save on employee wages by farming out their support business to low paying areas. You can only do that sort of thing for so long and it comes back to bite you on the bum. Look at GM. Look at FORD. Look at Eaton's, The Bay- there are a long list of companies who concentrated on executive benefit packages and easy ways of saving money to make the bottom line look good temporarily.
Offer a good product. Set up reasonable expectations with your customers. Be fair and don't cheat or rip off your customers and be efficient. Don't be greedy when it comes to executive salaries. We have seen many corporations in desperate situations with executives sucking millions out in wages even when employees were subject to wage rollbacks and layoffs. Follow the ideas in the book. You will do well.
Refitting a warehouse with 500 tiny cubicles and paying minimum wages to have each employee answer hundreds of calls a day in slave like conditions is not the way to go. Its bullshit. Your employees know that too and the first opportunity they have they will leave you so you will have your "hiring now" sign out constantly. If you have a good honest business and treat your customers and employees right your staff will not leave you in droves and there will be a waiting list of people to work with you. Its an easy way of identifying the operations that are in trouble. Its like rats leaving the sinking ship! So to speak.
Update 08/01/2009 I just reviewed this page and realized although I did hit several of the main points on the problem side I missed some of the points on the other side. So here goes.
The theory of call centers is that a centralized location contracted to the business can supply an uninterrupted flow of support to its customers for a very reasonable cost. There is nothing wrong with the concept. In the case of smaller businesses with a large market area covering several time zones it is prohibitively expensive for them to offer 24 hour customer service coverage and what happens when there are two or more calls and only one service line for the business? What happens when there is a sudden increase in volumes? What happens on staff vacations and busy times?
Why should you talk to a call center employee in India to have your telephone or cable repaired? Or your toaster fixed. Or your credit card balance questioned. Or whatever. Who are you really dealing with here? And there is nothing wrong with the people in India or other developing nations- they are hard workers just like us. But that doesn't mean that we should export our jobs so that our citizens are unemployed. Because when our citizens are unemployed they can't buy many consumer products or services. Its simple really.
When you buy a car "made in North America" these days how many of those parts are made in China? How many of those parts in your new car are made by the car company? In fact subcontractors make most of the parts and some parts are made by firms which supply competing brands! These days the big three only assemble cars from parts somebody else made. In the quest to cut cost companies have gone too far and farmed out their operations to too many outside sources. That's come back to bite them on the bum as Ford, GM and Chrysler have all found out.
Business is all about the bottom line. Nothing wrong with that. Its what produces wealth and jobs and supports all the services and the standard of life in our society. You can improve the bottom line in two general areas- increase sales by offering a better product or service or decrease expenses. Your Accountant believes every expense is bad. This is incorrect. You can decrease expenses by firing staff, subcontracting work to suppliers with lower labour rates and buying from market areas with lower costs. But every time you deviate from your core business and farm something out you also run the risk of introducing problems in your business. Foreign call centers are one case in point. You may end up frustrating your customers and loosing business which translates into lower sales and a smaller bottom line. What goes around comes around as they say.
So in summary these are the things that go through my noggin when I phone one of my suppliers and get somebody on the other end with a strange accent and a boiler plate response to my questions. I hate it! That's my story and I am sticking to it! And in the case where call centers still make sense lets use the services of call centers in our market areas rather than exporting jobs overseas. That would be fair.
I didn't get to where I am today by not being fair!
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