Few topics in customer management are quite so emotive as that of contact centres. And when the contact centres in question are offshore, you are talking about an issue that could practically be jailed for ‘incitement to riot’. But with the sector maturing and public concern quelling, surely it’s time for a reappraisal of the pros and cons of contact centre offshoring?
The original wave of offshoring started some 15-20 years ago, as American companies began to realise big cost advantages in countries such as India. Although the trend started in areas such as back office transactional activity, businesses soon started to experiment with voice to voice customer contact. Britain was soon to follow suit.
“The UK market, particularly in financial services, was drawing up impressive cost saving strategies for organisations, and what made it appealing was the cost of serving customers,” explains Anne Marie Forsyth, chief executive of the Customer Contact Association. “Because of the complexity of products, the need to contact companies was on the increase and companies were becoming perplexed by volume. And so there was a compelling reason to reduce these costs.”
