WHAT
ARE THE COSTS OF OUTSOURCING?
John Ribeiro in a recent article in Darwin, states: “According
to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM)…
outsourcing to India has saved the U.S. banking industry $6 billion
to $8 billion.”
Indeed, I’ve heard it said that the only reason American company’s
are outsourcing work is to save money. Let’s take a brief look at
the pros and cons of the financials for a moment:
Cost savings: mainly in the area of salaries and management time.
Additional expenditures: vendor selection (legal, travel, time),
exchange rates, training, time lag issues, client retention, management
or techie retraining (to keep up with the newly required skills).
One of the costs I’ve heard discussed is the human cost: that company
employees get resentful when their job descriptions get changed, and
have a period of time where they suffer resistance. Eventually, they
do come ‘round to recognizing that they are being given higher-value
tasks in place of their old work. There don’t seem to be any figures
available on this cost.
But there is an additional, unspoken cost. Our relationship with the
end customer.
We’ve all dealt with service people from India when we call to ask
a question of a vendor. First there is the long, long delay before
the phone gets answered. And then there is the accent.
Are the service reps and techies smart? Yes, they are. Are they smarter
than Americans? It depends on the person. But they are always cheaper.
Do they do the job? Usually. Depends on how well they’ve been trained
and managed. They certainly know what to say, how to say it, how to
answer questions.
But what about brand management? Do they give the identical service
that the company espouses in-house (or, um, in-States)? The answer
here is, generally, ‘no’ and deserves further discussion.
HOW DO OUTSOURCED REPS DELIVER BRAND AMBASSADORSHIP
Because lower-level jobs are being filled by people who speak English
as a second language, AND who have not had the appreciation of ‘service’
instilled in them since birth (Say what you want: we Americans are
raised understanding that we must serve customers and must be served
by vendors. People in India are raised to believe they are a replenishable
commodity.), these foreign reps will, at best, do a technically good
job.
They will NOT, however, carry the company standard, and in a problem
situation, may run. I’ve had several people hang up on me when it
became clear that my problem was more complex than they could manage.
Do I shrug, and say, “Oh well. He was Indian. He didn’t know any better.”
Or do I say, “Why isn’t ABC Company giving me the service they promise
on their ads?”
Every single person who works in a company – Every. Single. Person.
– is a company’s Brand Ambassador. That means, those young Indian
people living in Bangalore (I’ve been there. Outside of the pollution
in the city, it’s lovely. Smells like sandalwood throughout the villages.)
or wherever, must act exactly like the people you have in the States.
If you don’t, you are not managing your brand appropriately.
And therein lies the largest problem created by Outsourcing (other
than taking jobs away from an already depleted workforce here in the
States): how do American managers effectively communicate with the
foreign providers who are answering our phones and doing our programming?
How do we make sure that the way we treat customers here in the States
is the same way we treat customers in Malaysia, or wherever?
What is our brand? And how do we manage the brand over time and through
space?
We need to create a new way to transfer skills and beliefs across
continents in order to ensure that our brand is represented effectively
in every client interaction. Every client interaction.
BELIEF AND SKILLS TRANSFER
For some reason, some companies still think their ‘brand’ is a visual
logo rather than a complete relationship and story. Our brand is the
story we tell about ourselves to our customers (defined as employees,
vendors, and purchasers of our products) and the relationship we have
with all of them. Think about Harley Davidson: somehow they manage
to get people tattooing the brand on their bodies! Think about Apple:
they’ve taken their IPOD and created fabulous ads that make us get
more atuned (ahem… sorry) to what their brand is: cutting edge, different,
funky, creative, and fun fun fun. Not to mention that the ad itself
makes me want to dance – and then dance to a store and buy a new MAC.
OK. So we’ve got this story and this customer experience in our States-side
company, but we don’t have the way forward to ensure we duplicate
this with our Outsourced employees.
Here are some ideas in managing your brand across continents and contexts:
1. Have the US management team come up with a list of criteria
that needs to be adhered to in every customer interaction. Every interaction.
2. Design a software/e-learning program, that includes a test
that must be taken, to teach outsourced employees the company story,
the beliefs and unique attributes, as well as the rules, roles, and
expected behaviors.
3. send reps from the Stateside group to sit in, coach, and
audit how the outsourced people work with customers. Have the outsourced
reps tape themselves between their visits and send you the tapes so
you can manage them. If there are a large number of folks, get your
vendor to tape a representative sampling.
4. create a Corporate Bible that must be read prior to a person
taking a job. If the employee has been hired by a large vendor group,
make sure the entire group gets training on the contents of your Corporate
Bible.
5. have a States-side employee take full responsibility for
managing outsourced functions.
6. make sure the vendor takes responsibility to maintain
the brand story. Agree up front what that will look like.
It’s not ok just to manage the vendor by choosing wisely. It’s imperative
you have a hands-on relationship with each employee, regardless of
where they sit. Remember: they are all your customers.
About the Author:
Sharon Drew Morgen, author of NYTimes Bestseller Selling with Integrity,
teaches collaborative partnering through her Decision Facilitation
process.
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| From the Forum: |
| Another national ISP ships to outsource |
As I've worked through my hand-shaking, gut-wrenching rage, I've contemplated not only the Earthlink scheduled closings, but also, corporate culture, and the entire phenomenon of offshort-outsourcing that threatens not only the U.S., Canada, and Australia--but, also much of the EU.
There were a series of postings last November by someone who claimed to have seen a mis-sent email memo that detailed Project Yukon, a proposal to shut all of the remaining call centers in early 2004, and send the jobs to offshore outsourcing. Since the person never produced a copy of the email, after a brief flurry of rabid postings, the issue went dormant until January arrived. ...
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By Sharon Drew Morgen