Indian call center lands in Ohio

More foreign companies are finding that hiring Americans offers distinct advantages, reports Fortune's Jia Lynn Yang.

It would be easy to imagine Reno, Ohio, as the type of place that would be hit hardest by outsourcing - a small American town losing out to the invisible hand shifting jobs to places like Bangalore and Guangzhou. Instead, outsourcing is bringing the jobs to Reno. Across the street from an Army Reserve center and next to a farm, a customer-service call center hums, its 250 workers answering phones for online travel agency Expedia. The center's owner? Indian conglomerate Tata Group.

The phenomenon has a name: "insourcing," the term experts are starting to use when foreign multinationals open offices on U.S. soil and hire Americans, at a higher price, to do the very jobs they once lured overseas. In this case the center in Reno is targeted toward companies willing to pay a premium - its workers there cost up to 40 percent more than their counterparts in India - to give their U.S. customers a more culturally fluent, less frustrating 1-800 experience. (No more hearing someone read from a script ten time zones away.)

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Indian Company Opens Call Center In Ohio

Welcome to "insourcing!" Tata Group, an Indian conglomerate, has opened another call center. In Ohio.

From Fortune:

The phenomenon has a name: "insourcing," the term experts are starting to use when foreign multinationals open offices on U.S. soil and hire Americans, at a higher price, to do the very jobs they once lured overseas.

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The Rise of Outbound Call Centers in the 21st Century

Outsourcing emerged as an ubiquitous term in the business world which is actually referring to the act of commissioning another company to do non-core activities of your company. One of the most recognized type of outsourced work is the call center. Call center industry became an emerging industry in countries like India and Philippines. These two countries are the rivals in terms of call center outsourcing services.

The two countries are known to be the best in the world of call center outsourcing. Being two of the best English-speaking countries respectively, this had helped them to be acknowledged and advantageous in the business. Moreover, both countries possessed skilled IT workers.

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Outsourcing of Customer Services & American Labor Force?

Outsourcing cannot be considered a new phenomenon even though the rising attention toward this subject has brought lots of important issues into the daylight. Lots of service and even manufacturing companies started creating jobs overseas to gain wider access to foreign markets. They act as consultants auditors and perform other functions where their customers are. Putting it in other words, they have found customers and came to serve them. Another reason for a big number of emerging foreign companies oversees is saturation of the domestic markets. Approximately 60% of the profits of American information technology companies are estimated to come from overseas. This practice is not unique in number of industries ranging from banking to consumer products to. The leading firms in foreign markets state that their overseas revenues exceed their domestic sales.

In most cases a great many companies focus their efforts on their core competence, in other words things they do better then their rivals. They delegate most of their activities to domestic suppliers. Looking at this issue from that perspective, overseas sourcing is not a major part of the trend to decentralize business operations. Outsourcing often helps a company operate in an increasingly competitive international marketplace. The key factor for the firm's position in the modern global economy is the ability to maintain costs low. Another positive feature of outsourcing is enabling a business to provide 24/7 exposure to the customers, especially for those who need around-the-clock support. This is one of the core issues in today’s business world, whoever gets customer happy wins.

The secret to the customer’s love and devotion lies in good and most important always available customer service. Regardless of whichever industry a business is a part of, customer care is of primary importance. With growing competition worldwide, new technological innovations and constantly improving services and products, consumers are being attacked with too many attractive offerings and to win them over it is vital for the company to ensure that customer loyalty programs are being implemented. It’s important to understand that acquiring new customers is essential but holding on to existing ones is crucial. It is obvious that if existing clients are satisfied they will spread the word about your company’s outstanding customer service.

Some of the main problems customers have are of unresolved complaints, pricing issues, competing companies offering better deals, or simply they just feel that they are not being taken seriously enough. Thus companies have to be constantly tuned in to a customer's needs. Determining what they want is an important factor in organizational success. Since the market is in constant movement a consistent and dedicated approach is needed in order to determine and understand the changing moods of a consumer. The problem occurs when customer care is not one of company’s core activities, as often firms lack the expertise, resources, and finances to ensure good customer services. Then outsourcing to skilled and dedicated customer care professionals would be a great option; one that many global companies have adopted.
Although outsourcing sounds appealing and in most cases it is that way, there are number of problems that American businessmen have to take into consideration. They probably will bump into a variety of difficulties dealing with unfathomable legal systems, in protecting their intellectual property, and meeting the requirements of different tax and regulatory agencies. Corruption in public sector also might be a problem.

Many people have been speculating on the concern of overall disadvantageous impact of outsourcing on the national economy. Looking at this problem in-depth provides however a different picture. The visible part this concern is extensively discussed by the masses and it states that U.S. employees lose their jobs or get transferred to less desirable locations. In past years because outsourcing has gained such popularity that this issue may have been lost its real origin. Any serious analysis of this matter must be taken to another level, where all pros and cons would be evaluated. In reality much more of U.S. employees keep their jobs because outsourcing helps the company stay competitive on today’s demanding market. Taking for instance call centers which can be defined as a place of doing business by phone with combined and centralized database and automatic call distribution system. Recently call centers have grew to become sophisticated business entities which provide incorporated services that are vital for the success of the corporations they were created to serve. Major call centers’ goal is to become the encouragement for business transformation while freeing up businesses from a number of routine tasks in order to focus on their core activities. When establishing a huge call center which could be a reservation center for airlines or hotels, or a big telemarketing center it is often believed that people who used to work in those areas in the States are simply laid off. In reality though many of them get new and even better positions because the firm enhances its financial strength, and focuses on the competitive advantages. For example, as companies upgrade their software systems, there may be less local demand for basic programmers, but higher for better paid systems integrators. In most cases companies simply change their mix of corporate needed skills. Currently they emphasize more managerial experience, enhanced knowledge of business processes, and understanding the domestic customer an essential point which cannot be outsourced from oversees, but has to be researched on the spot.

Cost reductions from outsourcing also opens up new market opportunities for U.S. companies and helps create additional work places here at home. Stating the benefits of service outsourcing in a common way yields more resources for the business which allow it to improve its performance. With implementation of outsourcing and the reserves it produces is the beginning of the modification processes in the company. Outsourcing permits firms to buy new equipment and expand training programs for the personnel thus investing in further development and growth of the business. Also American higher labor costs can be offset by higher worker productivity.

Outsourcing does not only bring immediate results for any one given company in form of lower costs and higher productivity, it has overall positive influence on the national industry. For example service outsourcing brings positive feedback in a number of ways. As developing countries such as China and India build up their economies, new markets are created for U.S.-made products and services. China in two recent decades has become a major importer of industrial and consumer goods and soon India is likely to do the same. Another reaction of the economy is the rise in salaries firms are paying to those countries providing outsourced services. For instance compensation of IT personnel in India is reported to be growing at 15-30% a year thus quickly reducing the financial gap between Asia and America.

Over the past few years far more new U.S. jobs were created than outsourced. Labor market in the States is one of the most open and that is the major cause of the nation’s economic strength. Approximately 1,000,000 workers quit each week and just about equal number is hired in their place. In contrast with European and Asian labor market, American employers are much more willing to hire new working force, because they cannot afford their business to stand still. Also many foreign companies are hiring American professionals to work at their offices, when setting up new businesses abroad or for other functions. It becomes clear that outsourcing especially in customer service sector can hardly be a cause of stagnating American labor market. In case of professionally set up activities and presence of trained workers in oversees locations, Americans only win freedom for undertaking new strategies for further development.

It also has been researched that the foremost causation of huge layoffs as well as new hires, is the technological breakthrough. Due to innovations and its implementation on the market many jobs have been eliminated while many new created. Again we have returned to the point that constant movement of the labor market is the best coordinator of resources; when someone is fired, another is hired. It’s a never ending process which brings about positive results just as outsourcing does.

Jeff Stats is a writer at essay writing service Mindrelief.net. Order quality custom essays from our essay service.

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Philippine Call Centers Are Music To The Ears of American Callers

The playwright George Bernard Shaw famously quipped that "England and America are two countries separated by a common language." Any American who's called tech support lately might feel the same way about India.

Many tech firms are outsourcing their call centers to India, thanks to its surfeit of high-tech workers at low wages who speak English. But that English, inherited from Britain and processed through Indian phonemes, can be hard for Americans to understand.

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Call Centers Prefer Women as Agents?Why?

Does this signal women empowerment or gender versatility in the modern day business? Men are known to be the dominant ones when it comes to the working industry especially when it comes to working over night.But recent statistics show that 95 percent of workers or employees in particular companies are women. Yes, women who happens to be the ones doing most of the household chores. It is practically a way of showing gender versatility that men are not the only ones who can do the opposite responsibility but women as well are capable of doing heavy tasks like sitting while talking over night over the phone dealing with different kinds of people for sales purposes or for help or assistance services. As well, women dominated over men when it comes to the top manager level, 6 to 4. A certain company's job market advertisement for customer servive representatives caught the attention of a number of applicants everyday.

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How Your Agents "Sound" Affects the Success of Your Call Center

Does that sound harsh? Yes, it does but in today’s world of increasing telephone communications, it is the truth. With the predominance of Call Centers taking over varied functions that influence many areas of the population on a day-to-day basis, the need for Vocal Empowerment in the Call Center is critical to both corporate profitability and individual employee success. The “sound of your agents” has a direct result on the degree of satisfaction that customers rate your company. Often customers equate poor vocal skills with intelligence, interest in problem-solving, and complete understanding of the situation of the caller.

Unfortunately, not just call center agents, but many of us live a vocal lie. Our voices - what we say and how we say it - does make the difference of whether we get the job, the next promotion, or even making it through the interview.

In the Call Center industry, managers grapple with performance measurements when metrics on some agents exceed minimum standards due to the need for repeated information and customer frustration with comprehension. Agent recruiters are always “listening” for clarity and good vocal skills in the next training class that is being assembled. Corporations continue to search geographic locations where dialect is minimal and the potential pool of employees is plentiful. I have seen that with proper short-term training and long-term coaching, call center agents can achieve proper vocal excellence.

Most people think that how they speak as an adult is part of their personality and not a physical skill set that they can change. That is not true. Through vocal coaching, the agent’s vocal ease and ability to be clearly understood without physical strain can be achieved. We learn our sound, our speech, and our vocal image from our environment. Fortunately, we can change that as easily as we first learned to speak. Improper vocal skills learned and uncorrected as a child trying to communicate with those in our world can be reversed.

Call Center Managers and Supervisors must invest in the vocal skills of all agents – whether they have discernible problems or not. Enhanced self-confidence and greater ability to concisely deliver the corporate message is an investment that will pay dividends for the agent, manager, and corporation.

There is no shame in needing this extra skill set to be learned and practiced. Many of the “basics” of education have been overlooked in the last several decades of progressive education. The skills of reading and comprehension are often discussed, but the lack of proper vocal training in pre-school and throughout elementary grades has all but disappeared from the curriculum. There are many training courses, schools and programs that address the needs of remedial reading and comprehension, math, etc., but there are only a handful of experienced vocal coaches that are training outside of the performing arts industry.

Most Call Centers budget for the latest in technology, and many purveyors of software for scheduling, scripting, up-selling, and process training for agents, but without the ability to properly speak and to be successful in vocally deliver the message, the desired results may not be attainable without utilizing the skills of a professional vocal trainer.

The ability to be able to speak with the proper vocal skills for 6-8 hour shifts does not entirely rest on the agents’ vocal skills or lack thereof. Part of poor vocal performance is related to physical posture, work-space ergonomics, and facility environment. With a brief evaluation of the call center facility, and by utilizing some fairly easy recommendations, in conjunction with formalized Vocal Training, can vastly improve the performance of the agents, but also will translate into greater employee satisfaction.

The ability to stave off high employee turn-over is an additional benefit of proper vocal training. By addressing the physical comfort and vocal performance, employees are more likely to stay within their current job.

The essence of Vocal Empowerment is made up of 5 Elements of Effective Voice: Interest, Clarity, Authority, Language, and Listening. When these skills are mastered and become second nature in daily speech, confidence and success follow.

Interest - Interest is an intellectual skill requiring that you orchestrate the rhythms of your sound.

Clarity - Clarity is a physical skill requiring the use of an active, exercised mouth.

Authority - Authority is an emotional skill that expresses your credibility about what you are speaking. Requiring self-confidence and cleanly executed emotional and physical choices.

Language - Language is the process of being able to respond to others with words and phrases which demonstrate interest, are clearly understood, and are informative, knowledgeable and helpful in evoking a sense of authority.

Listening - Listening is an act of respect and openness to others.

I am more convinced than ever with the global community that we all participate in, the need for clear and concise communications is vital to our continued ability to work together in an atmosphere of respect and trust.

When considering introducing Vocal Empowerment training, insist that training class uses interactive, job-centered exercises and techniques that meet every call center agent’s special performance needs in order to produce individuals who speak and move clearly with interest and authority. Demand that the vocal coaches and trainers have completed professional voice training and are able to illustrate before and after samples of their work and results. Request professional references. You are asking your agents to undertake a physical, emotional and challenging course. The trainers must be able to have a complete understanding of physical and vocal interdependence and be empathetic to the agents while still being able to effect a tremendous personal change to varying degrees for your staff members.

The success of your call center, the job satisfaction of your agent staff, and your company’s customer image are dependent on the ability to attain vocal empowerment for your employees.

Katherine M. Hart is President and Founder of Hartfelt Communications, a professional training and communications imaging company. Over the past 25 years, Ms. Hart has trained over 25,000 Call Center Agents, Corporate Executives, Politicians, Actors, Community Leaders.please visit http://www.hartfeltcommunications.com/ Sign up for a monthly ezine-newletter "From the Hart" with vocal tips and communications essentials.

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Call Center: A Deeper Glimpse to It

In the business of outsourcing, call center is the one mostly credited. Primarily, it is because it makes up the largest part of outsourcing services.

But what actually is a call center? A call center is an office where a company's inbound calls are received, or outbound calls are made. They are progressively more popular in the society today, where many corporations have unified customer service and support functions. Call centers provide work for many staff in customer service, sales and support functions.

Commonly, call centers are large offices staffed with representatives. These representatives are those who either make or receive phone calls. A single office could be operated anywhere with a few dozen to hundreds of telephone staff depending on the size of the call center. Depending on what the company needs, call centers can make either incoming or outgoing calls. Some call centers gives focus on answering inbound calls. While other call centers focus on outbound calls.

A number of advantages to companies can be provided by call centers. By means of unifying telephone-based service and support in one location, companies can easily adjust staffing to fit call volume. Call centers can be situated almost anywhere, allowing companies to take advantage of time zones and more low-cost labor rates in different states and countries. Also, call centers consolidate the technology needs of companies, allocating major telecommunications setups to be installed in a small handful of call centers instead of a number of smaller offices, thus making upgrades and training easier to achieve.

Numerous call centers make use of a number of various technologies to alleviate performance and customer service. There are types of calls which are usually subdivided into inbound and outbound calls. Automatic call distribution is often used by inbound call centers. In this kind of technology, incoming calls are appointed to representatives on the order they are received. Other call centers use call monitoring, wherein customer calls are randomly monitored by quality assurance staff to ensure that phone representatives meet customer needs. Call center technology evolves constantly, helping call center staff assist customers more competently and successfully.

As outsourcing grows, call centers become more recognized and appreciated. As a result, many companies will be benefited for they will be able to lower their costs and be able to focus on their competencies.

Source : http://www.global-sky.com

Philippine Call Centers Attracting Global Interest

A survey recently conducted by Columbia University indicated that after India, the Philippines have been the “second largest recipient of outsourcing, capturing almost 30 percent of the market.” While another study done by an independent group in 2004 stated that the Philippines ranked sixth in the offshore location attractiveness index and the fourth choice location in Asia after India, China and Malaysia.

All these indicators suggest that the call center industry is the fastest-growing business in the Philippines accounting for thousands of new employment generated which, in turn, considerably helping the economy and thus being named as one of the sunshine industries in the country. In fact, call centers in the country are not concentrated only in the business and financial districts but are also present in the provinces. And because of the high demand for manpower, representatives from Cyber City Teleservices Ltd, the largest call center in the country, is looking to as far as Zamboanga City to recruit call center agents to fill up the many available positions the company offers. Although it should be noted that these foreign companies are resulting to outsourcing mainly to cut costs and boost shareholder returns.

There are currently more than 50 call centers in the country and judging from the worldwide trend of outsourcing, many more are projected to set up operations here in the near future. The Philippines can very well capitalize on this opportunity because of the Filipinos’ English-proficiency advantage against its Asian neighbors.

Outsourcing in General

Outsourcing is the execution of an entire business function by a third party service provider. It involves the transfer of a significant amount of management control to a supplier and it always involves a considerable degree of two-way information exchange, coordination and trust. Plainly, outsourcing is the most popular practice of local and foreign companies who want to reduce costs while still providing excellent customer service. It must be noted that outsourcing is different from offshore outsourcing and offshoring. Outsourcing potentially enables businesses to reduce costs and concentrate on core competencies while transferring noncore business processes, thereby providing more effective goods and services elsewhere.

Business functions that are usually outsourced include information technology, human resources, facilities and real estate management and accounting. Several companies also outsource customer support and call center functions, manufacturing and engineering.

Outsourcing has been around for decades. In recent years, it has been estimated to be a $6 trillion global industry. But with the growth of this industry, critics have raised several issues, among them the loss of confidentiality, poor quality of service and most significantly, the loss of employment for those people whose job falls under the outsourcing category. This is because overhead costs of customer service are less where outsourcing has been used.

In current years, outsourcing has sparked debates from those in favor and to those opposed. Critics point to poor quality of service and technical support, and more importantly, they argue that outsourcing threatens the livelihood of domestic workers. Advocates, on the other hand, counter that companies who utilize outsourcing use the savings for investment and larger domestic payrolls. Evidently, outsourcing has its pros and cons, and ultimately it is up to the companies to consider which is best suited for their companies.

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