Most industry observers agree that the delays caused by
the recentundersea internet cable failureswere
a nuisance but that, by and large, the problem was dealt with
quickly and effectively
It was not greeted with quite so much equanimity in an editorial
piece in Outsource
Magazine, which suggested that the incident highlighted all
that is wrong with offshoring and took it as an opportunity to have
a flippant pop at the people who work in Indian call centres.
The opinion piece, distributed via email to subscribers on 6
February 2008, postulated that the quality of customer service
operations suffered at the hands of overseas operators, and that
the only reason that an organisation would choose to offshore was
as a cost-saving measure. The exact wording of the piece was, "If
it means I can get through an entire episode of EastEnders without
some cretin from Bangalore calling me up with some unsolicited
inquiry then I am all for the cables remaining unrepaired."
To be fair to the writer of the piece, he swiftly apologised for
any offence caused once the article was published, and made it
clear that he was in support of the offshoring sector and was
simply trying to provoke a response - which he has. What was
interesting however, was the example that he chose to make his
point - operators in India-based call centres making outbound
"cold" sales calls.
Although I am not as big a fan of EastEnders as the writer of
the article in Outsource seems to be, I can definitely relate to
the annoyance of being cold called. What I find even more
frustrating however, is that this experience is what people think
of when the word offshoring or outsourcing is mentioned. Aside from
the customer service experienced by people doing their banking or
paying their bills - most of which is positive - the main contact
that people have with Indian call centres is with cold-calling, and
this is causing a reputation issue that is tainting a highly
valuable economic concept through a negative "halo effect".
In other words, the public reputation of offshoring is being
damaged because it is being lumped into the same basket as outbound
cold calls. What is needed is clarification and some public
relations expertise by relevant industry bodies as well as those
companies, such as the Wipros and Infosys of this world, that have
an off-shore presence within Asia. It seems a shame to me that the
reputation and understanding of a multi-billion pound industry,
which is at the cutting edge of a new movement in globalisation, is
being pummelled through a lack of explanation to the general
public.
Phil Morris is managing director at Equaterra
Europe