What Not to Outsource
Comments(1) I came across an article today saying that Sprint Nextel was suing IBM over an outsourced call center deal. Sprint Nextel wanted IBM to be 6.5% more productive. IBM said they were; Sprint said they weren’t so off to court they go. I’ll bet the call center is really motivated to do a great job while all this goes on.
As tech products become more and more commoditized there’s a huge temptation to outsource customer care. It’s expensive and the specific skills do not require years of expensive training. The stupid thing though is that your customer care people often determine whether you have happy customers or pissed-off ones. Having your care team at arms length and without a vested interest in the long-term success of your company is a Bad Idea. Don’t believe it? Look at Dell; Dell’s crappy outsourced care is always mentioned in the same context as the deterioration of the quality of the company’s products.