Category: Answering Service
Common Problems When Offshore Outsourcing Your Phone Answering Service
Offshore outsourcing, which many people shorten to outsourcing, is a dirty word for most consumers. Aside from their philosophical aversion for sending work to another country are real-world frustrations and fears over the security and effectiveness of their phone call.
Their reactions are valid. They have personal experiences to back up their assessment that offshore call center outsourcing is a bad deal. And each less-than-ideal phone interaction with offshore phone answering only reinforces their conclusion.
Here are some key reasons why consumers don’t like dealing with offshore call centers.
People Are Tired of Foreign Customer Support
Agent accents are a frequent complaint of consumers. And they’re not referring to mild inflections. They’re talking about accents so horrendous that they have trouble understanding what agents are saying.
How often will you ask a heavily accented agent to repeat themselves before you just give up?
Another common problem is audio issues. This includes audio that cuts out, a volume too low to hear well, and voice distortion. While this can happen on any call to just about anywhere, it’s much more pronounced when calling thousands of miles away to another country on the other side of the world.
Again, callers end up asking agents to repeat themselves.
When combining heavy accents and poor connections, the result is the frequent repeating of information and the very real risk of miscommunication. Too many people just hang up in frustration, with the reason for their call left unrealized.
This isn’t customer service. This is customer disservice.
Culture Differences Come Across Over the Phone
In addition to heavy accents, another problem comes from cultural differences. While some offshore outsourcing call centers try to train agents on the culture in the United States, even the best of their efforts still fall short.
Too often the foreign agent simply lacks the basic experience to understand what a US-based caller is saying. The caller’s concern may seem like a non-issue to them. Or they might alternately over-react to an otherwise trivial matter.
This results in urgent calls being downgraded and routine calls, escalated.
Often this cultural misalignment between the offshore outsourcing call center and the US-based caller results in a lack of appropriate empathy, social awkwardness, or inappropriate responses.
Is Your Data Protected With Your Overseas Outsourcer?
Information security and the protection of personal information is another common concern when US-based callers reach a foreign outsourcing call center.
What is the agent doing with their credit card number? Will they run the charge through and then do a second one for themselves once their shift is over?
Will this stranger, who they already mistrust due to accent issues and cultural differences, handle their private disclosures confidentially? Could their private information be shared with other agents? What if their database gets hacked? Do they even have any security in place?
In Summary
Fears and frustration about dealing with offshore outsourcing call centers have merit, both past and present. And don’t expect these problems to be solved anytime soon.
Fortunately, there is a solution. LiveVoice is a US-based call center. Calls never go overseas. Agents have neutral accents, the connections are clear, there are no cultural barriers, and security is the highest priority.
LiveVoice is an omnichannel 24/7 customer support company that provides communication services to help small and medium-sized businesses achieve greater success. Contact them about customizing their flexible, premium phone support service so you can turn opportunity into profit.
Peter DeHaan, PhD, is a freelance writer, call center authority, and publisher of Connections Magazine, which covers the call center industry.