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Offshore honeymoon is over as businesses count the cost of outsourcing

Posted 10-01-2012 in Latest industry news

A public backlash and concerns about service quality have killed off early enthusiasm for offshoring customer service, with 80 per cent of businesses questioned by Ovum having no plans to migrate services overseas.

Offshoring was billed as answering the prayers of businesses struggling to cost effectively staff and manage contact centres, yet those who did participate learnt that real cost savings are often smaller than advertised.  The cost savings have also been offset against falling service levels, fears over data security, political unrest in host countries and public pressure to keep jobs in the UK.

“The issue over the quality of the interaction with customer service agents and end users is a key one. Customers can quickly become frustrated if they feel their enquiry is not being dealt with quickly and effectively and take their business elsewhere,” says Ovum analyst Peter Ryan.

Of course in house contact centres face their own set of challenges - we went along to Business Systems' conference 'Improving Performance' last November to find out how UK companies are using innovative approaches, multi-channel strategies and new technology to drive down costs and improve service levels in their call centres.  See the videos here.