Don't blame exotic accents for offshore call centre strife

Poor processes - rather than exotic accents - are to blame for problems with offshore call centre operations.

Mike Havard, managing director of consultancy CM Insight, said it's not fair to blame call centre agents when offshore operations run into trouble.

Consumers want to be respected and have their call taken seriously but too many companies do dumb things to customers - and that's not an offshore issue.

Havard said: "There are incredibly bright people that you will be doing a disservice to if you blame them for failure," adding that complaints about the accents of call centre operatives being difficult to understand are often a way for customers "to say something is different".

He told the Offshore Customer Management conference in Cairo this week: "Consumers want to be respected and have their call taken seriously but too many companies do dumb things to customers - and that's not an offshore issue."

Havard said conversations with customers should have one of three main aims: to reduce the cost of interaction; to make the customers spend more money with the business; or to drive loyalty, thus reducing the cost of sales.

Paul Hopkins, registration and fulfilment manager at loyalty scheme Nectar, said the performance of its offshore call centre in Mumbai improved when staff were put through additional training.

He said: "The Indian call centre was finding it very hard to pick up on the emotion in the call," meaning they would try and cross-sell extra products at inappropriate times.

He said the training, which worked to improve their listening and questioning skills, had "changed the mindset" of the agents and added that customer satisfaction metrics from the Indian site are now better than from Nectar's onshore call centre.