There is no disputing that a company can save megabucks by outsourcing their tech support to Asia where wages and operating expenses are cheaper. What does bear looking at is the non-monetary, difficult to define “impression” that Americans are left with after they experience talking to one of the multiple offshore locations that are serving up consumer phone technical support today.
The typical American caller isn’t a candidate for the Geek Squad. They use technology terms incorrectly and refer to their devices (and their various pieces and parts) by slang or even profane euphemisms. By the time this typical caller attempts to reach tech support, they are frustrated and angry. I believe when they hear a foreign accent answer their call, that anger connects with something deeper in their gut that isn’t associated with their current technological problem.
According to the Washington Post, “The customer satisfaction score for overseas PC call centers was 23 percent lower than for U.S. call centers.” and consumers reported that the agent they were talking to either didn’t seem to understand them or they couldn’t understand the foreign accent. While I’m sure there are often miscommunication issues that arise (American English can be a quirky language) perhaps some of the “misunderstanding” that happens generates from a knee-jerk reaction that the middle-class consumer has as soon as they hear that foreign voice over the phone. It’s not bigotry or prejudice, it’s something more difficult to define that many of us might not even realize we are experiencing.
In today’s weakened economy, where the middle class is taking a particularly brutal and sustained hit to their overall net worth, talking to a foreign voice only slaps us in the face with one of the realities of the current recession: Americans have lost jobs and this foreign voice HAS a job working for an American company. Most of us couldn’t carry on an intelligent debate about why the economy is suffering but we know our 401Ks have dwindled in front of our eyes. We write letters to our congressman asking why we are bailing out banks and insurance companies who continue to hand out ludicrous bonuses to the bad guys that we are told are partially responsible for this mess in the first place. We feel helpless and out of control and we are angry. Deep in our American psyche, we are angry.
The majority of Americans personally know several and maybe many people who are currently unemployed. Regardless of the reasons why a tech support operation is located overseas, the average American can’t help but wonder if the “foreigner” they are talking to is a person who stole a job from their unemployed son, daughter, brother-in-law or neighbor.
In June 2009, MediaPost News reported that, “Domestic (tech support) reps were rated 84 out of 100, while offshore reps were rated just 62. And respondents say that call centers in the U.S. resolved their problems on the first call 68% of the time, versus 42% for offshore.
I believe that given equal circumstances, the vast majority of foreign technicians can resolve a tech support issue equally well as their American counterparts but as long as Americans are scared and angry about their future and the economy, they will think more with their gut and their gut tells them that they hate talking to an offshore call center. No matter how good a technician might be, they will never be able to be good enough and offshore call centers will continue to be an annoyance that we can't quite put our fingers on.
It’s a perception that tech companies might consider paying attention to as the viral negative fall-out might last long after the recession is over. Perception is a powerful thing with us angry Americans and it will be interesting to watch and see if those companies that offer American tech support come out the winner in the end.
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