Want Better Customer Service? Take the Pulse of Your Company
February 1st, 2012
By Rosanne D’Ausilio
There is what we call a moment of truth when a customer makes a decision about you, your company, maybe even all companies in your industry, based on their interaction with anyone from the front lines up to and including your CEO. In those first three sentences, a customer determines whether their interaction will be a good experience, a bad experience, or a waste of their time.
When talking about customer service, customer satisfaction, and customer retention, you often hear that the best way to determine how you’re doing is to ask your customer. And that’s absolutely true. However, if you really want to know how your company is doing, ask your internal customer.
Nearshore’s 2012 Outlook: Time for Industry to ‘Stand on Its Own’
January 18th, 2012
By Patrick Haller
With 2012 in full-swing, a critical look at what lies ahead for Nearshoring is in order. With a shaky global economy, and some forecasts calling for a sluggish year in IT and BPO sourcing, this is no time to be complacent. Whether it’s building solid skill sets, creating sufficient scale, matching client’s expectations, managing expansion, or doing business amidst social change and myopic political theater, providers have a lot to confront. We tapped some of the leading experts in the Nearshoring space for their answer to the burning question: What is the single biggest challenge you think the Nearshore outsourcing industry faces in 2012?
The Five Ws of World-Class Customer Service Training
January 6th, 2012By Rosanne D’Ausilio, Ph.D.
The interaction anyone has at any level with your employees, including you, gives a customer an opportunity to make a judgment about you, your company, and all companies like yours. I’m not just talking about call centers here. All technical support or help desk personnel are included as well. As a matter of fact, anyone who is in the customer service business – period.
The preamble to the United States Constitution begins, ‘We, the people…” I feel strongly that we, the people, are what make the difference in life, both personally and professionally. But how does that relate to customer service?
COUNTRY PROFILE: Belize Gets Serious about Becoming a BPO Player
December 20th, 2011
By Clay Browne
Once a sleepy backwater of Central America, and known more for its beautiful beaches than the strength of its economy, English-speaking Belize is beginning to spring to life as a 21st century outsourcing destination.
Belize’s economy has long been dependent on agriculture, but tourism has grown significantly over the last couple of decades to become the largest foreign exchange earner in the country. The BPO industry in Belize is still quite young. Yet there are clear signs that private industry and public agencies are seriously examining how to create the right ecosystem to foster long term growth.
COUNTRY PROFILE: Puerto Rico’s Knowledge Economy Off to a Slow Start
December 15th, 2011By Luke Bujarski
Given its close proximity to the mainland and ample bilingual workforce, Puerto Rico should stand out as an ideal Nearshore platform for call centers and BPO operators – right?
Not so fast: Cost arbitrage aside – a lack of coordinated planning around a knowledge economy may have also set Puerto Rico back a long way behind similar Caribbean and Central American (CCA) markets, particularly for knowledge-intensive services. Here, lessons can be drawn from the successes Costa Rica has had in attracting technology-enabled captive operations. And, given the right global market environment, Puerto Rico could see expansion beyond the current 5,000 or so contact center seats.
US Law Could Restrict Call Center Outsourcing
December 12th, 2011Source: Computer World UK
Call centre offshoring comes under bipartisan attack in Congress – Law would penalise companies that move call centres overseas
Four US lawmakers (three Democrats and one Republican) have teamed up to attack call centre outsourcing by introducing a bill that would penalise any company that moves a call centre overseas.
The bill would make any company that moves a call centre offshore ineligible for any federal grants or loans. It would require the US Labour Department to maintain a list of employers who relocate a call centre overseas and force companies to provide at least 120 days’ notice before doing so.
It would also require a call centre worker to disclose his or hers location at the beginning of the call, if the caller request it.
The US Call Centre and Consumer Protection Act (HR 3596), was introduced by US Representative Timothy Bishop and announced …
El Salvador’s Effort to Improve English Starts to Have Real Impact
November 25th, 2011By Jon Felperin
One of the most pervasive and challenging issues across the Nearshore region is establishing English language training programs that actually do work – and actually produce well-trained professionals. One country that has been working on this in a sincere way for over ten years in El Salvador – in large part because of the commitments several major contact center players have made. The results of focused collaboration between private industry, federal government and USAID is beginning to show good results.
Costa Rica’s Free Trade Zones Not Looking So “Free” After All
October 18th, 2011
Chinchilla is at odds with the head of CINDE, Costa Rica's lead investment agency
By Luke Bujarski
Costa Rica’s system of free trade zones may not be “free” for much longer, if a controversial tax on products and services exporters gets bundled into the government’s latest deficit reduction plan. While local authorities, including President Laura Chinchilla, confirmed with Nearshore Americas that the new tax proposal would not affect existing companies, many are worried that a change to current policy would rock the proverbial boat, and send mixed signals to an otherwise bullish foreign investment community. NSAM also notes that a policy which favors existing companies over new entrants could open the door for hostilities between the public and private sector.
Price War Looming for Guatemala’s Bilingual BPO Market?
September 30th, 2011By Luke Bujarski
“More English, more English, and more English,” exclaimed VP Kapil Rajvanshi from 24/7 Customer during a presentation at this week’s Global Services Summit in Guatemala City. The market here is indeed showing some concerning signs of overheating, as we quickly discovered during talks with the heads of Guatemala’s six BPO families. While saturation and wage inflation is nothing new in Central America, what has Guatemala’s BPO Commission president Herman Lopez deeply worried is the prospect of a race-to-the-bottom price war between the very people put in charge of coordinating a sustainable strategy for the country’s booming BPO cluster.
Honduras Starts to Make Real Headway as a BPO Player
September 23rd, 2011By Peter Ryan
As the potential options for Nearshore delivery to the US continue to increase, Ovum notes with interest the slow but steady emergence of Honduras as a viable location for BPO delivery. Although arguably not a country on the shortlist of many prospective investors even two years ago because of concerns surrounding stability and crime, more vendors and their clients are looking at Honduras in a different light.
