Aditya Seth Saab: Customer Care Outsourcing Service

Probably the most important management fundamental that is being ignored is staying close to the customer to satisfy his need and anticipate his wants," according to Lew Young, Editor in Chief, Business Week.

In too many companies, the customer has become a bloody nuisance whose unpredictable behavior damages carefully made strategic plans, whose activities mess up computer operations, and who stubbornly insists that purchased products should work. That business ought to be close to its customers seems a benign enough message. To every excellent companies is extent to which, and the intensity with which, the customers intrude into every nook and cranny of the business - sales, manufacturing, research and accounting. All business success rests on something labeled a sale, which at least momentarily weds company and customer.

In most outsourcing industry today there are two primary trends shaping its utility in providing best in class customer service and manage costs. The first trend is the need for all companies to find innovative ways to reduce costs, and to refocus on their "core" product offering. More and more companies are discovering the once sacrosanct area of customer care really can be done better and less expensively by an outsourcer.

The second trend is closely related. While higher quality and lower cost can be achieved through outsourcing, the decision of which provider to choose must be based on overall value, and corporate objectives-not price alone. The driver for considering an outsource offering is usually the overall reduction of the cost of providing customer care for the utility. However, these same utilities are demanding that the outsource solution must also provide the functionality and flexibility to address the specific customer care needs of each utility. This has forced many of the outsource providers to simply 'reuse' whatever customized technology is already in house at the utility and build the offering around a specific level of service agreement. If this trend continues we will replace expensive and customized in house systems, with expensive and customized outsourced systems.

In the end, the cost will always be passed on to the utility. In other industries where outsourcing is more prevalent, successful outsource providers achieve economies of scale (increased functionality and flexibility at a significantly reduced price) by leveraging a common technology platform across multiple customers. I believe that once the utility industry can choose a vendor that has built its solution through this leveraged model, more utilities will choose to outsource part. Many outsourcing firms can increasingly be given the opportunity to demonstrate power of utility usage and that they can indeed lower customer care costs without lowering the level of customer service.

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Aditya Seth Saab

Friday 9 May 2014

Customer Care Outsourcing Service

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