Achieving Outstanding Customer Service Across Cultures And Time Zones
Corporations large and small have caught on to the financial benefits of the global services revolution, including the outsourcing of customer service call centers. So why is that despite sound business reasons and advanced technology, the international call center is a measured success at best. The reason is, in fact, quite obvious: all of us have been there at one time or another been frustrated in our attempt to communicate with a foreign call center agent who just doesn't quite understand.
Erik Granered, author of 'Global Call Centers', argues that we are now at a point with outsourcing when we can learn from experience and reduce the failure rate. It is foolhardy, Granered says, to think that customer expectations and agent training should be the same in Amsterdam as it is in Dallas. And those expectations are only magnified over the phone. Global Call Centers outlines cultural variables that will impact where you locate your call center, what customers are served from that location, and what is the optimal business approach in getting up and running. The text is rich with compelling anecdotes, real-world training tips, and strategies for managers and agents alike to achieve much-needed cultural literacy.
'Global Call Centers' delivers a back-to-basics message about people skills in a global environment, enabling call center managers operating on an international scale to become culturally literate and to coach their people to provide world-class customer service. If done right, the author asserts, "nowhere do we have a greater opportunity for having a positive impact than in the call center, where technology is enabling human interaction on a massive scale-across the globe, every minute of every hour."
