The continuing extreme shortage on the labor market and the progressive digitization of customer contact: it is the 'perfect storm' for near- and offshoring of (digital) customer contact. How that works and how fast developments are going, that became clear during the Contact Center Café of THoCC on February 23.

Offshoring and nearshoring of customer contact is still developing and some companies are still struggling against (old) prejudices. Nowadays, sourcing and routing go hand in hand: which activities are handled by people and by technology such as a voice or chatbot? And what of the human contact do you have done in which place and via which channel?

Digital customer contact can now be done everywhere and soon by everyone

The desire for ever further cost reduction and smart software make customer contact something that you can have carried out more and more easily anywhere and at any time. Companies that digitize their customer contact can benefit from this. This digitization consists of several steps: think of promoting chat as a preferred channel and the use of chatbots and voicebots. Chatbots are gradually getting better; it is expected that the shortcomings will be rectified in the coming years.

A next possible step is that translation software will play a role in live chat, so that you are no longer dependent on employees who speak the language of the customer. This offers organizations more flexibility in near- and offshoring.

Panel discussion: you can also outsource in Togo or Congo

After the presentation of ING (read the article) there was further discussion during a panel discussion about near- and offshoring of customer contact. The panel consisted of Patrick Stones (Yource Belgium), Tinne Van den Broeck (Orion Intelligence), Kirsten De Clercq (THoCC) and Frank Plehiers (ING).

The world is one big labor market, says Steens, who manages the nearshore location in Morocco within Yource Belgium. This offers advantages – for example, you can have digital customer contact in combination with smart software carried out in more and more places and new locations are also being added, simply because BPO service providers are tapping into new markets. Outsourcing to Mauritius, Togo or Congo is no longer an exception these days.

Rather chat agent than call agent

Digitization of customer contact – increasingly accepted by consumers – also has repercussions on the local labor market, as emerged from the panel discussion. In the Netherlands and Belgium, the general tendency seems to be that recruiting chat agents is now a lot easier than recruiting call agents.

Unfortunately, the war for talent is also on near and offshore locations, which attracts all kinds of international companies. In Sofia, for example, Google bought employees from Yource with hefty switching premiums. And against the wage cost advantage, you have to invest in bridging two cultures. Firstly, the culture of your customer – for example: what is the relationship between the Dutch climate and the value that the Dutch attach to their central heating boiler – and secondly, the corporate culture of the outsourcer. Longer training is a must and management requires extra attention. On the other hand, the job retention time is often longer, because unemployment is high in many countries and contact center work is relatively well paid.

Near and offshoring will in any case gain interest in the near future, is the conclusion of this ContactCenter Café in Mechelen. The technology – digital customer contact and real-time translation – will certainly lend a helping hand. (Ziptone/Erik Bouwer)

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