How We Do
Research
David Butler, Executive
Director, National Association of Call Centers,
David.Butler@nationalcallcenters.org
We conducted a survey of
large vendors a few months ago. The purpose was to ask
you, the readers of the In Queue Newsletter, what
you thought about each of the companies listed and rank
them based on your experience. We shared the results of
those findings in the last issue of the newsletter.
Not surprisingly, the companies that came out on top
were thrilled and have used that to their marketing
advantage already. Those that did not place as high are
understandably concerned. These companies asked about
how the survey was conducted and the methods behind it
to ensure that the survey was not biased against them
which is fully understandable. The question is why do
they have to ask that question at all?
The call center industry produces surveys regularly,
many of you probably have survey fatigue. I alone
received four requests for surveys in just the past two
weeks. So how is the NACC different from these others?
The National Association of Call Centers is a non-profit
organization, and it emerged from the Call Center
Research Laboratory at The University of Southern
Mississippi. I am both the Executive Director and an
active tenured research professor who conducts academic
research. We follow strict university scholarship
guidelines when conducting all of our research an are
generally curious as to the results since they are not
pre-known in advance. If you have been in the call
center industry long enough you have found that there
are many reports, white papers, survey findings out
there that appear fishy. The results they tout do not
pass the smell test and appear to be biased and skewed
toward a particular company or product as if the
findings were created and the research behind it made
up. I suspect that past run ins with such work was the
reason the company above inquired about the methods used
in our survey. Those types of reports, white papers, and
surveys are bad for you and bad for the industry since
it deprives the industry of good, neutral, and unbiased
data. It is only in the realm of unbiased and neutral
data that a person and organization can make the best
choices and improve their operation which collectively
improves the call center industry. So, I wanted to let
you know that as an organization the NACC stands for
solid, good, unbiased, neutral, academic-quality
research, and you can count on us to produce trustworthy
research that will not smell of fish.
A Labor Day
ThoughtDavid
Filwood, Principal Consultant, TeleSoft Systems and NACC
Advisory Board Member,
david_filwood@telesoftsystems.ca
With Labor Day 2008
upon us, please take a moment to consider the important
difference between "Fair Trade" and "Free Trade" - and
how it impacts on us in the North American Call Center
Industry.
Globalization and Free Trade are here to stay - along
with the potential to outsource your Call Center
functions to offshore, low-labor cost locations such as
India.
But as currently practiced, "Free Trade" means that
India-based Business Process Outsourcers (BPOs) pay
substantially less in taxes to compete and do business
in the U.S. and Canada than North American companies do.
It also means that India-based BPOs are free to ignore
the most basic aspects of US & CDN Labor Law - as
India's labor standards are low or non-existent.
Call Center Agents in
India are typically employed in 21st Century Cyber
Sweatshops. They work graveyard shifts - under high
pressure - in work environments where liberal attitudes
to sex and club drugs are encouraged and thriving.
"Blacklist" data bases - containing the details of all
those employed in the Indian Call Center industry have
been set up - so that "negative insider elements" can be
detected by employers at the recruitment stage. Workers
in their hundreds are fired without so much as one cent
in severance pay.
I think it's well past
time to bring the principles of "Fair Trade" into any
discussion about the North American Contact Center
Industry and BPO to India. The principles of "Fair
Trade" have been around for a long time, and are
primarily based on ideas of human rights and economic
justice. "Fair Trade" is about improving the social and
ethical well-being of people in both developing and
developed nations. It is about the Pursuit of Happiness
rather than just the pursuit of wealth. And the Pursuit
of Happiness has always been about improving social
relationships among people - and about moral and
righteous living - not just the pursuit of material
well-being.
On Labor Day, we pay tribute to the creator of so much
of our strength, freedom, and leadership - the North
American worker. Through generations of political
debate, elections, strikes, lockouts and other
conflicts, the vital force of labor has added materially
to the highest standard of living and the greatest
production the world has ever known. The North American
fight for Labor Standards has brought us closer to the
realization of our traditional ideals of economic and
political democracy.
Globalization & Free Trade - without considering "Fair
Trade" - has resulted in tens of thousands of North
American factories being moved abroad or closed.
Millions of North American workers and the communities
where they live have been left to their own devices. We
see the results daily in the squeezing of the Middle
Class, the rising Trade Deficits, and a bleaker economic
outlook for our children.
The majority of North American Consumers speak with
their wallets in support of "Fair Trade" - just ask
Starbucks. And equally, we've seen how North American
Consumers punish companies exposed for exploiting labor
in the developing world - just remember Kathie Lee
Gifford's clothing line, or the Gap, Inc., and the
"Sweatshop Uproars" they had to weather.
The North American Call Center Industry will become ever
more entwined with those of other nations. The issue is
how this will be done - to what degree - and in whose
best interests. What will you say if one of your
customers - or shareholders - or children - asks you if
you practiced "Fair Trade" when outsourcing your Call
Center jobs to India?
Response
David Butler, Executive
Director, National Association of Call Centers,
David.Butler@nationalcallcenters.org
To respond to David
Filwood's essay I need first share with you a brief
story.
Two weeks ago I went into Best Buy (I own the stock) to
purchase a travel computer for the NACC. I prefer Sony
computers because of past hardware and call center
support problems I have had with another PC maker. I
went in and was able to purchase a Sony VAIO, usually a
mid to high range priced computer, for under $700. I was
stunned at the low price. Happy, but stunned. I
remembered back to my first PC, an IBM PS-2, that I
purchased at a department store for over $2500. The
reason I purchased it at a department store was that I
had a credit card at that store and I could make
payments on the computer for 2-years until it was paid
off. So what has happened since that PS-2 day and today
in terms of price of PCs and what does this have to do
with fair or free trade?
As consumers we make purchasing decisions everyday. When
we choose a product we in turn do not chose the other
products available. Whether we chose the product based
on price, quality, experience, habit or some mix of
those we are making decisions. Though we may not say, "I
am buying a $695 computer and thus I expect to get
little or no customer support from American or Canadian
call center workers," in essence we are making that
decision, consciously or not. As companies compete for
market share, price, more than any other variable,
becomes crucial (for example two surveys ago you even
told us that you make call center technology purchase
decision mainly on price, followed by reputation of the
company second). To have the lowest or lower prices
companies need to cut costs. One of those cost cutting
measures will no doubt be labor since labor is both
expensive and a recurring cost. Internal efficiencies is
one way to save money, but often that is not enough in a
very price sensitive market. Often companies choose to
outsource their high labor cost functions like call
centers to domestic providers or even offshore to
locations like India and The Philippines. Does this hurt
North American jobs? Absolutely. Does this produce less
expensive goods and services for us as consumers?
Absolutely.
Conversely, the Indian call center worker is doing well
economically. Yes there are social tensions that are
mounting and producing challenges as David Filwood
highlighted in part because of their new found economic
success, but the emerging middle class is also
liberating some of these people (often female workers)
from social constraints.
These are not easy questions or answers, but they are
ones we will continue to grapple with over the next
decade or two as new opportunities, technologies,
options and challenges face us as call center industry
professionals and consumers of products and services.
Free trade, fair trade, all trade is consumer driven and
most consumers purchase products based on price.
Call Center Comics

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