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by Jim Boring - July 26, 2010

The Real Value in Call Center Outsourcing by Jim Boring

  When a Friend Calls We Listen

One of the most interesting aspects of our interesting times is the technological transformation that now links us all together. This nearly complete connectedness has changed the nature of our business relationships. The language of social media like Facebook is revealing – brands can now be “friended.” When a brand becomes a “friend” the expectation is that a call for any kind of help from a customer is a call from someone whose interests are aligned with the brand and whose needs are important.

Not Everyone Gets It

This expectation on the part of the customer receives a great deal of lip service but has not yet been fully implemented in many customer service operations. Some companies still seem to regard the customer service call as simply a cost to be borne as part of the price of doing business. These companies are characterized by service that is grudging, difficult and often seemingly indifferent. Adam Smith’s enlightened self-interest seems incapable of penetrating such obtuseness.

Companies like Zappos get it. Customer service is the most important driver of a company’s success. It is as important as the product or services being sold. The same care, creativity and attention that go into defining and developing products must also go into the care that customers now expect and associate with the brand. Customer care has evolved from an austere, remote and formal service to an enthusiasm for a brand and all its attributes shared by representatives of the brand and its customers. The result is loyal and satisfied customers.

Customer Care is a Service Not a Location

Top quality customer service has usually been regarded as necessarily a responsibility that was best kept in-house. Outsourcing customer service was sometimes necessary for cost or volume considerations but, deservedly or not, always carried a second-class cachet. That is no longer the case.

The silos and hierarchies that once separated customers from the companies that provide the brands they love have been eliminated by communications technology and a culture of inclusion. Today the distinction is not between in-house or outsourced customer service but between customer care that is personal, culturally savvy, and competent contrasted with impersonal, insensitive and indifferent.

Customers as Friends and Advocates

The most valuable asset any brand possesses is the degree to which its customers become its advocates. That advocacy is not only the result of product style and quality but also of the way the brand is infused and associated with lifestyle and cultural attributes. The place where these qualities are reinforced is through customer service.

When customer service representatives are trained and thoroughly acculturated to the brand it makes no difference where such representatives sit when they are in contact with the customer. It is the quality of the representative that makes the difference, not their location. 


Jim Boring is President of Content Management Services LLC, a marketing
communications company based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He has
extensive experience with customer contact organizations both within and
outside the client company. His writing has appeared in many
professional journals including CLO Magazine, Practicing (OD), Sales &
Marketing Magazine, Training Magazine and other marketing, sales
management and customer service publications. His client engagements
have included Motorola, PSA, CDW, Baxter, Ameritech, Global Response and Blue Cross/Blue Shield.