The deployment of call centres, locally and offshore, has been a mixed blessing. In many banks for example, local deployment of call centres has often reduced costs of providing such services, compared to a distributed network of branches. Offshoring has further reduced the costs of call centre operations, application development and systems deployment. Latterly, some of the risks of international project management have been alleviated through a blended model incorporating near-shore facilities. Generally, consumers now have access to a wider variety of services, compared to what was previously in place.

However, in recent months, some leading firms have decided to bring these facilities back on-shore. Reasons for doing so include security of data, and the difficulties of providing the consumer with services that are personalised and responsive. Some firms have created high-profile marketing campaigns focused on having UK-based call centres.

Furthermore, many companies, for whom English is not their first language, have been largely unable to take advantage of the greatest cost reductions, since English is the lingua franca of the major offshoring locations to date. According to a report by Evalueserve, the major offshore locations for call centre facilities in India, will require over 150,000 new staff by 2010, simply to address the demand expected at call centres for companies with non-English speaking customers. It appears that indigenous expertise may only be able to satisfy about 40,000 or so of this requirement. With the acceleration of developing economies, such as Latin America, Eastern Europe and China, it looks like that challenge will be the tip of the iceberg. According to the National Centre for Languages in the UK, only 6% of the world’s population are native English speakers, and 75% of the world’s population speak no English at all, which is a valuable realisation for most Anglo-centric businesses.

Even satisfying the staffing requirements at low-cost Call Centres for English speaking customers seems at risk. The Indian government estimates that perhaps the shortfall of English speaking staff at offshore facilities could be as high as 250,000 within the next couple of years. Industry analysts such as Gartner have already warned that these issues will put upward pressure on costs, and raise issues about quality and security. Also, the strength of the rupee and increasing staff costs, are starting to challenge the historic margins in this sector. In this context it is also instructive to consider reports of extended waiting time on customer calls, low levels of customer satisfaction, and high levels of burnout for Indian employees, where the staff turnover is as high as 70% in the worst cases.

Taken altogether these issues indicate that the historically accepted strategy for call centres and offshoring needs refining, in substantial and strategic ways – if the benefits from such facilities are to be maintained, and if they are to be offered to the emerging markets around the world.

On-shore  |  Near-shore  |  Off-shore  … … …   No-shore !

There are two advantages of using Lattice Voice technologies in this context. Firstly, the multilingual capabilities of Lattice “On the Phone” will significantly satisfy the demand for both English and non-English speaking staff, since it enables communication between caller and call-taker, each in their own language. Secondly, and in tandem with the former, the scripted dialogues of Lattice applications will enable call centres to automatically address the majority of callers’ needs in a way that is systematic and that embodies best practice – enabling call-takers to be more responsive to more complex calls. Such an approach will reduce operating costs, improve customer satisfaction and relieve the load on stressed employees.

We would suggest that the on-shore, near-shore, off-shore model is extended with a further option that we call “no-shore” - where a significant load of multilingual, scripted communication is conducted in cyberspace. Naturally, call centre staff and customers would engage with these facilities, each in their own language, and via mobile devices, fixed-line telephone and through the Web. Careful design of such systems will enable millions of customers, with any language and from any country around the world, to have their requirements satisfied effectively and efficiently.