A deeply caste-ridden country with 1.1 billion people out of which at least 250 million are desperately poor – 17,000 (seventeen thousand, that’s right) farmers committed suicide in 2008 alone for being unable to pay off credits based on usury – is proud of its IT industry that currently employs close to 2 million people according to Nasscom. In other words, 0.18% of India’s people work in that industry! An industry that is based on dollar-cost-arbitrage! Where cost, or rather the lack of it, is your bargaining chip. True, India makes software, but contract-based. The really cool stuff for example for the iPod Touch is elaborately stitched in Cupertino.
Yet even when costs are the critical reason for mainly US and UK companies to outsource to India, the point comes when companies compare cost savings with quality of service received. You might be inclined to think the current economic scenario just automatically lends itself to turn to India, yet in recent weeks it seems that US companies seem to get second thoughts. And not only that, they turn away from India.
Since the late 1990s, when cheap Internet telephony made it possible for U.S. companies to outsource their call centers, Americans have been complaining, loudly and regularly, about the quality of service. Just last week, Delta pulled a call center out of India because its customers said they hated the service. „The customer acceptance of call centers in foreign countries is low,“ Delta Chief Executive Richard Anderson told his employees in a message. „Our customers are not shy about letting us have that feedback.“
United Airlines has soured on India outsourcing, too, as has Sallie Mae. The student loan company is shifting jobs from India back to the U.S. “Some American outsourcing firms are trying to woo back customers already offshoring to low-cost destinations such as India. Smaller U.S. firms such as Rural America Onshore Sourcing and Xpanxion are attempting to build a sustainable rural outsourcing model in the U.S. at a time when offshore locations such as India are facing a backlash and unemployment rates have touched an all-time high.”
While it would be wrong to extrapolate from these incidents to a general trend, India might want to take a closer self-examination because
Poor Call-Center Service Angers Indians, Too
One thing is clear, India’s IT industry will not feed the 250 million poor ever. India needs to produce jobs, jobs and jobs. Yet high-caste India delights in its image of being in a cool industry. It might get cold.
Lest anybody forget, Apple famously shut down its initial team of 30 people in 1006 after only 3 months. They had seen enough.
Just a passing remark: I tried to get a quote for an insurance from ICICI. A quote that would take about 60 seconds to look up, yet it took a total of 9 emails spread out over 34 days and 3 different departments. Then it broke off, no quote. And do not expect that an officer would forward your request to the proper department. Oh no, you are a foreigner from behind the Kalo Pani. This is the no, no country.
I sent the same inquiry to three other insurance companies: no answer. And these are not single instances. The best experience is when dealing with gov. agencies. Seven emails to receive an answer is not unusual.
