By Fernando Labastida
Despite the hype of social media there is still a lot of skepticism about its effectiveness as a lead generation tool for businesses that rely on other businesses for revenue. This is no less true for Latin American Nearshore providers of custom software development, business process outsourcing, and call centers.
However, there is a new generation of software outsourcing providers that are harnessing the power of social media to enter international markets and compete against their larger competitor from Latin America, the U.S. and Asia.
Six Biggest Mistakes in Outsourcing Contracts
August 11th, 2010
By Steve Semerdjian
While outsourcing has become commonplace in today’s business environment, the contracting process will, rightfully so, continue to challenge even the most senior outsourcing veterans. For instances, as an outsourcing customer, have you ever really looked at how much it would cost to kill a deal and back out? There are undoubtedly dozens of mistakes you and your team can make trying to make an outsourcing relationship work for the long-run. In this article, you will find the six biggest snafus to watch out for.
Building a Better Plan to Sustain Nearshoring
July 15th, 2010
"Nearshore destinations must ensure they have a steady supply of human resources to meet demand" Capgemini's Steve Rudderham
By Steve Rudderham
Nearshoring is gaining more interest and higher levels of global respectability among companies looking for long-term sustainable benefits, as they strive to remain competitive in an increasingly crowded global business environment.Offshoring is no longer the only option for companies seeking a highly skilled workforce, with a cost advantage.
Indeed, Gartner finds that interest in Latin America as an outsourcing destination has increased dramatically over the past years, making it the second most-popular region after South Asia. One of the biggest questions facing the Nearshoring community is: What can we do – together – to sustain the momentum?
Argentina Sourcing Industry Has Emerged “By Accident”
June 23rd, 2010 
By Armando Moretti
Argentina recently celebrated an important milestone: The 200th Anniversary of the “May revolution” which set in motion the country’s first patriotic government, which preceded full independence by 1816. If you think about how IT technologies, globalization, and outsourcing were unimaginable concepts back then, we may consider ourselves as evolved human beings, but how evolved are we really?
The Hidden Costs of English Training in Contact Centers
June 2nd, 2010By Jon Felperin
In a recent conversation with a Central America-based contact center manager, it was insightful to learn just how much is involved with ramping up agents to meet real-life language expectations.
“The real cost of hiring a new employee is not just the cost of a faltering English fluency or having a strong accent, but rather the time it actually takes to get up and running on the telephones,” the manager said.
Why You Don’t Want Beancounters Making Outsourcing Decisions
May 27th, 2010By Ilya Bogorad
Nine out of ten business cases that cross my desk contain material errors, which often lead to incorrect recommendations worth tens of millions of dollars. If you ever wondered why two thirds of change initiatives fail, here’s your answer: many of them are based on a fallacy, a case that does not exist. The issues run the gamut from poor understanding of objectives to complete disregard for the established methods of economic analysis, from strategic ignorance to financial ignorance.
Decisions on outsourcing and insourcing are also not immune from this flawed approach. In fact, many of them are deficient for one specific reason which I will outline here.
By Ann R. Harts and John R. Roberts III
It’s never easy to figure out exactly what decision makers in contact center site selections might be thinking or what issues they deem most critical. This is especially true in today’s ever-changing economic environment. However, one thing is certain, fundamentals still matter!
Decision makers need to free up “bandwidth” to deal with this dynamic economic environment. The old adage, “you only get one chance” has never been truer than in today’s fast-paced economic development world. (Scroll to bottom of post to read Ann and John’s “Must Dos” for Latin America Economic Development Agencies.)
By Kirk Laughlin
Imagine the horror that Comcast, the largest cable provider in the U.S., experienced when its feed for a Stanley Cup Hockey game was suddenly cut mid-game – and millions of hockey fans were effectively left in the dark.
The experience quickly became a signature moment for Comcast’s social media initiative, run through the company’s “Customer Cares” division which manages customer relationships. A team of Customer Cares’ staffers, whose key role is to monitor social media activity related to Comcast, quickly spotted negative reaction to the network outage on Twitter and pounced on the opportunity to announce that service had been restored.
By Armando Moretti
After the US economic crisis, Argentina was one of the countries that was supposed to be located in the “safe zone”. This was partially true because, even though unemployment was not widespread, the IT outsourcing sector was in a kind of stand-by situation stopping the growth and waiting for the main economies to recover their balance.
I noticed and experienced on my own how some US outsourcing contracts that were ready to run or even running in an offshore mode through the Philippines and Argentina, were suddenly reversed. After this “stand-by” period, year 2010 presents a different opportunity and signs indicate that a reactivation of the market is on the horizon. But a central question remains: How hard is Argentina going to work to maintain growth in the outsourcing industry?
Have Your Agents Been Trained to Listen?
April 6th, 2010By Sara-Ann Bermont
Can you hear me now?
Soft skill training – especially in the fundamental art of listening to the customer – is overlooked far too often by contact center organizations.
The CSR’s proficiency to convey product information or provide service is invaluable. Content training is pretty much standard: classroom courses, e-courses, testing and monitoring, leading to certification. It is supported by the call center Skills Based Routing application, managing queues by CSR proficiencies.
A soft skill training curriculum includes lessons in: listening, tone, conversation, dialect, research, documentation. Measuring performance becomes reminiscent of the methodology used by Henry Higgins. Combined, content and soft skills training encompass the full arsenal of knowledge to resolve client issues. For purposes of this discussion, the focus will be soft skills training.
