警惕!美國呼叫中心準備將外派勞工培訓成超級特工……

越來越多的公司也在使用“超級代理”,他們可以同時處理客戶的所有問題,而不是為每個單獨的問題在全世界範圍內進行轉換。還有一些代理可以一次接聽多家企業的電話,使用專門的調度系統,在查詢進入時為不同的客戶提供腳本。

Pulling that off, however, requires companies to spend money on what has traditionally been thought of as a "low-skilled" workforce. In today's tight labor market, it also helps if they provide workers with an incentive to stick around, such as a chance to advance at the company or earn more — perks typically offered to in-house workers, rather than outsourced ones.

然而,要想做到這一點,公司就需要在傳統上被認為是“低技能”的勞動力上花錢。在當今勞動力市場供不應求的情況下,如果他們能給員工提供一種激勵,讓他們留下來,比如在公司裡升職或掙更多的錢——這通常是提供給內部員工而不是外包員工的福利,這也是有幫助的。

"If you're going to have a traditional churn-and-burn type call center, you're going to really struggle to attract candidates," said David Hadobas, president of CCNG, Inc., a Fort Worth, Texas-based networking organization for call center professionals. "If it's a stepping stone, you're going to learn the business from the customer side and we'll push you throughout the organization — that's a whole different proposition then 'put on a headset and shut up.'"

總部位於得克薩斯州沃思堡的呼叫中心專業人員網絡組織CCNG公司的總裁大衛•科勒巴斯說:“如果你擁有一個傳統的消極和流失型的呼叫中心,你將很難吸引候選人。” “如果這是一塊墊腳石,你就會從客戶那裡學到業務,我們會把你推向整個公司——這是一個完全不同的感覺,你可以戴上耳機閉口不言。

Following its acquisition of Time Warner Cable in 2016, for example, cable provider Charter Communications announced it would be adding thousands of call center jobs in places like McAllen, Texas, that it had previously contracted out. While the company declined to disclose exactly how many people it had hired, Charter said that call handling times have gone down since bringing the work in-house.

例如,在2016年收購時代華納有線電視(Time Warner Cable)之後,有線電視提供商Charter Communications(美國特許通訊公司)宣佈,將在德克薩斯州的麥卡倫等地增加數千個呼叫中心工作崗位,此前該公司已將這些崗位外包出去。雖然該公司拒絕透露其僱傭了多少人,但其表示,電話處理時間自內部工作以來一直在減少。

"Investing in its own locally based workforce with more training and better wages and craftsmanship results in higher-quality service and drives value into our business," said spokesman Francois Claude.

該公司發言人弗朗索瓦•克勞德說: “投資於自己的本地員工,提供更多的培訓、更好的工資和技術,會帶來更高質量的服務,併為我們的業務帶來價值。”

Whether US companies employ more American or foreign customer service agents doesn't only depend on economic forces, though. Politics and policy matter, too.

不過,美國企業是否僱傭更多的美國或外國客戶服務代理,並不僅僅取決於經濟力量。政治和政策也很重要。

During the Great Recession, the Federal Communications Commission convened a coalition of US call center firms called Jobs4America that pushed clients to keep their operations in the United States by emphasizing the risks and complications of going overseas, such as fraud, travel time for executives and lower customer satisfaction.

在大蕭條期間,美國聯邦通信委員會召集了一個名為Jobs4America的美國呼叫中心公司聯盟,通過強調海外業務的風險和複雜性,比如欺詐、高管出差時間和客戶滿意度降低等因素,促使他們的客戶繼續將業務留在美國。

Matt Zemon, the former chair of Jobs4America and CEO of an outsourcing firm called Bernard, said they convinced plenty of companies that offshoring wasn't as profitable as they initially thought. "What was the true cost per sale?" Zemon asked. "Sometimes it's just bringing different metrics to someone's attention."

馬特·澤蒙是Jobs4America的前任主席,也是一家名為Bernard(伯納德)的外包公司的首席執行官。他說,他們說服了很多公司,說離岸外包並不像他們最初認為的那樣有利可圖。澤蒙問,“每次出售的真正成本是多少?” “有時候,它只對於一些不同的關注點帶來不同的衡量標準。”

The group ceased operations, however, when President Obama left office and leadership changed at the FCC.

然而,當奧巴馬總統在聯邦通信委員會(FCC)離任時,該組織停止了行動。

Still, many companies continue to offshore call center jobs in order to cut costs. Take AT&T, one of the largest employers of customer service agents in the country. According to the Communications Workers of America, a union that represents about 100,000 AT&T workers, the company has closed 44 call centers in the United States over the past seven years, cutting 16,000 jobs.

儘管如此,為了削減成本,許多公司在海外建立了呼叫中心。以AT&T(美國電話電報公司)為例,它是美國最大的客戶服務代理公司之一。根據美國通信工人協會的數據(美國工人協會代表了大約10萬的AT&T員工),在過去的7年中,該公司在美國已經關閉了44個呼叫中心,減少了16000個工作崗位。

A company spokesman declined to confirm how many call center workers AT&T has hired or cut over time. However, Convergys, one of AT&T's major outsourcers, said during a recent earnings call that much of its work for the telecom giant has been moved to cheaper foreign call centers.

一名公司發言人拒絕透露AT&T已經僱傭或削減的呼叫中心員工人數。不過,AT&T的主要外包商之一Convergys在最近的一次財報電話會議上表示,該公司的大部分工作都轉移到了成本更低的外國呼叫中心。

(AT&T's planned acquisition of Time Warner, CNN's parent company, has been challenged by the federal government. A judge is set to rule on the deal by next month.)

(AT&T收購美國有線電視新聞網母公司時代華納的計劃受到了聯邦政府的阻攔。法官將在下個月對這筆交易作出裁決。)

Rather than outsourcing, some companies are starting their own overseas call centers. Amazon(AMZN) has thousands of customer service workers in Costa Rica, according to Site Selection. Uber last year added 500 people to its call center in Hyderabad, India, and Wells Fargo (WFC)laid off call center workers in Pennsylvania last year while adding more jobs in the Philippines. For these reasons, analyst firm Ibisworld projects call center employment in the United States will only grow at 1.3% per year through 2022, slower than the national average.

一些公司開始建立自己的海外呼叫中心,而不是外包。根據網站的選擇,亞馬遜(Amazon)在哥斯達黎加有數千名客服人員。去年,Uber在印度海得拉巴的呼叫中心增加了500人,而富國銀行(Wells Fargo, WFC)去年在賓夕法尼亞州解僱了呼叫中心的員工,同時在菲律賓增加了更多的工作崗位。基於這些原因,分析公司Ibisworld projects稱,到2022年,美國的中心就業崗位只會以每年1.3%的速度增長,低於全國平均水平。

To try to stem the flow of jobs to other countries, House and Senate Democrats have supported a bill that would require the disclosure of all call centers that big companies send offshore, and for customers to be notified where the worker answering their calls are located. They also wrote a letter this month asking President Trump to issue an executive order that would deny federal contracts to companies with call centers overseas.

為了阻止工作流向其他國家,眾議院和參議院的民主黨人提出了一項提案,要求披露大公司在海外建立的所有呼叫中心,為了讓客戶清楚呼叫中心的員工是在哪裡接聽他們的電話的。

That letter has yet to be answered.

目前提案還沒有得到任何回覆。

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