Yes! -- Delta Air Ends Use of India Call Centers
From The Wall Street Journal:
Delta Air Lines Inc. said Friday it has stopped using India-based call centers to handle sales and reservations, making it the latest U.S. company to decide the cost benefits of directing calls offshore are outweighed by the backlash from customers.
Delta said it stopped routing calls to India-based call centers over the first three months of the year. Customers had complained they had trouble communicating with Indian agents, the airline said. Last month, Chrysler LLC said it would move its customer-service center back from India.
"It is fundamentally cheaper to do it in India, but there's also the question of whether it's better to do it cheaper or better to do it better in terms of the relationship with your customers," said Ben Trowbridge, chief executive of Alsbridge Inc., a Dallas-based company that advises on outsourcing.
Call-center representatives in India earn roughly $500 a month, or about one-sixth the salary of their U.S.-based counterparts, he added.
Delta's move also reflects the need for airlines to streamline their sales and reservation operations as customer-call volume dwindles amid the ongoing recession. And, as layoffs mount in the U.S., it could be a smart public-relations move for companies to cut their outsourced business before eliminating payroll positions.
Last week, SLM Corp., the student lender known as Sallie Mae, said it would return to the U.S. 2,000 jobs it outsources in India, the Philippines and Mexico. The jobs, mostly call-center and information-technology positions, were recently moved overseas as part of a plan to trim 4,000 jobs from the company's overall U.S. payroll of 12,000 employees.
Delta was one of a handful of carriers, including U.S. Airways Group Inc. and UAL Corp.'s United Airlines, that sent parts of their telephone-based sales and reservation duties offshore earlier in the decade as they scrambled to cut costs after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when demand for travel plummeted.
Delta isn't pulling back from the use of all foreign call centers. It will keep some Jamaica and South Africa centers, which haven't generated such vociferous complaints.
U.S. Airways said it is reducing the number of calls it routes through call centers in El Salvador and Guatemala. "We're finding call volume to be down right now so are able to bring more calls on shore," Valerie Wunder, a U.S. Airways spokeswoman, wrote in an email.
And United said earlier this year it is also moving some India-based phone work back to the U.S.
Delta Air Lines Inc. said Friday it has stopped using India-based call centers to handle sales and reservations, making it the latest U.S. company to decide the cost benefits of directing calls offshore are outweighed by the backlash from customers.
Delta said it stopped routing calls to India-based call centers over the first three months of the year. Customers had complained they had trouble communicating with Indian agents, the airline said. Last month, Chrysler LLC said it would move its customer-service center back from India.
"It is fundamentally cheaper to do it in India, but there's also the question of whether it's better to do it cheaper or better to do it better in terms of the relationship with your customers," said Ben Trowbridge, chief executive of Alsbridge Inc., a Dallas-based company that advises on outsourcing.
Call-center representatives in India earn roughly $500 a month, or about one-sixth the salary of their U.S.-based counterparts, he added.
Delta's move also reflects the need for airlines to streamline their sales and reservation operations as customer-call volume dwindles amid the ongoing recession. And, as layoffs mount in the U.S., it could be a smart public-relations move for companies to cut their outsourced business before eliminating payroll positions.
Last week, SLM Corp., the student lender known as Sallie Mae, said it would return to the U.S. 2,000 jobs it outsources in India, the Philippines and Mexico. The jobs, mostly call-center and information-technology positions, were recently moved overseas as part of a plan to trim 4,000 jobs from the company's overall U.S. payroll of 12,000 employees.
Delta was one of a handful of carriers, including U.S. Airways Group Inc. and UAL Corp.'s United Airlines, that sent parts of their telephone-based sales and reservation duties offshore earlier in the decade as they scrambled to cut costs after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when demand for travel plummeted.
Delta isn't pulling back from the use of all foreign call centers. It will keep some Jamaica and South Africa centers, which haven't generated such vociferous complaints.
U.S. Airways said it is reducing the number of calls it routes through call centers in El Salvador and Guatemala. "We're finding call volume to be down right now so are able to bring more calls on shore," Valerie Wunder, a U.S. Airways spokeswoman, wrote in an email.
And United said earlier this year it is also moving some India-based phone work back to the U.S.
posted by Sid Cottingham | 6:21 AM
1 Comments:
Well, that could really be not a so good news for some. But, I am hoping that it was made for a very reasonable purpose. Thanks for sharing this news. I'll surely make sometime visiting your blog to read some more updates. Keep it up and more power.
Danielle
Reservations call center
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