Jananas

I’ve written a fair bit about customer service, poor experiences at call centres, and my general frustration with dealing with large corporations. At one point this summer when ranting and bantering with friends the idea of outsourcing customer service calls came up. Except instead of telling corporations that they’ll save money by sending CSRs offshore (something that in my gut I don’t believe is true, but realize that the final numbers aren’t out there yet to back me up), I think that we as customers need to outsource our calls.

One of the most fundamental things my MBA as reinforced in me is how precious and limited my time is. Realistically, I don’t have enough time in my life to have to call into a call centre three, four, five times to get a problem sorted out (or to save $10 a month) or make sure that a billing error is cleared up. Its a waste of my time and the payoff very rarely covers the frustation that you suffer as a result.

Instead, why not create a business aimed at wealthy, busy individuals. Pay us $20 and we’ll call into the call centre on your behalf to get things sorted out. Troll online forums (Howard Forums comes to mind) to find the most knowledgeable people. Quantify knowledge as product knowledge, in-depth knowledge of call centre procedures, and the emotional intelligence to get CSRs to get things done. Have those people on staff to deal with call centres on your behalf. Hey, I’d pay to not have to deal with poor scripting and training and to save myself a large amount of frustration.