Microsoft Global Technical Support Center (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Many businesses would love to reduce customer vents for technical issues, but have struggled to find a solution. These businesses have moved it offshore to countries like India to manage it cheaply and efficiently. However, the dialect has annoyed many customers who have bought these brands. So what other solutions are there to this problem?
I recently came across an article called “Outsourcing is so last year” at the Economist. The author refers to this solution as “Unsourcing”, I prefer “Insourcing” or “Netsourcing”. The solution isn’t new, as it began in the 1980’s but in today’s times it’s a revelation to managers. Some brands in software, consumer electronics and telecoms are offering expert advice at a fraction of the costs that these cheap nations supply.
The basic concept is that the business sets up an online community to enable person-to-person support among users.
Customer Lobby (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Businesses use websites or social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to form these communities. The people who use the brand solve the customer’s problem. Generally these helpers are not paid.
Tom Tom, the maker of satellite-navigation systems, saved $150,000 in its first two weeks. It’s estimated these communities can reduce costs by up to 50%.
Some businesses reward these prized fans by giving them rankings for solving the problems. This helps in boosting their community status. While a telecom business reduced monthly phone bills for clients when they helped other clients and recruited new customers.
Technical Support Explained (Photo credit: Brett Jordan)
These communities could be monitored by technical support and customer service staff. This is to aid in company relations and rewarding these super fans through loyalty programs. While anything to do with personal customer accounts and billing needs to be diverted to another channel.
The temptation for most businesses to switch to this solution due to costs will be too hard to resist. While the added benefit for making it harder for customers to vent is all to appealing. The greatest concern will be the unsuccessful deployment that will send a wave of criticism to the business due to the lack of preparation and planning. Would your business consider this solution of online community person-to-person user support? What ways do you think you could improve on the reward system? Do you think this solution is a way of reducing customer vents for technical support?
Related and contributing article
- Outsourcing is so last year (economist.com)
A Brand Enhancer in Communications. I fit naturally with technology, curious about science and avid consumer of news to gain insights. You can follow me on Google+ , LinkedIn , Twitter .
Aqua Black Cat 
I’ve been surfing on-line, but I never found any attention-grabbing article like yours. It’s beautiful. In my view, if all web owners and bloggers made just the right content material as you did, the web will likely be a lot more useful.
Thank you very much for your comment.
After reading your blog post I browsed your website a bit and noticed you aren’t ranking nearly as well in Google as you could be. I possess a handful of blogs myself and I think you should take a look at seopressors.org. Keep up the quality posts
Thanks for letting me know about getting more exposure to my site. I’m glad you enjoyed the site and the quality posts. Cheers.
The next time I read a blog, Hopefully it doesn’t disappoint me just as much as this particular one. After all, I know it was my choice to read, however I really believed you would have something helpful to talk about.
Truly disappointed that you didn’t find anything interesting to read.
I couldn’t resist commenting. Perfectly written!
Thanks for your comment.
Your style is really unique compared to other folks I’ve read stuff from. I appreciate you for posting when you’ve got the opportunity.
Cheers Amanda for the comment.
Great post. I’m dealing with many of these issues as well..
Hope this helps in resolving some of your issues Susannah.
An outstanding share! I have just forwarded this onto a colleague who was doing a little homework on this. And he in fact bought me dinner simply because I discovered it for him… lol. So let me reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!! But yeah, thanks for spending time to discuss this subject here on your blog.
Glad I could help you out on getting a meal, Tammara. Thanks for sharing the story.
Way cool! Some extremely valid points! I appreciate you penning this article plus the rest of the site is also really good.
Thanks Penny for your comments.
Way cool! Some extremely valid points! I appreciate you writing this write-up plus the rest of the website is also really good.
Thanks for your comment Carmen.
Everything is very open with a precise clarification of the issues. It was really informative. Your website is useful. Many thanks for sharing!