US House debates law to curb outsourcing

NEW YORK: A leading US magazine observed wryly not long ago that Americans totally accepted India as a place where “Wall Street gets equities analysed, where Kellogg, Brown & Root sources kitchen staff for the US Army in Iraq, and where your credit card details might be stored or stolen.” Even telephone inquiries for computer giant Dell are typically fielded in India.

But with jobs drying up in the US, some lawmakers are trying to make outsourcing a less attractive option for companies by trying to pass a new law that would mandate customer service agents to identify where they are handling calls from.

“I think with what’s happening with the economy now, we want to give companies every incentive for businesses to hire people in America to do those jobs,” representative Jason Altimire, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, told ABC News on Sunday.

Altimire introduced the ‘Call-Centre Consumer’s Right to Know Act’ and the bill’s passage may be a long shot, but the idea is now growing in appeal as Americans watch the US economy sink and jobs shrink.

That change is already on the way is evident from the fact that Dell, which is number one in the PC industry, is offering customers service agents who speak “American”.
Accents of call-centre employees in Bangalore and other international call centres have long been a sore point with several Americans.  

Dell will guarantee - for an extra $12.95 a month - that the person who picks up the phone on a support call will be, as company ads announce in bold text, “based in North America”. Without the upgrade, a customer is still likely to get technical help from someone in India, the Philippines, or other places where Dell has operators.

“Occasionally, we’ve heard from customers that it’s hard to understand a particular accent and that they couldn’t understand the instructions they were getting,” Dell spokesman Bob Kaufman told US media. “This illustrates Dell’s commitment to customer choice.”

By charging customers extra for an American voice, Dell’s programme represents a new strategy for easing the strains of globalisation while staying profitable, say industry officials.

Big-button cell-phone-maker Jitterbug, targeted at older Americans, similarly boasts in ads that its operators are in the United States, but it does not charge extra to speak to them. The company’s television spots advertise “US-based customer service” and show a headset draped in an American flag.

“You’d be amazed how many customers ask, ‘Where are you based?’ The response we get when we say, ‘We’re in Auburn Hills, Michigan, ma’am,’ - well, they love it,” David Inns, Jitterbug’s chief executive, told The Washington Post.
“We really believe that our customer satisfaction saves us more money in the long term than offshoring,” Inns said.
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“I don’t see this (calls being routed to Americans) catching on in a big way. Why would I do work in India if I have to hire people from the US for my call centre? I would lose my cost advantage too.
Pankaj Vaish, managing director, Accenture BPO