News: Customer Service/Care
In-house training 'restrictive', says customer care expert
24 June 2008
Investing in the provision of customer care training from an outside organisation is the sound choice to make for 21st-century workplaces, it has been claimed.
At a public affairs seminar on the outsourcing industry held in the Philippines this month, management specialists told global business bosses that in-house training often throws up a range of restrictions.
These include limits on managers' freedom to concentrate on core competencies, their access to advanced technology without capital investment and their capacity to meet unpredictable periods of high and low demand.
Marife Zamora, the vice president of relationship management firm Convergys, also alluded to in-house training's reduced ability to address varying customer contact preferences.
She went on to claim that firms which favour in-house customer care training face growing demand on their internal resources, "especially as requirements rise for multiple language and high-technology skills".
"More importantly, these challenges are threatening the ability of the internal operations to support differentiation through the customer experience and help keep the business competitive," Ms Zamora concluded.
In a recent survey conducted by Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, it was emphasised that managers worldwide need to "strategically align" their customer service provision with the business goals of their companies.
