Call center operators mulling to move their operations offshore consider skills proficiency over plain cost savings when choosing a location, a recent study revealed.

A survey of 166 contact centers entitled the Global Contact Center Benchmarking Report 2005 shows that about 50 percent of the respondents cite ?staff skills? as the primary driver for their location strategy, while only 42 percent cited cost savings as the deciding factor.

First published in the U.K. in 1997 by Merchants, a Dimension Data company, this year?s edition is the seventh in a series of benchmarking reports. The report balances global and industry representation from 166 contact centers located across 24 countries and five continents. It also provides managers with a set of benchmarks with which to measure their operations that include contact center staff, salary levels, performance statistics, technology developments and training needs.

?Offshore call centers face tough challenges as half of the businesses cite access to skills, and not necessarily lowest-cost labor pools, as the primary driver for the location of their call center,? said Karina Majid, general manager for Customer Interactive solutions at Dimensions Data, a subsidiary of Datacraft Asia.

Staff issues were also considered as factors that influence the eventual choice of a location once a call center decides to take the offshore route. The primary issue is the availability of staff (45 percent of call centers), followed by staff skills (35 percent). Interestingly, only a quarter (27 percent) of call centers considered staff costs as an influencing factor, which again underlines the primary challenge placed on assuring quality of service.

?Staff issues, particularly around skills, remain a number one priority that companies must address and get right in order to realize the benefits of low cost locations, while maintaining excellent delivery of service,? Majid pointed out.

Businesses are also confronted with significant staff and service concerns. The top three issues in managing a contact center in an alternate location are quality of service (56 percent), culture of staff (51 percent), and retaining control over remote operations (44 percent), the study stated.

With concerns on skill and quality of service on the rise, challenges from the technical side have started to wane. Most of the businesses surveyed reveal that they have overcome many of the technical challenges of managing a contact center overseas, the report declared. In fact, only 28 percent cited data linkages, while only 19 percent cited telecommunication as among their top three challenges.

On the rise

Outsourcing will remain strong, according to the study. Overall, 48 percent of contact centers ranked increase efficiency and cost reduction within their top three commercial drivers. This means that as long as cost can be significantly reduced by going offshore, organizations will continue to use this as a way of cutting operational expenses.

For companies that choose not to outsource, potential damage to brand (43 percent of businesses), risk factors too great (32 percent), and insufficient cost savings (22 percent) were cited as factors influencing their decision. Unsurprisingly, two-thirds (68 percent) of companies said they choose not to outsource because they perceive the function as being ?core? to the business.

?Offshoring will, undoubtedly, continue as businesses are focused on reducing costs,? Majid said. ?However it is likely that the same onshore issues concerning staff skills and processes are often replicated offshore. Indeed, sub-optimal processes or competence are likely to be exacerbated by moving the operation offshore.?