Nicky Smith, DigitalPhone.io Founder and CEO
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog to celebrate what is probably my favorite day of the year: the Fourth of July. Since then, I’ve received some nice feedback from our customers and partners, and I wanted to say thank you. Patriotism is about principles and pride, and it runs very deep in our company.
And that brings me to another topic that has come up over the years that is along the same theme: why our customer support has always been —and always will be —based in the U.S. instead of outsourced to an offshore call center, even though it would be cheaper for us to do so. There are a few clear reasons for this decision.
Customer Experience
Our customers want, need, and deserve to speak (or email, chat or text) with a technical support representative who is going to quickly and easily relate to them, take ownership of their issues, and follow through every step of the way to resolution.
We cannot meet our high standards — or our customers’ high expectations — if we outsource our support function. There are language, cultural, and knowledge barriers that we simply won’t put in front our customers; especially when they have a problem that they need to solve ASAP.
Potential On-Site Visit
Many support issues can be resolved over the phone or through email. What’s more, since we install a managed router at our customers’ location(s), we can take care of many upgrades, updates and re-configurations remotely — which is very convenient for our customers.
However, there are occasions when the best (or the only) way to solve a problem is by visiting on-site. Our support team is based here in Greensboro, NC, and can be deployed whenever and wherever they are required. Plus, in most cases the technical support representative that our customer communicates with is the same one that will visit on-site, which makes things much more efficient.
Creating Jobs
We’ve had many opportunities over the years to send work to countries where the cost of living — and hence the cost of labor — is significantly less than here in the U.S. Simply put, we aren’t interested.
Yes, just like any other business we need to keep an eye on our costs and margins. After all, we have bills to pay! But we also have values to uphold, and doing what we can to create quality, full-time permanent jobs here in the U.S. is part of our legacy — one that started nearly 20 years ago.
And ironically — but not surprisingly — many companies (hosted cloud and otherwise) that farmed out good jobs to overseas workers are realizing that in the big picture, the cost savings are often negligible, or can even be non-existent.
But even if that weren’t the case, as I said, we aren’t interested. We’ll continue creating good jobs for our neighbors, and at the same time, provide our customers with very competitive pricing. Yes, it CAN be done — and we’re doing it!