Stop Exporting American Jobs…
Transform Customer Service into NEW Business Profits!
“People all over the world want what you have… including your job. The difference in the new game is that they don’t have to come to America to get it! By exporting our culture and now, our jobs we’re sending it to them!” — Your Humble Blogger
There is a feeling of inevitability that we can’t stop the exporting of American jobs.
Over the next 10 years, a tidal wave of work will be shipped abroad and there is little America can do to prevent it. The NEW Economy is global, and everyone everywhere wants their slice of the pie.
It’s been happening for decades, but the recent exodus is painfully acute. Service people are being hit hard. Jobs are leaving and not coming back. When a company can hire twice the number of service people at half the expense, the bottom line payoff is too appealing for many companies to pass up.
The truth is a bitter pill, but swallow it we must:
Exporting of service jobs will continue unless we change the game.
It’s time to play a NEW Game.
It’s a global marketplace, and we are competing with talented people from all around the world. Most are hungry and eager to climb the ladder to a higher economic rung. The are willing, able and committed to work long and hard to advance themselves and their family’s quality of life. They are coach-able. They take pride in their work. They do good work. The want more of what life has to offer.
THEY WANT WHAT YOU HAVE… including your job!
Who can blame them? They are smart, talented people who work hard, long and for less money to boost their standards of living. Truth is, there are plenty of people everywhere who can do what you and I do, and if given access to our jobs they will compete on the best leverage they have:
PRICE and TERMS!
They are willing to work for a fraction of your price, and will accept whatever terms come with the job.
If they can do your job for a lot less money, you become expendable and vulnerable. Your job, skill and knowledge are no longer protected, no longer scarce. It’s a tough game to play and win when your rival is willing to work twice as hard for half the price.
The global marketplace shifts the playing field. Americans are not prepared, nor ready to play this new game. Our greatest strength is our Achilles heel. The problem of being the lead dog is that the rest of the world is constantly nipping at your heels. Climbing the ladder is what America is about and why people risk life and limb to come here. I say it again:
THEY WANT WHAT YOU HAVE… including your job!
THE BIG DIFFERENCE TODAY IS THAT…
THEY DON’T HAVE TO COME TO AMERICA TO GET IT!
By exporting our culture and our jobs, we’re sending it to them!
It’s a NEW World with NEW Rules!
To maintain our competitive edge, we need NEW thinking, NEW models, NEW strategies, NEW solutions, and NEW skills. We need a NEW Game!
American companies export service because they view service as an expense department, a cost item on their income statement. A company will always consider ways to cut costs by changing vendors, suppliers, manufacturers, buyers, distributors, location, operations, technology or workers, even if it means exporting jobs to another country.
A Solution to Stem the Tide of Exporting American Jobs…
Turn Customer Service from Cost and Expense into NEW Business Profits!
The prevailing service paradigm is one of reaction, problem-solving, putting out fires, listening to angry, frustrated, upset, whining, complaining, threatening customers. That’s a formula for red ink, which is what most customer service departments contribute to their companies. As one of corporate VP put it, “It’s a necessary evil.”
Necessary, indeed, but evil? This paradigm is old game, and will continue to grease the chute for companies to export any service than can be done elsewhere for less, even if it means a falloff in customer satisfaction. In some cases, the bottom line payoff from lower costs is worth the tradeoff in customer care. This is not the company line, but it’s the cold, hard truth.
In the next few years, our economy will continue to shift from a service model to a new model dominated by distribution. Millions of people who watch their service jobs get replaced or eliminated will find themselves by choice or chance in the distribution channel. More and more people will move out of “reactive” service and move into proactive distribution; in other words, sales.
It’s natural for consumers to buy from people they know and trust. It’s true for most cultures that people tend to buy from their own: Americans prefer to buy from Americans, Asians prefer to buy from Asians. People have a stronger bond with, and trust for people they know than they do for outsiders, and value existing relationships over new service providers.
The good news: SALES ARE WHERE THE MONEY IS!
The better news: WE DO IT BETTER THAN ANYONE!
You tilt the playing field by transforming customer service from an expense center into a NEW business profit center.
When customer care transitions from reactive trouble shooting into proactive problem solving, profitable new opportunities emerge.
Customer service will continue to be a target of “outsourcing” for as long as it remains an expense center. If a company can lower costs and get the same results, they will do it. It’s hard to reverse a trend of servicing customers from overseas when it has such a dramatic effect on the bottom line. Unfortunately, loyalty to people ends at the water’s edge.
One Way to Stop Exporting Service Work is to…
Transform service into new sales.
Turn reaction into pro-action! Transition customer service into a NEW business profit center.
There’s a big payoff to transform service into new sales and revenue. In the NEW game of business, service IS sales, and the best kind of marketing you can do.
People prefer to be served than sold, and would rather be patronized than pitched (or marketed to). Serving first adds value in advance. When you serve, deliver, serve some more, you transform customer care from a cost center into a profit center. People will want more of what you’re “serving” up.
Marketing is expense. Sales are income. Service is expense.
Most companies have two bookend expense areas draining one primary income source. Sales departments are under constant and often intense pressure to produce more revenue to cover marketing costs and service expense, and generate profit to boot. It’s no great mystery why sales teams suffer high turnover.
The NEW Game Solution:
Integrate marketing, sales and service into one holistic process.
Turn salespeople into advisors, and service people into true customer care specialists. As your service people contribute to new sales, the cost of marketing goes down and the profit per customer goes up.
Service people can advance customer relationships, open up new business and get referrals. With a few strategic questions, they can uncover new buying opportunities in the same conversation in which they resolve issues and solve problems.
Service can be one of the best sources of hot leads and new sales.
Turning service into profit transforms your army of trouble-shooters into customer care advocates. Among the best marketing your company can do is to serve people a great experience every time they engage customer service.
We must remind ourselves why it’s called, “customer service!”
In the NEW Game… everybody sells, everybody serves!
Marketing, sales and service are one holistic process, not three separate, competing departments.
A “service first” strategy transforms service into profit.
If we are serious about keeping service jobs in America, we must invest in PEOPLE, our most valuable assets. An investment in new thinking, new training and new tools pays off in new revenue and new profit.
Teach them, train them, and arm them with new skills. Encourage them to serve, deliver, and serve some more. Give them a stake in the outcome.
Transform them from an expense center into new profit center.
How can we slow down or reverse the trend of exporting American jobs?
Transform Customer Service from Expense into NEW Business Profits!
Mitch
© 2004, Mitchell Axelrod, The NEW Game. All rights reserved.
Reproduction permitted with author’s consent.
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