Thinking of Outsourcing Your Help Desk Abroad? Think Again!

Can you really trust non-native English speakers that work outside US law and regulation to run your technology help desk?

I’m sure when you considered reasons why you should outsource your help desk, you’ve already considered why outsourcing a helpdesk makes a lot of sense. You get more experienced workers, more resources when you need them, and likely, you’re only paying for the amount of service your business needs.

But have you thought about why outsourcing a help desk in the US rather than abroad could save you even more?

Consider this scenario— Your computer password expired and you need someone to reset it. You call your help desk and someone unfamiliar answers. You tell them that you need your login password renewed pronto.

Password renewal is generally very straightforward. And let’s assume the helpdesk agent understood your request (Note: many non-native English speakers can even have trouble understanding team member’s requests because of accent or use of specific or unfamiliar language). The problem you have is understanding what the reset password is—normally a string of letters, symbols and numbers is relatively easy to relay. But because of a thick accent (even British accent!) caused you to waste time trying to get a simple password!

If you had a more serious problem—say a problem that needed an escalation path back to one of your tier 3 engineers, would that non-native help desk person be able to fully understand the problem AND summarize it for others so that your ticket is quickly resolved?

Internationalization of technical help over the phone has consistently tied to communication road blocks. The simple fact is disparities in language differences—even between countries with high proportions of English speakers. US-based companies with outsourced help desk support outside of the US consistently are riddled with communication problems.  Most of these problems ARE NOT related to a helpdesk agent’s inability to communicate in English.

The real problems for non-native American agents are rooted in:

1. Inability to detect nuanced communication such as tone of voice and other subtle inferences.
2. Inability for helpdesk agent to relay urgency of issues.
3. Inability to understand slang or regional-specific language.

Problems with miscommunication or inability for non-native speakers on your help desk team to quickly understand what a specific problem is can lead to serious costs to your business:

1. Delayed ticket resolution times
2. Frustrated team member
3. Poor user experience

And worst of all, your team may start avoiding your helpdesk all together! If your users become disenfranchised from using your helpdesk solution, you may risk them snowballing your IT costs!

Plain and Simple: Your team members are in a hurry and non-native speakers can’t keep up—when you’re in a hurry with a ticket you need resolved (however simple), can you afford to wait and re-explain your problem every time you need helpdesk support? Contact us today for a FREE helpdesk assessment.