Once upon a time, there was an outsourcing company in Mumbai called Cardamom coding. They were tired of being an inexpensive chop shop (or sweat shop — their AC broke.) So, they decided to do something more. Rather than engaging in a pursuit purely for the purpose of making money, they created a system that solved their customers most nagging problem. Service — reliable service with a smile.
The owner, Pratip, wanted to create an outsourcing system so convenient and pleasant that everyone would be happy. Little did he know that his door would be broken down by thousands of clients who he was unaware even existed. But, let’s stick to the story. By the way, this is just a story. There is no Pratip. Okay, there are many Pratips, but none like the one I am describing. At least not to my knowledge. And if there are, then I wish them the best of luck!
Pratip didn’t just do business. He listened.
He talked to his American, Brittish, Australian, and French clients. He learned about what they had to say. He felt their frustration. He empathized with their pain. He wanted to help, and he knew how. There was none of this, “But, how” nonsense with Pratip, because Pratip was a doer, not a talker. Okay, he was a talker, but he was ALSO a doer, and that is what matters. The main complaints that his overseas clients had were that they couldn’t communicate effectively with the workers. The writing and pronunciation skills of his programmers was dismal. His staff in reception were better, but not that much better. Follow up communications were never on time. And sometimes programmers got stuck on easy problems and didn’t follow directions. There must be a solution!
24 hours service — well almost.
Pratip decided to not only solve these problems, but more. He created a company so nice, that people wanted to be there. Pratip’s new company was open 17 hours per day. You could call day or night and there would be people to answer the phone. This was mainly to accommodate the concerns of overseas clients who were on different time zones. The result was that Pratip got twice the amount of labor for the price of his rent, since every work station could be used for two shifts!
Enhanced communication
Pratip hired people to answer the phone who were very smooth in English. Sure, it cost him more, but he wanted to provide an experience. Customers could come visit without even asking, and there would be managers waiting to help. Additionally, there were people there to socialize with clients. You could hang out in the lounge and enjoy samosas while Vikas and Angeli would chat with you. This company gained many clients simply because of the rapport that was gained from the friendly and engaging staff.
He also hired staff to teach his programmers how to write better emails and how to stay in touch better with the clients giving them better feedback. He also hired more lower level managers to keep track of how far along everyone was with their projects so that customers could be contacted with details. In addition to customers receiving regular feedback emails every 24 to 48 hours, they got regular calls from Vikas and Angeli which involved a lot of enjoyable chit chat. These two socialite twins could talk knowledgeably and entertainingly about any topic under the sun, moon, and even topics regarding other planets such as the weather on Titan — that condensed methane rain is really something! He also hired higher level programmers to inspect the quality of coding and to clean up messy code. They had the squeakiest PHP code in all of India and foreign clients were very impressed.
Cardamom became the only company in the history of mankind to get work done on time, and correctly every time, and with a smile and some chatter. Soon Cardamom had more clients than it could handle. I guess you could say that Cardamom became too big for its pod! So, Pratip went that extra mile and started a second office in a resort town in India. His workers could enjoy a relaxed, ideal lifestyle while making a comfortable income. His clients could fly over, and take a vacation while having daily meetings with project managers while their work got done. The entire staff at Cardamom and their clients had loads of fun, and became the largest software company in all of India and the world.
Many years later, Cardamom decided to merge with another company called Cloves & Ginger. They moved to a tea plantation near Darjeeling. They had all of the ingredients of Chai, so they called their new company Chai Software — a software company so caffeinated that it never sleeps!
The End
This story is not real, but emphasizes how it is possible, and highly desirable for outsourcing companies to work a lot more on designing a wonderful customer experience. I get a soothing and calming experience whenever I go to a spa. Wouldn’t it be nice to get the same or even better experience when at an outsourcing company?