China: The Temperamental Services Outsourcer?
June 19th, 2008 | by This is China! |
“I’m hoping I can talk with someone in customer service.”
“Yes, I can help you. My name is Tim Wang. What is your name?”
“My name is Sally Smith. I’m calling from Edison, New Jersey. I have a problem with the super-robo-slicer-dicer machine I bought from the local Walmart.”
“Oh, you’re American.”
“Yes…”
“Then you deserve to have a bad machine. You’ve been cheating the world for such a long time, and bullying China. We’re tired of you Americans sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. We have a long history and we’re going to beat you, you know. We’re going to show you Chinese people are really great! …
“Hello? Hello? Miss Smith? Are you still there?”
Of course, this never happened. But I’ve been wondering with all the talk of China becoming an IT- and Business Process Outsourcing powerhouse if China really has the temperament to service the rest of the world.
True, China suffered great humiliation at the hands of foreign powers for nearly a hundred years before 1949, in no small part due to the decline of the rule of the Manchus, who were invaders themselves. But if there is anything Chinese people have let the world know as the country becomes wealthier is that they have refused to let those historical slights go.
Nightly on Chinese television are run historical soap operas that reinforce in a way I’ve not found in other countries the injustices heaped upon their country by foreign powers (one of my favorite soap operas actually takes place in a scenic Suzhou during the Japanese occupation of the city); while other painful, self-inflicted wounds from its recent history are glossed over with familial melodrama.
Once or twice a year now for the past four years Chinese people – with the full support of the national government – erupt into protests over perceived criticisms and incursions from abroad. The government buses in citizens to foreign embassies and shopping centers to protest their outrage, while Westerners – and sometimes, the occasional Japanese – are warned away from the heaving mosh pits of seething emotion. Establishments – whether French, American, Japanese or the flavor-of-the-day – are boycotted and the occasional window smashed. Meanwhile, some Chinese employee quits his job at a foreign company to make a political statement, either because of personal distaste for his employer or from pressure from peers and family.
All of which leads me to wonder if China will be able to maintain customer support bases for the rest of the world – even after the next generation converses in English with the ease that many in India do today. Within the borders of the Mainland, I have no doubt the Chinese domestic BPO service providers will be able to effectively support companies and consumers that drive its economy.
But it’s China’s reach to provide services – not sneakers - to the broader world I wonder about. In general, countries in the OECD – countries that typically use outsourcing service platforms in other countries – are making concerted efforts at moving past historic traumas. And the OECD’s growing sense of “political correctness” will gauge the extent to which other countries will put up with China’s temper tantrums.
Perhaps, one day, the world just may hang up on a cranky China.
Postscript: to underscore my observation check out a very recent comment from a Chinese reader to a pretty old post I wrote on racism in China.
4 Responses to “China: The Temperamental Services Outsourcer?”
By Mark Forman on Jun 19, 2008 | Reply
Bill-well put. On so many trips to China it amazed me how people who come from a culture that is long on hospitality can easily get off into political rhetoric with a foreign guest. If I were to turn the tables on them and call them to task for Mao’s errant policies or genocidal tendencies. I’m sure they’d be quite perturbed and wondering where my sense of decorum is.
They need to quickly buy some copies of Dale Carnegie’s “How to Make Friends and Influence People”. Like my Nana always said, “you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.” But I digress-hard to manage with 5,000 years of culture or even 1 year 5.000 times for that matter.
By This is China! on Jun 19, 2008 | Reply
Mark;
That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think? After all, in the run-up to the Olympics the Beijing government has been campaigning its citizens to not spit, swear and panhandle in the streets. I’m sure Shanghai will be doing the same as the World Expo nears in 2010.
Phone etiquette, though, may take a bit more time… a grand experiment, alright - on a grand scale.
Have faith, man; have faith…
By the tank man on Jun 23, 2008 | Reply
Bill
there could be large amount of xenophobes in China considering the propaganda they have been dipped into, and also there would be some xenophiles as well. so you just can’t say the whole country is full of anger towards people ouside and they are not emotionally qualified in outsourcing industry. that really depends.
By This is China! on Jun 23, 2008 | Reply
Yes, tank man, you are correct, though my entry does seem imply the entire country has anger towards foreigners. It’s true, we are not talking the Boxer Rebellion here, and I know and spend most of my days in China with very lovely and charming Chinese people.
But, as we say in the service industry: “It takes a lifetime to gain a client, and a second to lose him.” It takes but a handful of the dis-satisfied out of a billion to set an industry back decades.
India seems to have its indignation at 350 years of British colonialism moderated in a constructive manner: it’s beating Western countries at some of the West’s own games, and creating new games as well.