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Gurgaon News - 2004

BPO: India must focus on quality too

India, one of the world leaders in business process outsourcing, must ensure that its services are not only cost-effective but also qualitatively superior to that in the United States to ride out of the furore over outsourcing, a leading American expert on customer satisfaction measurement methodology said.

"What could happen is that outsourcing from the United States to India could become some what more difficult because of the pressure in the US unless of course it can be shown that outsourcing, for example of call centres, are not only cost-effective, but they also provide at least the equivalent quality," Claes Fornell, chairman of the research and consulting firm CFI group, said in Beijing.

Fornell, considered one of the leading experts on customer satisfaction measurement and customer and employee asset management, told PTI that in an election year in the US, the issue of outsourcing has become a politically sensitive issue.

He said the problem could persist as long as there is a perception in the US that companies do outsourcing just for cost cutting while compromising on quality.

Fornell, who was in Beijing to mark the Consumer Day, said if the call centres in India could show the Americans that the level of customer satisfaction is just as high as they are in the United States, the tension may subside.

Thus, he said, it would be a good idea if the government or the industry felt the need to have someone measure the quality of BPO operations in India.

The CFI group has plans to enter India and is scouting for an appropriate partner, Fornell said.