Blogger: Kevin Kampman
Yesterday I read an advisory that the trend to offshore general and administrative functions such as IT and HR will continue. Finding the most effective way to provide well-understood capabilities that are not core to the business is a legitimate choice; the devil is in the terms “well-understood” and “core to the business”.
For identity management, the consumer world is being viewed as growth territory. Over the holidays I discovered that poor internal identity processes conditions are bleeding into the consumer space.
My first inkling of this came when we agreed to move from standard cable service to the “new, high speed” service. We agreed to this based on a telemarketing call, in which the salesperson told us they’d turn it on right away. I didn’t associate this change with the new network device that arrived several weeks later. I just plugged that in and returned the old one. All the lights came on, everything seemed to work, and we thought nothing more about it. Until a few days later, when things stopped working.
When I called the support line, they said everything looked OK and said I’d need to speak to a local representative. That resulting in my being placed into a support queue, which indicated that there was an outage and that technicians had been dispatched. OK, no problem, I hung up and we went about our holiday shopping and wrapping.
The next day, things still didn’t work, so I called again. The technician said there was nothing wrong with the service, and passed me on to national support. National support said our account had been deactivated, and that I’d need to speak to a local support desk. I had a bad feeling about what was coming next.
The initial contact with support confirmed that we’d been deactivated, based on the device change. The technician tested the connection and asked if I knew someone with an Illinois address. No, but it turns out that the new network device was registered to them, not to me. Turns out that they tie customer identity to a MAC address, and mine had gone away. Hmmm. Can anyone say “provisioning?”
The technician had to escalate the call. After another hour on hold in the support queue, I spoke to a young lady who found three problems to fix. One required reregistering the device, the second involved reactivating our account, the third involved removing the old service and initiating the new one. This took another 15 minutes. What impressed me the most was how she kept thanking me for my patience. I imagine I was an exception, but I knew this was going to be ugly going in.
Bringing it to a close, this experience highlights a problem that offshoring won’t fix. First of all, if you don’t have a good process in place, it is not likely that moving the process overseas will make it better. Second, as we’ve identified time and time again, provisioning doesn’t fix your process shortcomings, either. Mixing the customer into the process is as likely to damage brand value as to improve service if the overall program isn’t worked out well in advance.
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To cap off this rant, I also discovered a potential security problem with one of my mobile devices. I let the carrier know about this before Christmas via their support page, and finally heard back from them in January. The message asked me to call a toll free number; the support technician didn’t have a telephone.
When I called the number, the technician I reached couldn’t match the supplied case number to any of their support systems. I could exchange email with the first technician, who insisted the case number was valid (but who didn’t have a phone), and talk with another, who couldn’t make the reference number work. Hmmm… Can you say Catch 22?
This experience highlights that identity is not the only area where process and system integration is lacking. If business processes aren’t well understood, and organizations push them off to providers who are less invested in a successful outcome, the result may very well have a negative impact on the core business. The opportunity here is for companies to clarify, organize, and perhaps simplify operational processes. It is not realistic to expect offshoring to make things better in the absence of an understanding of core responsibilities.
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