One night in 2007, I outsourced 100% of our customer support to a callcenter in India. A complete disaster. Business owners beware:
I read ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ earlier that year.
We were working 18/7 to get our company in Spain into orbit.
So working 4 hours per week sounded pretty sweet.
One of the ideas in the book: Outsource.
So we did. To ‘Max Overlord’ and his crew in Bangalore, India.
(I guess his name was another ´Ignored Red Flag´ 😄 )
This happened:
– Clients weren’t getting responses
– Instructions weren’t followed
– Clients received replies in the wrong language
– A power outage in Bangalore Valley meant zero support
– I couldn’t reach ‘Max’ for days…
Complete nightmare.
One week of outsourcing.
Three weeks damage control. 😃
The reason it failed?
Me. Obviously.
1000% underestimated it.
Suffering from ´Positive Business Owner Syndrome´
What I should have done? 3 simple things:
1. Start small – Test with 10% of tickets first
(Instead of going all-in like a caffeinated entrepreneur on a mission 😅)
2. Create overlap – Keep our team while training theirs
(Not ghosting our existing support overnight 🤦♂️)
3. Have backups – Multiple vendors, backup systems
(Because betting everything on a guy called ‘Max Overlord’? Really? 😄)
It took us another 5 years to reach the 4-hour workweek.
Learned a ton.
I’ve been traveling with my family ever since.
Making lifelong memories. 13 Years and counting.
I´m writing this post in Bali.
Totally worth it.
“I wish I had worked more,” said nobody ever on their deathbed. 😄
Do you have a similar ´outsource-F-up/success-story´?
Drop it in the comments ⬇️
–
Want to know how we did it in the end?
Because successfully outsourcing was just one of the steps.
PS: Enjoy this?
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