5 Reasons Why Regional Support Centers Are Not Playing Well Together

Continuing our 5 Reasons series, this month we talk about feuds between regional support center. Yes, they are appalling, since collaboration is so essential for the success of the organization and customers, but they are quite common, fueled by distrust, ignorance, and competition. Fortunately, much can be done at the leadership level to alleviate tensions (and, to be fair, tensions may exist primarily at the leadership level, while support engineers are happy to work together despite distance, language, and political barriers). .

1. Time zones are not aligned properly

Support centers are often located according to convenience or cost (hence, at headquarters, or in low-cost areas), and their locations may not match the distribution of customers. Customers whose time zones don’t have generous overlaps with those of the support centers will require handoffs, and we know that handoffs are always likely to create frustration along with a big bubble of work first thing in the morning.

There may be little you can do to relocate existing centers, but do take customer time zones into account if you are creating new ones. And do experiment with shift changes where there are issues. Not everyone will want to work a different shift, but even a few individuals can make a difference in minimizing handoffs.

Lesson: Minimize the volume of handoffs with clever shift scheduling

2. The staffing and incentive formulas are unfair

I really should phrase this as they are perceived to be unfair–and some are plain unfair, to be sure. Most staffing formulas rely on case volume, which seems perfectly equitable unless case type and case complexity vary widely between centers, which may well be the case depending on who the local customers are. For instance, a particular geography may serve smaller customers, with a lot of simple questions, while another serves large established customers who only reach out with very complex queries–and the subtleties are entirely lost in a volume-based model.

Similarly for incentives, it’s well known that US customers tend to be generous with CSAT ratings, for instance, so direct comparisons may be unrealistic. Simple group-based comparisons should allow you to suss out legitimate regional differences.

Lesson: Consistency does not mean equity: ensure that staffing and incentive models are actually fair.

3. There’s no comfort with multi-cultural support

I regularly lead soft skill workshops with support engineers and when I ask them what challenges they encounter working with customers around the world, I get an earful or two. (O, the tales I hear about pushy US customers!) Consciously or not, these experiences color interactions with other support centers, all because team members don’t feel at ease with one another.

Lesson: Train the support engineers to expect and manage cultural differences.

4. There’s no real effort to decentralize expertise

New support centers usually start out with junior talent, and we know it takes time to develop deep knowledge of a product. But after a few years at least some support engineers will acquire the deep expertise required to perform as a senior team member, participate in readiness projects, and take on strategic responsibilities. All too often, there are limits to what projects and roles outlying support centers are “allowed” to join, sometimes out of a heartfelt concern about timezone constraints, but sometimes out of sheer lack of imagination.

You have talent around the world. How can you harness all of it?

Lesson: Offer a wide range of opportunities globally.

5. Prejudiced impressions are allowed to flourish

Many of my clients have an established support team in the US and newer teams outside the US. Once upon a time, the US team as a whole was more experienced than the other teams, and somehow the impression lingers. Competition between support centers can be healthy, or it can take an ugly turn towards prejudice. Handoffs and requests for help are scrutinized for mistakes. Metrics are interpreted to mean the other centers are not pulling their weight.

This is silly. Of course it’s healthy to surface problems but relentless criticism is a big hit to morale on both sides. It’s up to the leadership team to model appropriate behavior and collegiality and to put a stop to inappropriate conduct even while tackling bona fide cross-center conflicts.

Lesson:  Maintain respectful relationships while not shying away from naming and addressing conflicts

(Quick aside: did you see how the image at the top of the post is NOT inclusive? Think about such “details” in your presentations and communications.)

What do you do to foster collaboration between support centers? Please share in the comments.

(And if you need help, we can help.)