India’s Role in Optimizing the Omnichannel Experience
When considering India’s role in the Omnichannel experience, it is important to note that the time difference between the DATAMARK headquarters in El Paso, Texas, and Chennai, India, is 11.5 hours. This means that a colleague arriving at the office in Texas with a coffee at 8 a.m. can message a colleague in India, knowing that it is 7:30 pm over there.
Omnichannel in India
DATAMARK has delivery centers in Mumbai and Chennai, both in India. Both are in the same time zone and are very large and important Indian cities with big populations. In fact, Mumbai has the largest population of any city in India, with over 12 million people. In the US, only New York City comes close with 8.8 million people.
There are 46 Indian cities with a population of over one million, and the country’s total population is 1.4 billion, making it the country with the largest population on earth.
The contrast between the time zones in the US and India makes it a very interesting place to locate services, such as back office and customer service processes. By blending teams located in different locations, it is possible to create a ‘follow the sun’ operation where each team hands to another as their day closes.
Follow The Sun: 24/7 Support
Our team usually operates by arranging an early and later shift in India, working with a team in the US or Mexico. This means that the North American team can work a regular daytime shift and then hand it over to the early shift in India, followed by the later Indian shift, followed by a handover back to North America.
This flexibility means that any client working with the DATAMARK team in North America can switch on 24-hour support by working with us to use the follow-the-sun model. This can be a very powerful tool for companies that need to offer 24/7 customer service operations.
Night shifts can be hard on recruitment teams in the US. Not many people want to work nights on rotating shifts, meaning the work days change each week. Recruiting the team is harder, and they usually demand more compensation for the inconvenience of working nights. They are also more likely to become dissatisfied and quit.
This leads to the issue of retention and a constant turnover of employees, who all need onboarding and training. An important benefit of the Follow the Sun model is that it avoids the requirement for a night shift and offers 24/7 coverage without all these headaches.
Advanced Technology
It’s also important to state that our India team is extremely advanced. They are well-trained and use the same systems as the North American teams. They are not just handling voice calls – they can handle all customer channels and are now using our DataSpark artificial intelligence system.
The Bottom Line?
This ability to plan for a 24/7 omnichannel support service without employee dissatisfaction and turnover demonstrates the value of a follow-the-sun arrangement with India. Many of our clients already manage their business processes this way.
