How Customer Service Centers in Foreign Cities Serving Japan Changed Their Business?: A Case Study of the City of Dalian, China

Abstract

AbstractThe author chose Dalian to illustrate an outsourced Japanese customer service center (CC) established in China, and how it adapted to locational environment changes. With the infrastructural improvements that the opening of Software Park had brought in 1998, it was found that CCs serving Japan soon followed, especially between 2000 and 2005, ignoring the merits of provincial cities in Japan. The CC service was for end-users, and required that employees had (1) native-level Japanese; (2) developed customer service skills; and (3) an in-depth knowledge of the company’s products. There was consequently a regressive presence of Japanese companies or the Japanese operations of global companies. To make matters worse, prices and labor costs rose in China from 2006 and companies were facing difficulty in acquiring operators who satisfied the job criteria. As of 2010, when this survey was conducted, it was said that only 20–30% of Chinese alumni from Japanese universities were capable of working as CC operators. In response, some companies moved their CCs or relocated back to provincial cities in Japan, while continuing to maintain offices in Dalian for other offshore business. In recent years, utilizing ICT in business processes has also expanded new business opportunities.KeywordsCustomer service centerOffshoringHuman resources skilled in JapaneseWage levelLocational conditionDalian