The significant personnel turnover during the transformation and the outbreak of the pandemic while expanding international operations have posed challenges for Adamas Jhiang. How does the company address these challenges, and what strategies are in place to drive growth?

In the process of the company's transformation, having ambitious goals alone is not enough; you must also assist your employees in succeeding. Adamas Jhiang, the founder of Eason Sourcing International, has deeply realized this in the past few years.

Established in 2011, Eason Sourcing International began its transformation into the international market in 2014, aiming to provide international customer service centers, professional market research outsourcing, and business process outsourcing (BPO) services for multinational companies in the aviation and automotive industries.

However, the company faced the challenge of constant personnel turnover. To establish customer service teams for clients from different industries, team members needed not only foreign language skills but also a rapid grasp of industry-specific knowledge.

Facing this challenge, Adamas established tools and methods while maintaining ongoing communication with employees and strengthening their mental resilience. Today, approximately 70% of the company's clients are foreign companies, including major Japanese automotive manufacturers and the largest budget airlines in Japan and Vietnam. Eason Sourcing International provides customer service in eight languages, including Vietnamese, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, and Thai.

The founder of Eason Sourcing International is Adamas’s wife, who previously served for many years at a Japanese automotive brand company. She ventured into entrepreneurship and founded Eason Sourcing International when she found that the service of outsourcing companies for customer satisfaction surveys was less than ideal. Starting with small projects, the company later began collaborating with Japanese automotive companies, laying the foundation for Eason Sourcing's entry into the international market.

Eason Sourcing's first international customer was a Japanese airline that outsourced customer service in Mandarin, English, and Cantonese to the company. In the initial stages, the team had to possess language proficiency and understand the client's specific expertise. They often had to deal with travelers in urgent need of assistance, which put a significant strain on team members.

"Reducing variables means returning to a more scientific approach, which involves providing tools to help employees," Adamdas believes. Being from a different industry, he could better identify potential issues in the customer service processes. Eason Sourcing approaches customer-provided SOP from an outsider's perspective, dissects and organizes it, and even questions the customer to establish its internal knowledge database.

"The most important aspect of customer service is not just a pleasant voice but the ability to respond quickly and accurately to customer inquiries," Adamas points out. Providing tools that enable the team to respond quickly and accurately helps alleviate stress and workload, and accumulate professional knowledge. This, in turn, reduces employee turnover and maintains service quality.

For new members joining the team, Adamas assists them in building mental resilience. "During these three months, your primary focus is learning, and you will inevitably face challenges. Your job is to ask questions actively," he emphasizes that the ability to perceive and ask questions is crucial for customer service personnel. Customer service isn't just about answering questions; it's about understanding the customer's genuine needs during communication and anticipating potential issues they may encounter.

For Eason Sourcing, every new customer necessitates a group of employees learning the customer's expertise. Given the wide range of services the company offers, Eason Sourcing's approach is to rotate supervisors to different projects, allowing them to interact with various clients and develop the ability to think from different perspectives. Supervisors who have rotated through various projects have the opportunity to become project leaders.

Finding ways to replicate capabilities in seemingly non-replicable areas is the key to overcoming entry barriers. "What we're doing is finding ways to replicate most of the abilities in new projects or with new colleagues," Adamas describes it this way.

Moreover, meeting all customer requirements creates another entry barrier for the company. "Solving the most challenging issues is what makes long-term success more sustainable," Adamas emphasizes. The first international customer took almost a year to go from introduction to providing services. The client listed about two hundred items, including system integration, data security, personnel recruitment, and more. Many companies might have given up, but Adamas believes that going through such challenges makes clients less likely to change partners easily.

Take a look at what you have.

In fact, back in 2014, when Adamas stated his intention to lead the company into the international market, his colleagues believed it was impossible. It wasn't until they secured their first Japanese airline client that everyone truly believed it was possible. At the time, Adama was thinking that as a business operator, we should focus more on "What do we really have? If we only focus on what we don't have, we may not necessarily attain it."

Adamas had prior experience in the panel and solar energy industries, had previously founded a company, and possessed expertise in introducing new projects and system integration. Additionally, his wife had experience working at a Japanese automotive company. He believed that these capabilities, when applied to international markets, would provide a significant advantage and decided to venture beyond the Taiwanese market.

However, just as they were gradually gaining a foothold in the international market, the pandemic erupted. Business virtually disappeared, leaving only a few projects in the Taiwanese market. Adamas even considered selling face masks at the time. Ultimately, he asked himself two questions: 1. What are the core capabilities we have? 2. Apart from the pandemic, is this a trend? 

Consequently, the company decided to enter the cross-border e-commerce customer service sector, assisting e-commerce businesses in selling their products in other countries. This transformation opened up a new path for the company.

Reflecting on the pandemic period, Adamas believes that the most crucial aspect was adjusting one's mindset. During those three years, he and his wife climbed the seven highest peaks in Guguan, Taichung, as well as tackled many other mountains. 

"I found that many business operators were also on the mountains, all facing the same pressure and continually exploring how to proceed. Only while climbing, when you're so exhausted you can't take it anymore, do you learn that you can only focus on the step you're taking," Adamas said.

Eason Sourcing International

Founded in: 2011

Products: Multilingual international customer service

Major Clients: Over 70% international clients, including aviation, travel, automotive, e-commerce, and B2B services.

Business Model: Assisting international clients in integrating different markets and providing local language BPO services.