Grow Your Business through Contact Centre Outsourcing

1
Grow Your Business through Contact Centre
Outsourcing
Fanny Vaz Director, Personal Market Unit, CTM
2
Agenda

• Balancing the benefits and concerns
• Steps to successful outsourcing
• Choose a strategic partner to grow your
  business

3
What should an outsourcer offer ?

• People management
• Operational procedures
• Technical infrastructure
• Marketing support
• Management expertise

4
An outsourcer should help you to

• Reduce your unit costs
• Increase your service offering
• Access new markets
• Approach more customers
• Improve quality
• Focus on your goals

5
Balancing Benefits vs Concerns
5
6
Reasons to Outsource

• Improve, or focus on core competencies
• Gain access to expert capabilities
• Reduce and control costs
• Gain access to resources not available internally
• Need to implement change
• Regain control of difficult functions
• Need to reduce risks

7
Potential Benefits of Outsourcing

• Cost reduction
• Experience between 10-30 savings over
  do-it-yourself
• Potential quality improvements
• By your own metrics, between 10-30
• Competitive Advantages
• Time to market, flexibility, out of hours
  coverage
• Access to Expertise
• Technology, tools, structured methodologies,
  procedures, experience..

8
Reasons not to Outsource ?
8
9
Concerns

• Anticipated supervisory problems ?

• Outsourcing company does nothing but focus on
  call centre management, can provide you with
  better control, more analysis and reporting and
  better service

10
Concerns

• Existing operation in place ?

• Existing call centre does not mean that
  requirements are / can be fully met
• Financially difficult for internal call centre to
  run short term / ad hoc programmes

11
Concerns

• Confidentiality ?

• Depends largely on applications
• Good use of technology will ensure data security
• Careful selection of staff and use of
  confidentiality agreements can also overcome most
  of the concern

12
Concerns

• Skills ?

• Recruitment with appropriate skills
• In-depth product training in conjunction with the
  client
• Skill level requirements for most of the
  applications are not high especially for
  temporary programmes
• Use of sophisticated technology can help to fully
  guide the agents to handle calls in a consistent
  manner

13
Concerns

• Quality Issues ?

• Extensive monitoring of agents
• Best practice management
• Service levels guarantees / agreements

14
Steps to Outsourcing

• Define the strategic and tactical reasons to
  outsource
• Determine your objectives
• Evaluate potential benefits
• Evaluate supplier competence carefully
• Form a partnership with your supplier
• Be aware of your role and responsibilities
• Be aware of the limitations

15
Evaluating a Partner

• Partnership - the three Rs
• Reputation
• Existing Relationship
• References

• The Details
• Agents
• Operational procedures
• Quality
• Technical infrastructure
• Management

16
Evaluating a Partner - Agents

• Agent selection, recruitment criteria and
  procedures
• Your involvement in agent selection and
  recruitment
• Training programmes, frequency, quality, purpose
• Your involvement in training
• Employee motivation and incentive management
• Employee terms and conditions
• Employee satisfaction
• Supervision and supervisory procedures
• Use of employees in client focus groups

17
Evaluating a Partner - Operations

• Operational procedures
• Extent and efficiency of workforce scheduling
• Efficiency of operation, agent utilisation,
  service levels
• Flexibility of workforce management
• Resourcing
• Quality assurance procedures and tools
• Type and frequency of call monitoring
• Your involvement in this
• Escalation procedures and corrective actions

18
Evaluating a Partner - Technology

• Technical infrastructure
• Resilient, high availability architecture
• Flexible design
• Capacity
• Innovative use of technology
• Integration capabilities
• Backup, contingency, disaster recovery

19
Evaluating a Partner - Account Management

• Project management
• Account management
• Reporting
• Service level
• Quality
• Contact reporting

20
The Clients ROLE

• Setting your objectives
• Clarity ! Define your requirements and share your
  problems
• Define measurable criteria for cost and
  performance
• Aim to build an ongoing and mutually successful
  relationship
• Ensure enough resources to properly manage your
  relationship
• Ensure your fullest participation where it is
  required

21
Thank you !
21