Outsourcing Vendor Selection Best Practices Series By Kerry Ann Vales In association with
Outsourcing Vendor Selection Best Practices Series Focus: Call Center In the ever-changing state of the global economy, businesses are constantly seeking new ways to stay competitive and increase profits. As a result, contact centers are becoming exceedingly important to the success of operations as they have access to best practices in operations that can improve productivity and reduce costs. Best practices represent the gold standard of operations that can be implemented to support a program. The right contact center partner will implement best practices customized to your business while at the same time build your brand name in the market. Whether your business is attempting to establish contact center operations for the first time or looking for options to handle an increase in customer interactions during promotional campaigns, outsourcing contact center operations can be the strategic solution your company is looking for. With that in mind, this paper will guide you through the best practices in a successful vendor selection. Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance Prior to engaging in any vendor selection process buyer organizations should identify the metrics most important to your business. The key is to have a clear definition of what you need from your call center in terms of service deliverables, agent skill sets, hours of operation, and efficiency levels. This may take time however an in-depth self-analysis of what you need from your outsourcing partner is imperative to making the engagement run smoothly. According to Mike Garner, President of SOA Desk, Many organizations enter the vendor selection process with a long list of general requirements without any idea of what they really need from their customer interaction. If they do the necessary work internally to identify the metrics most vital to their organization then they can develop a more targeted set of checklists and work on finding a vendor that can meet them. Getting those key metrics met to your confidence level will result in a more successful vendor selection. 1
Experience is Critical The best asset a provider can bring to your organization in an unsure economical environment is experience. A vendor with a proven track record delivering results to a long list of clients in your industry with similar needs is a better investment than a newer vendor that may boast about their new methods or lower prices. You want to know that your investment will bring real value to the company, extending beyond simply installing their system. Experienced vendors will have a higher quality and quantity of critical business intelligence across industry specific areas and performance metrics that newer vendors just won t be privy to. Engaging an experienced industry veteran will give you the ultimate advantage of having access to, and implementing, best practice solutions tailored to your key metrics and desired outcomes. You Can t Manage What You Can t Measure Business managers are always striving for visibility within their organizations so they can get greater control over day-to-day operations and improve bottom line results. The right call center can provide that visibility through monitoring and customized reporting on core processes and agent activities in real time. Giving managers that information allows them to spend less time measuring data and more time managing their agents and leading their call center. Through the use of such customized highlevel views of their business and operational metrics, managers are able to identify areas where cross-sell and up-sell opportunities exist, and guide agents with the relevant prompts in real-time to increase sales activity. With the right call center provider you can ensure that your managers are getting best practices customized in real time to achieve higher productivity and efficiency making your call center more profitable. 1 2
v Independent Audits Ensure Data Security and Compliance Regulatory compliance is a constant source of frustration in many organizations as they face a greater number of regulations than ever before, some of which conflict with one another and even more conflict when operating overseas. Many of the new compliance measures require, or expect, additional security measures to be in place as well. The consequences associated with violating any of the regulatory or security requirements are not something organizations are willing to risk. In addition to violation fines, there are the affects on customer relationships that are of far more importance to an organization. A recently released survey of call center buyers conducted by the American Teleservices Association discovered that the two most important qualities organizations look for in their call center providers are compliance and security. When evaluating the security and compliance levels of your contact center, you need to ensure best practices and industry standards are applied to all layers of security including the physical, network, application, and data levels. Each layer plays a vital role in protecting your organization. While you can find many providers that claim to be fully secure to protect your information, you want to choose one that has been independently audited and certified across all security measures. (Source: American Teleservices Association and Dial America Survey 2009) 3
Best practice in selecting your provider would be to choose one that is certified through an independent agency such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), PCI Security Standards Council or the American Teleservices Association (ATA). Selecting a provider that has taken the time and made the financial investment involved with seeking an independent third party audit is a strategic move that can ease the pain of executives and ensure that they can focus more on company goals than regulation and security. Training for Success An excellent training program is arguably the best tool available to help companies succeed and grow. It can shorten calls, improve sales, and increase customer retention. Superior training should reflect skills across the board in communication, problem solving, sales, cultural awareness, and desktop technology. Selecting a vendor who implements best practices in the training of their staff can reduce, and almost eliminate, performance and productivity issues before they even happen. Training and recruitment is critical to the success of a call center and is one thing we take very seriously at Cyber City Teleservices, says Fred Shadding, SVP of Business Development at CCT. Before you can even join our organization you must be a college graduate. Then you are interviewed and screened and placed into a rigorous 4-week certification program in our own privately funded accredited call center school. Only after the successful completion of that program do we even begin to train for a client specific assignment. Our agents come out of training motivated towards a career in call centers and as a result, of the first 80 agents we hired, a little over 60 are still with the company, all in management positions. We believe the quality of training ensures a better quality of agent resulting in the best quality of work for our customers directly improving their bottom line. 1 4
v Proper Volume Forecasting Can Weather Any Staffing Storm Recent survey results of call center buyers show the main reasons organizations engage a call center provider are to support a new sales or marketing campaign. Engaging a call center that implements best practices in volume forecasting will make sure that it has enough agents ready at any given time to handle any spikes that may occur. With more accurate call volume forecasts and the staffing availability to support it, you can better deploy your resources, resulting in reduced labor costs and an improved customer experience. A call center that can keep up with your growth and increased call volume is critical to the success of any sales campaign as it reduces the cost involved with over or understaffing, wasteful spending, and lost sales opportunities. Location Location Location In business time is money. In the call center business, location is money. While the top two reasons organizations choose to outsource as reflected in the survey are to support their marketing and sales campaigns, it cannot be overlooked that reducing costs is still one of the top drivers. One of the best ways to achieve cost savings is to take advantage of the reduced cost of labor in an offshore location. According to a recent study prepared by Equaterra, over the next three to five years more than 50 percent of outsourced contact center work will go offshore, compared to approximately 25 percent currently. (Source: American Teleservices Association and Dial America Survey 2009) 5
Amongst the top locations the Philippines has become increasingly popular even winning an Offshoring Destination of the Year award as selected by the National Outsourcing Association (NOA) of the United Kingdom. This is due in large part to Filipinos neutral accents and similarities to western culture, nearly eliminating any possible communication gaps. Tim Searcy President of the ATA says, Buyer organizations are getting more comfortable with offshoring and seeing a greater satisfaction with their outsourcing engagements and as a result they are rewarding their providers by committing to do more with them. While you do have the recent juxtaposition of Americans being upset with unemployment and jobs going overseas, some providers have addressed this concern by maintaining service and sales offices domestically while keeping their operations offshore. This lets an organization speak to an American whenever an issue comes up, increasing their comfort factor with the management of their operations while still benefitting from their offshore savings. However the best way to bridge the gap between an offshore and onshore operation is to offer enough of a benefit from a lower price and greater quality of work to make up for any distance or possible cultural differences. The Future of the Call Center Market The global contact center market is in a period of great change as the slower economy has caused lower consumer spending levels directly impacting profitability. Companies will be looking for call center solutions that will increase productivity, efficiency and savings, while addressing their concerns on compliance and security, management and reporting, volume capacity, quality of agents and improved customer service. Variations in service delivery models such as combinations of offshore operations with onshore management will continue to grow as will traditional the use of traditional off-shoring. The customer s voice has never been louder and smart organizations will listen and respond by seeking out vendors offering best practices in key performance areas elevating service levels and improving profitability. The provider who endeavors to understand the organization s customer base and represent it s brand in a superior, transparent way and in a cost-effective manner will enjoy a long-term relationship, says Mark Boehmer, Senior Vice President of 360CRM. Between the improving economy and the ability of providers to meet the growing needs and financial demands of their customers, 2010 will be a great year for call center outsourcing. 1 6
v Lessons Learned in Call Center Vendor Selection: -Identify your organization s key metrics prior to any discussion with a provider to ensure a more targeted and smoother selection process -Choosing an experienced vendor will let you benefit from their expertise and bring a higher level of quality control. -Make management a priority. -Customized real time reporting is an essential provider service that gives your managers better visibility and control of operations. -Better training practices for employees result in better performance and improved bottom line for your business. -Regulation and compliance concerns are best eased when selecting providers with independent third party certifications. -Offshore locations are key to cost savings however you can ease any concerns with the distance or culture by engaging a provider with a strong American presence and management on site. -The future for call center outsourcing will rely heavily on customer service and cost savings and firms that exceed those standards will lead the industry. 5
About The Outsourcing Institute Founded in 1993, The Outsourcing Institute (OI), located at www. outsourcing.com, is a neutral professional association dedicated solely to outsourcing, providing information, research, networking opportunities and customized outsourcing services and solutions to the outsourcing industry. OI is recognized worldwide for its intellectual capital, outsourcing practice expertise and unbiased thought leadership. OI s commitment to innovation, along with its mission to advance the skills and knowledge of its membership, has made it the most respected and relied upon brand for the outsourcing marketplace. OI s executive network, which is comprised of more than 70,000 professionals worldwide, looks to OI as the go-to source for outsourcing thought leadership, information and advice. About CCT Cyber City Teleservices (CCT) provides cost-effective call center services while delivering exceptional sales and service results through tailored offshore, nearshore and domestic contact center solutions. Through our award-winning call centers located in the Philippines, Panama and Colombia coupled with domestic affiliations, leading technologies, and an unshakeable focus on superior quality and sales results, CCT is the Go-To call center and BPO partner for a variety of world-class companies in multiple industries. 401 Hackensack Avenue Hackensack, New Jersey U.S.A, 07601 7