Adding value to business process outsourcing.These are, to cite the old Chinese Old Chinese (Simplified Chinese: 上古汉语; Traditional Chinese: 上古漢語; Pinyin: curse 'interesting times' for organizations seeking to outsource their contact center services and for business process outsourcers (BPOs) alike. That is because serving end-customers has never been more challenging. Today's buyers are savvy, proactive, quality conscious but price-sharp, unimpressed with brands unless they consistently deliver, and whose loyalty is as good as their last interaction. These individuals also utilize a growing and bewildering be·wil·der tr.v. be·wil·dered, be·wil·der·ing, be·wil·ders 1. To confuse or befuddle, especially with numerous conflicting situations, objects, or statements. See Synonyms at puzzle. 2. array of channels. And as shown by the popularity of the Do Not Call list in US, which will shortly go live also in Canada, customers prefer to reach out rather than the other way around, unless they want you to. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Yet as firms, including nonprofits and institutions move their strategies towards meeting these customers' needs, by investing in tools such as in CRM (Customer Relationship Management) An integrated information system that is used to plan, schedule and control the presales and postsales activities in an organization. , call recording (see related article), speech analytics, and performance and workforce management Workforce Management (WFM) encompasses all the responsibilities for maintaining a productive and happy workforce. Sometimes referred to as HRMS systems, or even the larger ERP systems (Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP). There are many software vendors within this space. systems at their contact centers, they have been moving away from BPOs for such high-value interactions. The BPO BPO Business Process Outsourcing BPO Benevolent & Protective Order (of Elks of the USA) BPO Benzoyl Peroxide BPO Business Process Optimization BPO Broker Price Opinions BPO Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra firms are now in what Bob Lyons Bob Lyon, an American politician, is a former Kansas State Senator from the city of Winchester. A civil engineer, Lyon is a graduate of the University of Virginia and George Washington University. , a former senior executive with Convergys and TeleSpectrum (now TRG TRG Training Group TRG The Resource Group TRG Technical Resource Group TRG Technical Review Group TRG Technology Research Group TRG Tory Reform Group TRG Tactical Reconnaissance Group TRG Training received (on overtime forms) Group) who is general manager and vice president of Avaya's Contact Center division calls "a paradox". BPOs cannot afford to invest in the latest tools without strong assurance that clients will want and pay for them, yet clients will not do business with these BPOs unless they have those tools. Consequently organizations are now bringing in-house those calls that drive customer satisfaction and outsourcing those that are mainly transactional. BPO firms are then let with little more than labor arbitrage and flexibility to offer potential clients. They are hindered by strong price pressure: industry reports indicate the average rate in North America North America, third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. is $25 per agent/hour while historically typical rates were in the mid 30s. At the same time Indian programs demand about $11 per agent/hour while those in The Philippines command about $11.50 per agent/hour. Together that leaves many BPO with very little resources to buy those solutions that clients want. "Companies are beginning to realize that customer retention is also important in addition to pricing and offerings as value and marketplace differentiators," says Lyons. "Those that do a lot of outsourcing are now demanding that value proposition. Outsourcers say 'we can do this in different regions at lower cost'. So what is happening is that companies are saying 'I'm not getting the innovation with you so I can do it myself and leave you with handling just the transactions with my technology.' " The drive to value-add BPO firms, realizing these trends, have been stepping up their quality and services. They have been expanding into areas such as applications hosting, back office management, billing, conferencing, consulting, data analytics, HR management, and market research. Convergys offers one of the largest menus of value-added services A value-added service (VAS) is a telecommunications industry term for non-core services or, in short, all services beyond standard voice calls and fax transmissions. of any BPO firm: from billing to HR and to speech-recognition-enabled voice applications: the latter significantly bolstered by its acquisition of Intervoice, a leading automated voice platform supplier, and to training. Convergys has been experiencing growing demand for its behavioral intelligence (BI) services, reports Ryan Pellet pel·let n. 1. A small pill; a pilule. 2. A small rod-shaped or ovoid mass, as of compressed steroid hormones, intended for subcutaneous implantation in body tissues to provide timed release over an extended period of time. , VP Global Consulting Services Noun 1. consulting service - service provided by a professional advisor (e.g., a lawyer or doctor or CPA etc.) service - work done by one person or group that benefits another; "budget separately for goods and services" . BI captures data from interactions occuring in more than 30 different channels, from contact centers to social media, viral marketing An online advertising approach that functions somewhat like word-of-mouth. The "viral" refers to how quickly it propagates, but its purpose is not to cause damage like a computer virus, but to make an offer available to the masses. , and to games and maps as to how customers are interacting with those channels. That helps enterprises optimize their marketing, customer acquisition and customer service strategies and decide how much resources to spend and where. Convergys has also been applying its value-add services, such as HR management, to its contact centers. They have bolstered their quality to the point where the BPO firm has won price increases from its clients that helped offset higher costs. In turn, the high quality contact center care has led to increased interest and demand for value-added services, thereby creating a virtuous circle virtuous circle n. A condition in which a favorable circumstance or result gives rise to another that subsequently supports the first. Also called virtuous cycle. [Modeled on vicious circle.] . "We drink our own Merlot," explains Pellet. "We apply the same tools that we offer and provide to our clients on ourselves. If we continue to perform at or above the market standards then we are invited to do the value-added pieces." LiveOps continues to do likewise. The pure-play home agent BPO firm has added silent monitoring of agents, which enables managers to identify service issues plus agent readiness assessment testing that helps ensures that agents are ready to go live with end-customers. These tools are also on the Summer 08 release of LiveOps' hosted On-Demand Platform that it markets to other contact centers. APAC Customer Services
APAC Customer Services, Inc. is a provider of customer interaction solutions to large corporations in the communications, financial services, insurance, healthcare, logistics, publishing, and hospitality is seeing increased demand for handling back office processes such as claims, receivables, medical bills, e-mail, and USPS (1) (Uninterruptible Switching Power Supply) A power supply for a computer that contains its own battery and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) circuitry. See power supply and UPS. for clients. "We're providing a one-stop shop One-Stop Shop A company or a location that offers a multitude of services to a client or a customer. The idea is to provide convenient and efficient service and also to create the opportunity for the company to sell more products to clients and customers. for our clients with these BPO services, taking on routine tasks that cost them money to handle, in addition to our contact center services for them, which offers them greater convenience," explains vice president of operations Rebecca Lucera. Avaya's Lyons is skeptical about BPO firms' ability to successfully branch out into these other areas as potential buyers may question their competency to deliver because they have not been present in these fields. "These firms still face the same paradox as with value-added contact center functionality," says Lyons. "To add value beyond labor arbitrage they need to integrate these services and provide business consulting so that they can provide a premium offer that allows them to capture a price premium. Yet the cost to build or buy such expertise far exceeds the expected return Expected Return The average of a probability distribution of possible returns, calculated by using the following formula: so again you are left with a business model focused on labor arbitrage." In the case of Working Solutions, a pure-play home agent-based BPO firm it is the company's clients more than marketplace expansion desires that drove it to start offer hosted technology solutions. The firm provides call and contact routing (TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) A technology that transmits multiple signals simultaneously over a single transmission path. Each lower-speed signal is time sliced into one high-speed transmission. or IP), IVR (Interactive Voice Response) An automated telephone information system that speaks to the caller with a combination of fixed voice menus and data extracted from databases in real time. , and speech analytics including real-time alerts to supervisors for customers who may require escalations or specialized handling. "We've been providing these services to clients who utilize our agents for quite some time," says CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. Tim Houlne. "But we've seen a growing number of companies ask us to provide software and technology for their internal call center operations." Mergers The low margins, plus ease of entry, and many players along the retiring and cashing out of companies' founders have made mergers and acquisitions the norm in the BPO industry. Yet while they have led to bigger companies with more clients and workstations it has not necessarily led to greater market leverage, and higher prices. "Companies will typically want at least two outsourcers on a program so if your two outsourcers who are merging happen to have the same customer, companies will pull that work to someone else, which helps keep prices down," explains Lyons. The acquisition of SITEL by ClientLogic last year, now called Sitel, is arguably ar·gu·a·ble adj. 1. Open to argument: an arguable question, still unresolved. 2. That can be argued plausibly; defensible in argument: three arguable points of law. quite different. It has brought together complementary assets, capabilities, and client lists, with very little overlap. And as such there has been negligible client attrition. Amit Shankardass, Chief Global Marketing Officer, reports that out of the 450 clients brought together by the merger, only nine of them used both firms. The post-merger Sitel retained 98 percent of its clients, of which 83 are Fortune 500 companies. ClientLogic brought to the table strong inbound customer care, cross-sell/up-sell, support, plus data management and fulfillment, he explains. Legacy Sitel brought in robust outbound customer acquisition, billing/collections, customer care and IVR competencies. While ClientLogic had strengths in the travel/transportation, ISP (1) See in-system programmable. (2) (Internet Service Provider) An organization that provides access to the Internet. Connection to the user is provided via dial-up, ISDN, cable, DSL and T1/T3 lines. , and retail markets, legacy Sitel delivered heft in financial services The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. and utilities. The new Sitel is now pursuing the energy and healthcare verticals. "We've experienced strong growth, and so have our clients because there was very little overlap between the legacy firms," says Shan-darkass. "We're now able to offer and deliver to both sets of firms' clients and to prospects a complete range of global BPO services that complement each other under one roof." Near/Offshoring The increased emphasis on customer service and quality is impacting BPO offshoring
Offshoring describes the relocation of business processes from one country to another. and nearshoring. There have been many published reports of dissatisfied customers, and companies with having their calls handled in India. Clients and BPO firms are in response moving their more customer-sensitive work to other nations and in some cases back to the US. The chief offshore beneficiary is The Philippines, which has a strong customer service culture and whose residents have a greater cultural affinity to the US thanks to longstanding military/political and increasingly family ties between both nations. Yet there are growing concerns that The Philippines' labor market labor market A place where labor is exchanged for wages; an LM is defined by geography, education and technical expertise, occupation, licensure or certification requirements, and job experience may soon be saturated, at which point costs will begin to escalate. The Everest Research Institute reports that offshoring including to India have been successful though for those BPOs and companies that made their metrics quality-focused, such as using customer satisfaction scores, and had agents undergo pre-going-live simulation-based training. Meanwhile the weak US and stronger Canadian dollar Noun 1. Canadian dollar - the basic unit of money in Canada; "the Canadian dollar has the image of loon on one side of the coin" loonie dollar - the basic monetary unit in many countries; equal to 100 cents has ruled Canada out as an alternative. Many clients have pulled nearshored programs from there, forcing BPOs such as Convergys, ICT (1) (Information and Communications Technology) An umbrella term for the information technology field. See IT. (2) (International Computers and Tabulators) See ICL. 1. (testing) ICT - In Circuit Test. Group, TRG, and West to shutter (1) An opaque window that is moved in one direction to let light in and in another to close off the light. In fixed-lens cameras, one shutter often suffices for aperture and speed. contact centers. Africa and the Middle East are finally emerging as a quality offshoring option for North American North American named after North America. North American blastomycosis see North American blastomycosis. North American cattle tick see boophilusannulatus. clients as savvy BPO firms, seeing what has happened elsewhere, are marrying the region's large supply of well educated, highly motivated, and affordable labor with quality-oriented recruitment, training, and agent retention strategies. BPO at Home There continues to be strong move to bring BPO home: to those of its agents. The home agent value proposition is access to larger, higher quality and more flexible labor pool without the capital costs of formal contact centers. West, which has had a home agent program for the past several years, has addressed the issue of data security, which has been a key inhibitor on the part of many organizations, especially financial services firms, in letting these individuals handle their calls. Its new West at Home Locked-Down Desktop Security Environment transforms employees' home desktop computers into a West proprietary environment. When its home agents begin work, the software only runs those applications or processes explicitly permitted to be operated, which locks down their computers. They cannot access other files, folders, or programs or go to West-unauthorized websites during this time, nor can they download, store and/or print information. When the agents have finished work, their desktops are restored to their former state. APAC APAC Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing APAC Agricultural Policy Analysis Center APAC Asia and Pacific APAC Asian Pacific American Coalition APAC Adapted Physical Activity Council (American Alliance for Health) is taking a slightly different road. For the past four years it has had a similar large center/larger community-home agent constellation model to what Sitel has recently adopted. This fall APAC is branching out into small towns, with storefront locations of 10-12 seats that have training and HR functions that in turn will service outlying home-based agents. "Our clients will benefit from this strategy because it will be reaching out to a high quality labor force that has not been tapped by contact centers because these communities have been too small to support traditional facilities," explains Lucera. by Brendan B. Read, Senior Contributing Editor A contributing editor is a magazine job title that varies in responsibilities. Most often, a contributing editor is a freelancer who has proven ability and readership draw. , Customer Interaction Solutions RELATED ARTICLE: Canada's Domestic BPO Market Canada's currency relative to the US dollar has risen to the point where on some occasions it is more valuable, which has made it less viable for nearshored programs. The flip side Flip side In the context of general equities, opposite side to a proposition or position (buy, if sell is the proposition and vice versa). to the strong Canadian 'Loonie' is that Canada has still, relative to the US, a strong domestic market thanks to its energy and more stable housing sectors. Outsourcing is one of the best means of reaching out to Canada's 33 million consumers, and to its business and government sectors. BPO firms who know Canada can navigate your program through the country's two official languages, cultural issues, the metric system metric system, system of weights and measures planned in France and adopted there in 1799; it has since been adopted by most of the technologically developed countries of the world. , and regulations, such as the new Do Not Call list that comes into effect Sept. 30 (see related article). US-based BPO firms with operations there are aggressively pursuing Canadian business Canadian Business is the longest-publishing business magazine in Canada. It was founded in 1928 as The Commerce of the Nation, the organ of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. The magazine was renamed Canadian Business in 1933. . ICT Group is netting results from this strategy. Canadian revenues help drive a 33 percent increase from international sources in the second quarter 2008 from the same period in 2007. Earlier this year Convergys appointed Igor Sarenac as Vice President, Business Development, for Canada, placing special emphasis on attracting and expanding business among companies headquartered there. There are also many Canadian BPO firms that offer an increased range of services. As one example, 24-7 INtouch has launched a value-added partnership program that provides clients with complete end to end solutions through a one vendor relationship. Pre-screened quality outsourcing solutions through a single vendor make it beneficial for clients to easily outsource and manage all of their unique business needs. "We recognize our strengths, and don't attempt to offer everything ourselves, "says Greg Fettes, President and CEO of 24-7 INtouch. "Instead, collaborating with strategic and complimentary vendors allow us to offer a total solution our customers can depend on." RELATED ARTICLE: Boutique BPOing Boutique BPO firms are smaller companies whose value propositions stress top level high-customizable quality customer care and satisfaction and personalized per·son·al·ize tr.v. per·son·al·ized, per·son·al·iz·ing, per·son·al·iz·es 1. To take (a general remark or characterization) in a personal manner. 2. To attribute human or personal qualities to; personify. attention to clients' needs. They are noted for loyal, well-trained and experienced agents and supervisors backed by quality assurance systems. They can provide the ideal adjuncts and partners to best-in-class in-house contact centers. While their rates are not the lowest, they deliver value for money. "Boutique contact centers are better suited to enable customer care and satisfaction because they are more focused, hiring and keeping people off the beaten path, and they don't need to hire thousands of people," says Bob Lyons, general manager and vice president of Avaya's contact center division. InfoCision is one such boutique BPO. It specializes in customer acquisition, care and retention, nonprofit fundraising, and product and pledge fulfillment. All of its contact center agents relate to American end customers; its services are delivered via 32 small facilities located only the USA. It has won Customer Interaction Solutions' magazine's Marketing Via Phone (MVP (Multimedia Video Processor) A high-speed DSP chip from Texas Instruments, introduced in 1994. Officially introduced as the TMS320C80, it combines RISC technology with the functionality of four DSPs on one chip. ) Quality Award every year since its inception. RELATED ARTICLE: Outsourcing Your Help Desk There are times when your contact center needs help with IT issues yet your help desk is swamped. And if you are with a small/midsized firm you may not be able to justify having a full-time IT team yet you need their services when your operations go buggy Refers to software that contains many flaws. Many in the software industry swear that bugs are inevitable, and perhaps they are right. As long as we work in the competitive, pressure-cooker environment of our high-tech world, products will more often than not be developed too hastily and . Help desk outsourcing enables you to quickly and effectively resolve many problems for less money compared with expanding your IT desk or bringing in an outside onsite support professional. The Utility Company has made it easier for more firms to benefit from help desk outsourcing. It has come up with a new service aimed at small/midsized businesses, 1-866-My-Utility Per Minute Live Helpdesk Service. It provides remote monitoring (protocol) remote monitoring - (RMON) A network management protocol that allows network information to be gathered at a single computer. Whereas SNMP gathers network data from a single type of Management Information Base (MIB), RMON 1 defines nine additional MIBs that provide a and management for IT (network, desktop, security, and storage), business applications, Web/Internet, copier/printer and telecommunications, 8am to 8pm ET. 1-866-My-Utility Per Minute dramatically reduces waiting times and time to resolution, with a 50 percent -80 percent savings over typical break/fix support contracts. There are no minimum charges or travel, the lack of latter also makes this option environmentally-friendly with no pollution or gas consumption. RELATED ARTICLE: The following companies participated in the preparation of this article: 24/7-INtouch www.24-7intouch.com Apac Customer Services www.apaccustomerservices.com Avaya www.avaya.com Convergys www.convergys.com Everest Research Institute www.everestresearchinsitute.com ICT Group www.ictgroup.com Infocision www.infocision.com LiveOps www.liveops.com Metro One Telecommunications Metro One Telecommunications, Inc. (NASDAQ:INFO) is a provider of directory assistance with call centers located in the United States. It employs 1,640 people. Corporate headquarters are located in Beaverton, Oregon. www.metro1.com Sitel www.sitel.com The Utility Company www.theutilitycompany.com West www.west.com Working Solutions www.workingsol.com' Xceed www.xceedcc.com |
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