IF YOU are considering outsourcing, here are my three topics to consider:
New services on offer in outsourcing A range of innovative products and services that would have been considered out of reach five years ago are gradually being introduced across call centres thanks to the emergence of affordable, reliable and secure technologies.
Homeworking is emerging thanks to technology that empowers people who cannot commute to work. Here we’re seeing greater flexibility, customer empathy and productivity thanks to new secure, and often lower-cost, IT infrastructure.
Technology is also increasingly deployed to enhance the agent contribution. Rather than forming a barrier between a caller and the agent, it is helping to identify the right agent and equipping them with the information and the tools to handle an enquiry during first contact.
How to choose an outsourcer The word outsourcing implies that you make delivery someone else’s problem. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Outsourcing is just another way of delivering a good service to your customers and not only reducing costs. Achieving this means working together as one team with the same shared objectives so a key first question is: “Do we share the same opinion on what good looks like?”
Get that right and a “same side of the table” relationship creates the right environment for innovation.
What to consider when it comes to performance monitoring It is important to differentiate between performance and outcome.
You can measure almost anything so it’s vital that you identify the right metrics for the programme.
Sadly, many organisations still fall into the trap of measuring the input their provider delivers -- often average hold times -- instead of the customer impact: sales conversion or customer satisfaction levels.
Sitting below these bald numbers sits a powerful dashboard of individual and dynamic data such as individual agent performance, outbound effectiveness and retention strategies. In the right hands this is incredibly powerful insight and should shape the ongoing programme.
Pete Collins is director of customer management delivery, Vertex