By Dan Berthiaume

Everyone seems to have at least one story about a nightmare experience dealing with telephone customer service. The fact that many call center providers are located in countries where language and customs are significantly different from US norms only exacerbates the problem. Some experts recommend that companies outsourcing call center functions attack the problem of poor customer service by focusing more attention on serving the needs of customers. But is that always the best strategy?

Michael D. Brown, a corporate consultant and trainer who specializes in developing professional brands, has a slightly different recommendation. “Step back and take care of the employee first,” Brown says. “They will then take care of the customer. Make the employee number one and the customer number two.”

Brown realizes that his advice to place the frontline employee before the customer amounts to heresy in the eyes of many customer service gurus, but he hastens to explain that this is actually the best way to ensure a top-quality customer experience. “When you look at unfavorable dealings with the end user, there is a rush to judgment to put a band-aid on the situation,” says Brown.

Instead of approaching each individual customer complaint as a separate issue necessitating an on-the-spot fix, Brown says companies should make more effort to understand how the frontline call center employees actually spend their day. “Take a side-by-side walk with your frontline employees,” says Brown. “See what a typical day is like; see what types of calls they’re getting and where the roadblocks are. Then ask, ‘Do I have the right processes in place?’”

Brown says real-time communication technologies such as Skype and FaceTime allow US companies to virtually perform side-by-side walking with call center employees who may be working from distant offshore locations.

After performing side-by-side walking (either in-person or virtual), Brown says companies should then go about “smart tasking” outsourced call center employees. “What do the employees do besides just answering calls?” asks Brown. “To deliver a world-class call center customer experience, look at the sequence of tasks employees perform and see if you can make any changes to enable them to deliver a better customer experience.”

Let Frontline Employees Make it Right

Following smart tasking, Brown says companies should provide outsourced call center employees with what he calls “Make it Right” power, or the ability to solve certain problems on their own. “Often the person answering the call can do nothing other than pass on the call to someone else when there is a problem,” says Brown. The customer becomes even more infuriated when they are passed to person after person.”

Instead, Brown says the employee manual should provide frontline employees specific instructions on how to resolve common issues and that the second person they speak to should have the authority to handle all problems.

“Most customer problems are not rocket science,” comments Brown. “The frontline employees hear the same issues day in, day out. Ask them what they are doing day to day and look for organically developed solutions.” Brown says companies should then compile these solutions into a continually growing “What-If Arsenal” of resolutions to common problems that is built from the bottom-up, guaranteeing employee buy-in.

Brown says is it also important for companies engaged in call center BPO to encourage “bubble up innovation,” or innovative ideas that come from frontline employee brainstorming sessions. “Often we don’t have the answers, but need innovation bubbling up from the bottom,” Brown says. “It gives the frontline employees ownership in the workplace.”

Clued In

Brown says all the steps he recommends to achieve world-class customer service in an outsourced call center will not succeed if everyone involved is not relentlessly focused on the same goal. “Does everyone understand the vision, or are people in different silos?” he asks.

Of course, companies also need to simply follow through and make world-class customer service happen at their outsourced call centers. This includes remaining open to making changes in response to changing needs of customers. “Keep it fresh,” says Brown. “Things will change. Look at what happened to Borders. To take call center customer service to the next level, you need to say enough call centers are giving the industry a bad name, it’s time for us to rise to the top.”

An essential part of making it happen is ensuring frontline employees fully understand what customers expect from products and services. “Too often the call center employees haven’t a clue,” he states. “They must understand how things are made, not necessarily from a technical standpoint but in terms of the promised experience. Often the call center employees don’t know what has been promised to the customer.”

By Bill Huber, Partner, ISG, and Kristen Elvinger, Research Associate

Concerns exist over the capacity of Latin American service providers to absorb rapid growth. Several global providers currently have a presence in Latin America, and tax and other trade incentives will help attract more outsourcers to the region. And, many Latin American countries are positioned to further develop emerging areas of specialization. Indeed, lessons learned from India, China, and some Eastern European countries suggest that specialization and quality-focused differentiation will be the keys to success, especially for countries with small populations.

Following is a review of major outsourcing destinations in Latin America, including assessments of strengths and business environments.

Mexico’s Head Start

Mexico benefits from a ten-year or so head start in the outsourcing business (primarily in call centers), proximity to the United States, membership in NAFTA, and a large pool of English speakers. Additional pluses: high-quality telecom infrastructure, good quality road and railway networks, and many airports. Mexico’s growing IT and BPO offerings are expected to increase 10% year-on-year, according to a study by HfS. Several cities offer a variety of trade incentives, including cash grants of up to 50% of total investments, and tax credits up to 30% of R&D expenses. Indeed, competition between states and cities to attract clients is helping to drive Mexico’s outsourcing maturity. While some have expressed concern about Mexico’s ability to develop higher value offerings, a number of initiatives – such as the Programa para el Desarrollo de la Industria del Software (PROSOFT) – are in place to develop skills for the workplace. On the downside, myriad security risks, both real and perceived, have hurt Mexico’s reputation.

Brazil Is Bigger

With the largest IT market in Latin America and the world’s second largest pool of COBOL programmers, Brazil boasts formidable outsourcing resources, characterized by a the presence of several global providers, well-established call center business, many R&D development centers, and a strong global services industry. While English fluency rates are low at 5%, that figure still represents approximately 10 million people, meaning Brazil has the ability to scale. Brazil also has very good telecommunications infrastructure, wide use of broadband, and the second highest number of airports in the world.

With a history as a quick adopter of new technology and methods, Brazil anticipates significant growth in high-value BPO and ITO in the next two years. Labor and export regulations, however, are a negative. And while incentives such as reduction in social security contributions and tax deductions for technology transfers are attractive to IT companies, exports of services are taxed heavily. Moreover, unfavorable labor laws and associated employment costs can be a concern. This paired with their large potential talent base gives them the opportunity to become a large nearshore destination if the government can create better trade incentives and bureaucracy.

Argentina’s Infrastructure and Bilingualism

Argentina boasts the best telecommunications infrastructure, the second-largest IT market, and the largest pool of bilingual employees in Latin America. Following the devaluation of the peso in 2001, Argentina took an economic hit that drove down wages and office real estate, which in turn attracted outsourcers. Responding to the opportunity, the government implemented a plan to develop the IT industry, focusing on software development and technical call centers. The initiative was characterized by a range of incentives for IT companies, including a 60% income tax exemption for software companies, 70% reduction on social contributions, and no restrictions on wiring foreign currencies for imports.

Argentina’s more progressive standards and data protection laws, moreover, are attractive. While Argentina is well-positioned to attract further outsourcing activity, bureaucratic hurdles are an obstacle, as with many other Latin American countries. Also, Argentina is implementing new trade restrictions . To address the challenges, many foreign companies are initially partnering with local providers when entering Argentina’s market.

Chile Seeks Higher Value

Chile’s stable government and currency, well-developed telecommunications infrastructure, and easy immigration policies make for an attractive destination for outsourcers. Recognizing that its small size requires a quality-rather-than-quantity-focused approach, Chile has created longer, more extensive IT education programs geared to high-value KPO, ITO, and shared services. The Chilean Economic Development Agency (CORFO) created InvestChile to provide investment incentives in more high-tech fields. Free trade agreements with the US, Canada, Australia, and China, as well as agreements to avoid double taxation on exports, are also attractive. Although approximately a ten-hour flight from the US, Chile shares time zones with the US. ChileiT is also actively working to promote its members to the international market.

Other Nations on the Rise

Other Latin American countries growing their outsourcing offerings include Costa Rica, Panama, Uruguay, El Salvador, Colombia, and Nicaragua. Most offer a few tax incentives and relatively good language skills. Key requirements will be to improve telecommunications infrastructure, grow English speaking populations, and develop IT skills. At present, most activity is in call centers, with a focus on specialization as a differentiating factor. Costa Rica, for example, touts its expertise in financial services.

Latin American countries are working hard to gain market share and raise their profiles as outsourcing destinations. Years of developing workforces, improving trade incentives, and building political stability are paying off. Concerns over scale are being addressed through pooling across multiple locations. Providers who are pursuing this strategy include Accenture, Capgemini, IBM, TCS, HCL, Cognizant, and Wipro.

Specialization can help Latin countries gain further advantage aside from being a nearshore destination. Although this strategy includes some risk, as outsourcing trends can change, many large destinations got their start using this approach. So far, Latin America has taken great steps in developing better skilled workforces and better business environments to support their Nearshore advantages of shared time zones, cultural affinity with the US, and more accent-neutral English skills. With proper identification of processes to outsource and the appropriate matchup of location and company, US companies can benefit greatly from Nearshoring to Latin America.

Bill Huber is Partner with ISG, a leading technology insights, market intelligence, and advisory services company. Kristen Elvinger is a research associate.

By Rosanne D’Ausilio PhD

There is what we call a moment of truth when a customer makes a decision about you, your company, maybe even all companies in your industry, based on their interaction with anyone from the front lines up to and including your CEO. In those first three sentences, a customer determines whether their interaction will be a good experience, a bad experience, or a waste of their time.

When talking about customer service, customer satisfaction, and customer retention, you often hear that the best way to determine how you’re doing is to ask your customer. And that’s absolutely true. However, if you really want to know how your company is doing, ask your internal customer.

Not many companies do this. Their focus seems to be on the external customer only. But knowing what’s going on with internal customers is key to improving the satisfaction of external ones.

Who is your internal customer? Your employees, your peers, your direct reports, any and every one who has an impact on the customer experience. And how do you assess them? What do we look for when we take the pulse of a company?

• What are the strengths of your people?

• What are their weaknesses?

• What are the commonalities among applications?

• What are the changes currently going on in your organization?

• Hardware
• Software
• Teams
• Rules/Regulations

• What is today’s stress level?

• What doesn’t get communicated powerfully?

• What feels like you’re working with one hand tied behind your back?

• What are the mixed messages that may be rampant at your company?

• Why are your customers calling – do they have a question, a request, a complaint or a problem?

• What is a Typical Call?

• What is a Call from Hell?

• What’s the biggest gripe on the side of the customer?

• What’s the biggest gripe on the side of the employee?

• What gets accelerated and why?

• What empowerment exists, if any?

• What works really well?

• In a perfect world what would you do differently?

When you can answer these questions, you’re really getting to know your company and its people.

How do you accomplish this? We do it by:

1) Interviewing people

2) Monitoring calls

3) Studying the flow

4) Navigation of screens

5) After-call process

However, we don’t want to talk only to the best people or the highest level, but to all of them, whenever possible, and at all productivity levels.

Armed with this information, you can then identify the gaps and with that knowledge in hand, you are best able to present options. These options can fall into one of three categories:

(1) People

(2) Process

(3) Technology

If it is determined that it’s a people issue (which often it is), design customized training sessions to address the gaps and kick it up a notch in the area of customer service. We suggest these classes be delivered over time so that retention is improved and delivery is in real time addressing whatever current challenges exist.

If it is a technology issue, usually it’s caused by silos, the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Many companies because of heavy investment in technology keep trying to make it work. Reminds me of the definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

If the results show a process issue, ‘be a customer’ and go through the process to see where the gaps are. Stand at the end, what is the result you want and how did you get there? What got in the way? What would make it smoother? Again, what are the gaps and how do you either eliminate them, fill them, or replace what isn’t working?

Rosanne D’Auslio, Ph.D., President of Human Technologies Global, Inc., and known as “the practical champion of the human,” is an industrial psychologist, consultant, master trainer, bestselling author, executive coach, and customer service expert. She also writes the complimentary tips newsletter How To Kick Your Customer Service Up A Notch!

Speed is of the essence, DeMent says.

By Patrick Haller

Success of a shared-services operation depends upon more than just a good plan and solid execution – like any good relationship, it requires constant monitoring and regular maintenance. Without a serious, ongoing commitment by the CEO, CFO, CIO, and managers throughout the company, shared services will implode. The entire corporate way of thinking has to change.

With a shared-services approach, support functions such as finance, HR, IT, and supply chain are run as if they were outsourced even though they are still internal to the company. “You change the mindset from being aligned to corporate offices to being aligned to business units,” says Brad DeMent, partner at management consulting firm ScottMadden.

One of the first fundamental decisions to deal with when developing a shared-services organization is whether the center will serve a single function or multiple functions. The former has been more common in the US, where a company might have a financial services center in Tennessee and its HR services in Missouri. Whereas the trend in Latin America is to open combined centers so that all of the shared services are operated from one location and under one manager, who most likely will report directly to the president of company.

That is the case with Alpina in Bogota, Colombia, which has about 300 employees working in the same location, as opposed to a company like Pfizer, which has centers throughout the US. DeMent recommends the same-location approach. “By combining all of these functions, you can instill one culture, under one leader. You can even build a shared services center within a shared services center,” he says.

Not only is it easier to coordinate various areas in a multifunctional center, there are also economic benefits and the ability to cross-train employees, enabling them to become a resource across the organization as opposed to being rooted in one area.

There Will Be Resistance

When considering opening a shared services center, those involved should be prepared to confront the “big change barriers.” Getting over the hurdle of the corporate headquarters not wanting to relinquish control is one of the greatest challenges. DeMent points out that friction can be especially heated when it is time to release people from existing business units, and hire new people at a remote location. Having strong executive support for such a momentous organizational change is integral or else the shared-services operation can become fragmented.

“Speed is your friend; there are a lot of things that can happen, such as turnover and a change in executive leadership,” says DeMent. “We were working with a pharmaceutical company in Bogota, they got through initial phases, then the company sold off a large business unit. You want to knock these things out as fast as you can – in less than a year.”

Rather than trying to build a shared operation all at the same time, it is more efficient to phase it in. Start with the functions or departments that are more isolated, such as finance, which is very transactional and doesn’t touch everyone in the company. Save things that affect everyone, like HR, until later. For example, during a two-year timeline, Alpina went live with finance after seven months, HR four months after that, and IT one month later. This approach allowed the organization to adjust to the idea of a shared-services operation and react to any problems as they arose.

Take a Tiered Approach

DeMent recommends using tiers to create the most beneficial shared arrangements:

Tier 0 – Provide as many self-service, automated, on-line procedures as possible so that people can get as much done by themselves without interfacing with a human.

Tier 1 – Establish transactional procedures, move fast and automate.

Tier 2 – Provide excellent customer support; the shared services center should treat the business unit as a client (this is part of what distinguishes it from corporate operations).

Tier 3 – Establish centers of excellence made up of very small groups of people who know specific areas, to establish uniform policies and procedures.

From Internal to Outsourcing

Shared services are growing to include legal operations, engineering, marketing, corporate communications, and plant maintenance. Some companies, when they feel they are competitive as an outsourcer and when the corporate office gives the green light, have been offering their services to others. Doing this creates another profit stream, but it can also create a situation where the services center becomes too focused on making money and loses sight of its primary client – the parent company.

DeMent suggests that companies set up a mirror organization that can market and provide outsourcing while the core operation still concentrates on the business units it was created to assist. Procter & Gamble had such an arrangement with its hemispheric employee services center in Costa Rica. That facility caught the attention of IBM, which took it over and started offering those services to P&G and other clients.

Organizations tend to make the mistake of thinking that once their shared-services operation is up and running that it will take care of itself. There is always the possibility of self-sabotage if the company slips back into a duplication of efforts, or the type of corporate oversight that was in use before the center was established. One productive way to help prevent this from happening is to create a unit dedicated to continuous improvement. This would involve a staff member who is designated as shared-services quality champion; he or she attends conferences, learns about new practices, keeps up with and tests new technology, and stays abreast of any developments in the shared-services space.

Complacency is the enemy of an effective shared-services operation. “Stagnation will kill you,” DeMent warns.

By Patrick Haller

Positioned in Colombia’s lush Coffee Triangle region, the city of Pereira has been called “Paradise.” However, it has probably not seemed that way to some of the local population. In 2009 the city was hit by the highest unemployment in the nation at 24%, despite being home to a Suzuki motorbike plant, Busscor (the main manufacturer of vehicles for Colombian mass transit systems), textile plants and, of course, coffee production. As a possible remedy to that situation, the government of Pereira – like that of its smaller sister-city Manizales – has created a stream of incentives to attract IT companies and call centers.

Starting with Spanish call center Telmark, which established operations there in 2009, the BPO sector has begun to take root, employing 2,000 people from the burgeoning metro area of an estimated one million residents, according to Santiago Angel Jaramillo, Director of Invest in Pereira (IIP). With an average age falling between 25 and 35 years old, a respected higher education system that currently serves 37,000 students, low operational costs, solid infrastructure, and an eager workforce, Pereira would appear to be paradise for call centers.

In addition to the government offering attractive financial incentives such as property tax deductions, waiving of the Industry and Commerce tax for a ten-year period (if certain criteria are met), and employee training credits, Jaramillo points out, the World Bank ranked Pereira as one of the easiest Colombian cities to do business in.

Those are all indicators of a potential outsourcing paradise, but if the location lures more providers, fully bilingual English-Spanish workers are in danger of becoming scarce. Local IT professionals are already in short supply.

English Is a Must

As more companies such as American Assist (formed in Mexico 20 years ago to provide emergency assistance to travelers) show an interest in Pereira, bilingual capability has become an urgent issue. “We have to set up the right strategy to provide the BPO sector with bilingual talent,” Jaramillo says. Part of this strategy is working hand-in-hand with the companies in order to understand their specific needs. IIP is partnering with public schools in order to improve English education at the primary level, and universities to develop specialized courses. “Most investors for call centers need to receive special training depending on the operation (outbound, in-bound, etc.),” Jaramillo says. “SENA normally works on this and we tailor-make the program to meet the investor’s needs.”

The majority of universities in Pereira, including the University Tecnologia de Pereira, considered one of the best in Colombia, already require students to be fluent in English in order to graduate, Jaramillo says. IIP is also studying policies established by other investment agencies like Invest in Bogota, which implemented the Talk to the World program, and ProBarranquilla, which links public schools with the BPOs that work in English to provide intense language training. Jaramillo says that IIP has recently confirmed that a new ITO and a call center have committed to establishing centers in Pereira.

The outsourcing services in Pereira also include IT development and website design. One example: With a staff of 250 (and a target to scale up to 400), UK-based Yell Adworks builds 2,000 websites daily, in addition to ads for yellow pages.

Pereira is open to foreign workers, and has an international population that includes people from North America, Japan, Spain, Venezuela, Mexico, and the UK. Around 1988, the city saw an emigration of its citizens due to the increased violence in the region and the majority of Pereirans went to the Northeast US and Spain. Now, as the economic tides turn, Pereira – and Colombia in general – is seeing a return of those people or their children who have been educated abroad.

Group Effort

American Assist, which has offices in 18 countries, including across Latin America, changed its operation model two years ago when it closed its individual country headquarters and consolidated. An Argentine firm that specializes in call center functions did a study of several countries and advised American Assist to create its new center in Colombia. “Once the decision was taken, we went through various cities in Colombia looking at the possibilities,” says Mauricio Vega, President of American Assist – Colombia, “and it coincided that the best location would be Pereira.”

An accord was signed by the Governor of Risaralda, the Mayor of Pereira, Invest in Pereira, the Chamber of Commerce, SENA, the Technical University of Pereira, ANDI and American Assist’s corporate managers. “Each of these parties brought something to the table,” Vega says. Among the incentives were tax exemptions and specialized training provided by the university and SENA. “An entire city made itself available for the international investment to take place,” says Vega. “One of the Argentine advisors said, ‘This is the promised land.’”

Today the company employs over 400 people in a telemarketing call center where they assist callers from the 18 countries in which American Assist has locations. The center operates out of a 3,500-square-meter building that was adapted to its specifications. Vega said there are plans to fill all 700 workstations and add 300 more by the end of 2012, and to possibly open a second location in Pereira in about four years. The costs are very different than those found in Bogota, and the building is located right next to a Megabus (mass transport) station, making it very convenient for employees.

Sourcing Employees

For now, qualified contact-center workers are available. “It was much easier than we thought to find qualified people,” Vega says. “We needed 20 people who were completely bilingual to attend to US callers and we found them very easily.” Being in a second-tier market also helps from a cost standpoint. “Given the high unemployment, compared to Bogota or Lima, we found qualified people at lower cost.” The talent pool and related costs enabled American Assist to start operations with 100 people and to scale-up from there.

Vega says he has found that the universities and the national training school, SENA, are good recruitment sources, in addition to traditional methods. Most favorably, SENA provides people who have already been trained in call center work. According to Vega, in Pereira the attrition is no higher than 5% whereas in other Colombian cities it is over 20%.

Connectivity and Competition

Connectivity is especially important for a company like American Assist that provides emergency services. Fortunately, Pereira has an extensive fiber-optic network and has redundancy set up in Lima.

“Finding expert technological personnel has been difficult,” says Vega, “but we found professionals from other cities who are happy to move to Pereira. There are no other problems that you wouldn’t find in other cities.”

That said, if more English-speaking call centers enter the market here, the competition for qualified candidates will heat up, putting the pressure on the primary schools and universities to increase their language curricula. The area would be smart to also boost its number of IT professionals, which are already in short supply. If there are not enough people, attrition rates will likely rise, and the ability to scale will be hindered further. Pereira needs to manage the growth of the call center sector carefully in order to avoid falling into a hole that would be difficult to climb out of.

By Rosanne D’Ausilio, Ph.D.

The interaction anyone has at any level with your employees, including you, gives a customer an opportunity to make a judgment about you, your company, and all companies like yours. I’m not just talking about call centers here. All technical support or help desk personnel are included as well. As a matter of fact, anyone who is in the customer service business – period.

The preamble to the United States Constitution begins, ‘We, the people…” I feel strongly that we, the people, are what make the difference in life, both personally and professionally. But how does that relate to customer service?

With continued focus on customer satisfaction, customer retention, and lifetime value of the customer, it is no surprise that contact center operations continue to increase in importance as the primary hub of a customer’s experience. For the customer, the person on the other end of the phone is the company. The contact center is still the most common way that customers get in touch with businesses. In fact, Gartner reports 92% of all contact is through the center. And it’s been reported that 70% to 90% of what happens with customers is driven by human nature, having nothing to do with technology. State-of-the-art technology is a necessity today, but it is meant to enable human endeavors, not to disable them.

I often talk about taking customer service and “kicking it up a notch.” In the food industry, the word “lagniappe” is often used. Its definition is “a small present given to a customer with a purchase.” For example, when you go to the bakery and buy a dozen donuts or bagels, you oftentimes get a free one or a baker’s dozen. That’s what customer service should be about: giving the customer more than they expected! Let’s bring lagniappe into the contact center industry.

Customer service is those activities provided by a company’s employees that enhance the ability of a customer to realize the full potential value of a product or service before and after the sale is made, thereby leading to satisfaction and repurchase.

The First W: Why? 

The state of customer service today is not good, be it over the phone or self-service. Because 92% of people feel their call experience is important in shaping the image of a company, this reinforces the importance of centers in branding the image of their companies.

According to a Mobius Management Systems Survey, here’s what happened because of poor customer service:

• 60% cancelled accounts with banks

• 36% changed insurance providers

• 40% changed telephone companies

• 35% changed credit card providers

• 37% changed Internet service providers

Are you one of these statistics? I certainly am.

In a study done by Purdue University and BenchmarkPortal.com, in answer to (1) how did agents satisfy your needs and handle the call?, and (2) based on any negative experience, would you stop using this company in the future?, the findings reveal a strong correlation between the participant’s age and the tendency to stop using the company after a bad experience.

What does this mean? Younger participants were less tolerant and more likely to move to the competition. People over 65 were found to be more demanding than those in middle age.

What can you do? Give younger callers a “wow” experience – maintain their loyalty. People over 36 probably have more of an “emotional bank account” with the company they are dealing with – maybe had some good experience and therefore are more willing to forgive.

70% of Americans are willing to spend an average of 13% more with companies they believe provide excellent customer service – up from 9% last year. But most feel businesses aren’t measuring up. In countries around the world, a majority of consumers are willing to spend more with companies they believe provide excellent service, with the average amount they are willing to spend ranging from 7% to 22% more.

Average Percentage More Than Consumers Are Willing to Spend

Source: 2011 American Express Global Customer Service Barometer Survey

In a recent study (CRM Magazine/PeopleSoft Webinar on How Usability Helps to Drive a Profitable Contact Center), the number of applications required for agents to access customer inquiries were:

3.7% just 1

81.5% 2 – 5

7.4% 5 – 10

7.4% more than 10

As you can see, the majority of applications are two to five. The goal, of course, is to link every point of contact to one central location for a customer-centric, synchronized approach satisfying customer experiences with every interaction.

Strategies for success for world class service should include:

• Respond promptly

• Handle requests through the customers’ choice of medium

• Be brief and clear

• Reduce back and forth communications (especially in writing, i.e., e-mail; kick it up to a phone call if it goes beyond two messages)

• Personalize the service

• Delight the customer

What does it mean to delight the customer? It means inform and educate them, offer options, and diffuse any anger, if necessary. It also means establishing your expertise and professionalism, and taking ownership of the call.

Remember we’re still on the first W – the Why. Today’s pressures on agents are different than in the past. They are asked to handle more customers, more volume, more complex and/or complicated calls. After all, if we could handle our issues with self-service, we probably would not call. But if we tried self-service and it didn’t work, now we’re upset and it’s an escalated call from the get-go.

Agents are expected to provide more information, do it faster, and be available and accessible. But they are also expected to lower costs, generate revenue, incorporate new technologies, ensure closure and commitment, and deliver great service – yesterday, of course.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has concluded that the causes of death for people under 65 are:

21% – environment – war, accidents, crimes

9% – health care system – doctors, hospitals, medications

17% – human biology – not because of lifestyle

53% – because of the way people choose to live their lives!!!

The good news here is that for more than half of us, it’s about choice. There’s something we can do about it.

Who?

Who needs to be involved in the effort to improve customer service? Front-line agents/representatives, supervisors, team leads, managers, assistant managers, internal customers, and other departments – anyone who is a touch point so that he or she can learn to speak the same language, and more importantly, not be in an adversarial position, but rather feels that together they are serving the external customer or end user.

Where?

Certainly it is most cost effective to have training on site. However, distractions are rampant and the participant remains available to other personnel and to solve problems.

Offsite is more costly. However, there are no distractions, and the participants are unavailable to other departments, their managers, or any issues. I believe there is psychic value in taking people away from their workstations and off-site to acknowledge the tough jobs they have.

What?

The following modules provide a robust, powerful, and succinct training curriculum:

I also suggest university certification to up the ante. The more professionally you treat your employees, the more professionally they will treat your customers.

When?

For new hires, training should occur monthly, continually, consistently, whenever change occurs, when stressors increase, and as needed. Each employee should get a minimum of 24 hours per year of ongoing training, spread out over time for the most absorption. We divide our trainings into two four-hour sessions per day and deliver six days per employee. Therefore, 30 people can participate in the training per day. If there has been no ongoing training, we do four days once a month for four months and then a session three months later, and then another three months later. In this manner, training is customized, in real time, and can address whatever challenges are presented when they occur.

Remember, as it reminds us in the preamble of` the US Constitution, “We, the people,” make the difference.

Rosanne D’Auslio, Ph.D., is President of Human Technologies Global, Inc. Known as “the practical champion of the human,” she is an industrial psychologist, consultant, master trainer, bestselling author, executive coach, and customer service expert.

By Clay Browne

Once a sleepy backwater of Central America, and known more for its beautiful beaches than the strength of its economy, English-speaking Belize is beginning to spring to life as a 21st century outsourcing destination.

Belize’s economy has long been dependent on agriculture, but tourism has grown significantly over the last couple of decades to become the largest foreign exchange earner in the country. The BPO industry in Belize is still quite young.  Yet there are clear signs that private industry and public agencies are seriously examining how to create the right ecosystem to foster long term growth.

The call center industry is, not surprisingly, where the action is for Belize. The country employs an estimated 1,500 agents, mostly around Belize City and Belmopan (about 90 minutes from Belize City). Maturity of operations spans from the basic, commodity-driven service provider like Ready Call (among its clients is the notoriously hard driving TracFone) to the more feature rich and high-touch operator like Transparent (described below).

One of the biggest hurdles the country faces is its tumultuous ICT environment where the local telecom player – Belize Telemedia – has been reclaimed by the government after a bruising battle with the former chief investor, and behind the scenes financier,  Lord Micheal Ashcroft . (Much has been written about Ashcroft’s complicated relationship and financial influence in Belize, including this piece in The Guardian.) Critics argue that Belize Telemedia (BTL) has behaved like a predatory monopoly player, shutting out competitors and offering little in the way of ICT innovation.

Upon arriving in office two years ago, Prime Minister Dean Barrow decided enough was enough and took action against BTL, which has resulted in the carrier being nationalized. Despite this change, true telecom service liberalization has yet to occur. Recently an agreement was reached to enable ‘rationalized Bandwidth pricing ‘ to be provided to BPO operators in Belize – substantially reducing service fees.

Belize is one of the most sparsely populated countries in Latin America, with a population of around 350,000. Around one-fifth of the population, upwards of 60,000 people, live in the capital Belize City.

Belize has a reasonably good public school system, with functional literacy estimated to be around 75 percent for the country and above 80 percent in the urban areas. Belize has never had much of an industrial base, so the work force has traditionally been focused on service industries. Belize City has developed an above-average infrastructure over the last decade or two, including reliable Internet and cell phone service throughout the area.

The IT outsourcing industry is just in its infancy in Belize, but BPO companies report that there is already a good supply of entry-level software developers available.

“We are pleased that several local investors have expressed interest in developing Data Parks…our Government is willing to offer attractive incentives to those willing to invest in these facilities” – Prime Minister Dean Barrow

Call Centered

Call centers are by far the largest sector of Belize’s BPO industry, with five operations of varying sizes underway and several more in the exploratory or planning stages. Ready Call opened the first call center in Belize in 2005, and there will be at least ten call centers operations in Belize by the end of 2012. The large pool of native English speaking potential employees is obviously a big plus, and the relative stability and increasingly business-friendly climate of Belize are also attracting attention.

The Belize Trade and Investment Development Service (Beltraide) is a governmental organization founded in 2000 to foster business development and encourage investment in Belize. Malcolm Sobers, a BPO/ITES & Financial Services Industry Specialist for Beltraide, is an eloquent spokesman for the organization who points out how a wide range of recent changes in Belize have made it much easier for call center operations to do business in the country.

“We have undergone a restructuring of Beltraide and have developed a specific division that is focusing on ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services). The BPO industry, along with other services, falls under that umbrella,” Prime Minister Barrow told Nearshore Americas’ Kirk Laughlin, during a recent visit to Belize.

Mr. Barrow went on to say that one of his biggest concerns is the lack of available facilities. “We have been working with many building owners that have empty space, but only some are adequate for housing large numbers of workers,” he said. “We are pleased that several local investors have expressed interest in developing Data Parks…our Government is willing to offer attractive incentives to those willing to invest in these facilities. ”

Also on the plus side, the country has recently liberalized its labor laws. Beltraide, has also launched a BPO Certification Program with support from the Ministry of Education. This program teaches Belizeans the basic technical and customer service skills they need to work in call centers. The initial 80-hour pilot training program was very well received and graduated 160 ready to work employees in just a couple of months, and the full-scale program is expected to produce a minimum of 1500 trainees in 2012. Beltraide works directly with the individual call center companies to provide them with a trained labor pool for their current and future needs.

Sobers also emphasized the financial and tax benefits to doing business in Belize. “Belize does not tax corporate profits on the national or local level, and our laws allow 100 percent repatriation of profits as well as allowing businesses to establish local bank accounts in US dollars.”

Transparent BPO

Scott Newman, CEO of Transparent BPO, is unabashedly enthusiastic about Belize as a place to do business. Transparent BPO is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, but has all of its call center operations in Belize. Transparent BPO began with a small 30-seat call center in Belize City in 2009, moved up to a 110-seat operation in 2010 and is now doubling capacity again, with construction of a 220-seat call center underway.

Newman acknowledged that there were some significant issues to be ironed out when they first set up their operation, including a generally negative attitude about the call center industry.

“But the business climate for call centers has improved dramatically since we began,” he continues, “and Belize is a great place to do business today.” Newman credits the establishment of Beltraide as the watershed moment when both the bureaucratic barriers and the negative attitude toward the BPO industry started to break down.

Source: Computer World UK

Call centre offshoring comes under bipartisan attack in Congress – Law would penalise companies that move call centres overseas

Four US lawmakers (three Democrats and one Republican) have teamed up to attack call centre outsourcing by introducing a bill that would penalise any company that moves a call centre overseas.

The bill would make any company that moves a call centre offshore ineligible for any federal grants or loans. It would require the US Labour Department to maintain a list of employers who relocate a call centre overseas and force companies to provide at least 120 days’ notice before doing so.

It would also require a call centre worker to disclose his or hers location at the beginning of the call, if the caller request it.

The US Call Centre and Consumer Protection Act (HR 3596), was introduced by US Representative Timothy Bishop and announced at news conference that included representatives of the Communication Workers of America. The measure’s co-sponsors include David McKinley, Gene Green, and Michael Michaud.

“Outsourcing, in my view, is one of the scourges of our economy, and one of the reasons we are struggling so to knock down the unemployment rate,” said Bishop. He said there are 4.7 million call center employees today, while in 2006 there were 5.3 million.

Broadband Helps Local Call Centres

In August, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said that broadband deployments are boosting call centre industry employment. He claimed that an average of 4,000 call centre jobs are being created each month.

Alpine Access, a Denver-based call centre provider with a work-from-home business model, has 5,000 agents working in 41 states and said it has added 1,000 since August. It also has agents in Canada, who serve that market.

Christopher Carrington, president and CEO of Alpine, said that 70 percent of his company’s growth over the past three years is the result of companies moving call center work back to the US. “There is definitely a trend of jobs returning [from] offshore back to onshore,” said Carrington. “In reality, without legislation the momentum of the market is already leaning that way.”

Carrington said the move of call center jobs back to the US is largely being driven by consumers.

“The American consumer has become increasingly frustrated with their confidential information being handled outside the United States, and with the difficulty of some phone calls that are handled internationally,” said Carrington, who believes consumers are taking their business to companies that are able to serve them domestically. “You can legislate things, but at end of the day the consumer is the real decision maker as to how companies I think will create their own policies.”

Could Cloud Centres in the Cloud Help?

Carrington expects his company to be near £70.4 million ($110 million) in revenue this year and anticipates 50 percent growth next year.

Bills to discourage call centre outsourcing have been tried before with little success. For instance, last year US Senator Chuck Schumer, pitched the idea of charging a 25-cent excise tax on any customer call that originates domestically but is transferred to an agent in a foreign location.

Frederik Cote, the president of Kunnect, a company that uses Amazon Web services to provide a cloud-based hosted call centre, supports Bishop’s legislation. Cote said that about 90 percent of his clients are in the US.

“A lot of people wrote off the call centre industry many years ago,” said Cote, adding, “I’m happy to see the call centre business is a thriving business, it is still truly an American business.

“I’m happy to see that we’re contemplating laws to protect that,” said Cote.

Neo and The Matrix are emblematic of the next-gen environment of KPO

BPO’s sexy cousin shows little momentum in the region

By Luke Bujarski

A recent NASSCOM study on Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) bares a sobering reminder of Asia’s continued dominance in the global services arena. While small compared to the opportunities still available through the back office, BPO’s sexier and more sophisticated cousin is quickly gaining ground both in terms of market size, and as a competitive differentiator between full-service outsourcing providers. Now with 70 percent of the KPO business marching over to India and another 20 over to the Philippines (and don’t forget about Central/Eastern Europe), Latin America’s homegrown BPO firms could have a tough time catching up to the Indians on offerings such as data analytics and financial research, not to mention Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO), which is pretty much a “no-go” here given the language barriers and incompatible legal systems.

So, perhaps the real question is how this growing gap in services coverage will shape Latin America’s longer-term competitiveness as a global services player.

The KPO Revolution is Here to Stay

The rise of KPO as the next phase in the evolution of outsourcing conjures up scenes from the 1999 sci-fi classic, The Matrix: In the future, business will be conducted irrespective of geography, across vast global information networks through concentrated nodes of highly-skilled professionals.

In markets like Mexico and Brazil, firms are still working to prove to the world that the Nearshore is a viable platform for non-core operations, not to mention higher-end professional services

Yet, here we are twelve years later and according to Ed Thomas, Senior Analyst at market research company Ovum, this dream is starting to really coming true. In places like India, the Philippines, and even Sri Lanka, call centers and IT help desks are giving rise to teams of experts that can crunch data and frame big legal cases, just about as well as the guy next door – and for a lot cheaper, of course.

KPO is no longer the stuff of dreams, NASSCOM confirms. In their latest forecast, the global market has already more than doubled since 2006 from $1.2 billion to $2.9 billion. In India alone, rising client adoption has generated employment for 70,000 people in over 100 firms. Going forward, NASSCOM anticipates exponential growth through 2015 as global demand is expected to soar to $7.9 billion.

NASSCOM also notes that KPO is being utilized by the same verticals that gave birth to the offshore outsourcing industry. Namely, banking, financial services, insurance, health care and telecoms represent the lion’s share of today’s demand for KPO services. Likewise, much of this demand is being met by India’s veteran BPO providers – i.e. Infosys, Genpact, 24/7 Customer and TCS.

Below is a breakdown of the KPO market by service line, as percentage of total revenue for the India market in 2010:

Given the rapid rate of adoption and shifting landscape toward KPO, Latin America needs to start looking higher up along the value chain sooner, rather than later.

Labor Demand Outstrips Supply in Latin America, Once Again

For niche KPO providers like EvalueServe, Irevna and Amba Research, the region has proved to be a somewhat harsh environment to grow in. In a recent discussion with Mohit Srivastava, Country Manager for EvalueServe Chile, said that while “we have successfully grown our office to 250 employees since opening in 2006, many of our competitors here [LatAm] have struggled to build up a staff of more than 100 people.” The central problem is that labor demand across all verticals is growing faster than supply. “We need high-speed people and target candidates for higher-level positions with Master’s degrees and PhDs in economics, statistics, engineers, math sciences, and other technical fields.” Despite a higher degree of job satisfaction in KPO as opposed to BPO, strong economic growth has created many other avenues for professional growth.

Another central challenge in Latin America is that the outsourcing industry is still relatively new there. “With KPO, it takes time to build the kinds of relationships and trust needed to support higher value-add functions,” explained Thomas. In other words, reputation and a solid customer track record become more important as the service provider moves up the value chain of outsourcing services. But in markets like Mexico and Brazil, firms are still working to prove to the world that the Nearshore is a viable platform for non-core operations, not to mention higher-end professional services.

Srivastava also noted that opportunities for expansion in new markets are limited because there are few, if any opportunities for M&A. This makes it difficult to enter into new markets since starting a KPO business from scratch requires a much heavier investment in time, personnel and management, than would a similar-sized BPO operation.

Indian Domination, or Bottom-Up expansion?

Assuming that NASSCOM’s 2015 prediction comes true, the big Indian BPO firms swooping down on Latin America could gain the upper hand, as they leverage their value-adding expertise in KPO to secure contracts with the multinationals. This will put serious pressure on the homegrown players like Neoris, Softtek, and Hildebrando to enhance their “knowledge” service offering. In a scenario where the big firms fight it out for turnkey contracts, the impact on local markets could be significant or marginal. This will completely depend on whether projects are serviced out of their development centers in LatAm, or are channeled back to India or other locales out east.

An alternative, more bottom-up scenario could see a gradual rise in boutique KPO providers fulfilling highly specialized needs in financial research, engineering, and clinical trial management for the pharmaceuticals industry. Over time, these niche firms could very well spring up in some unlikely places. For example, Nicaragua’s underdeveloped economy could prove to be a rich source of technically and linguistically proven professionals. Managua has a strong contact center industry and it’s not uncommon to see engineers and lawyers working as customer service agents there. Likewise, places like Cali, Colombia and Sao Jose dos Santos in Brazil (headquarters for Embrear) with their strong universities and experience in the life sciences and aerospace could attract some lucrative foreign contracts.

Getting By On Back-Office Won’t Be Enough

The doomsday scenario would exclude many of Latin America’s markets out of the KPO business all together. This could tarnish the region’s reputation as a full-service delivery platform, as well as stunt its growth and participation in a knowledge-driven, global economy. Furthermore, getting by on back-office and contact center contracts from the US is likely unsustainable in the long-run. Primarily because the region’s cost competitiveness will not last forever.

Other emerging markets – perhaps in Africa – will inevitably come on the scene and/or “reshoring” will eventually bring this business back to developed countries. From an economics perspective, Latin America needs to think and plan hard about how they will move up the global services value chain.

By Jon Felperin

One of the most pervasive and challenging issues across the Nearshore region is establishing English language training programs that actually do work – and actually produce well-trained professionals.  One country that has been working on this in a sincere way for over ten years in El Salvador – in large part because of the commitments several major contact center players have made. The results of focused collaboration between private industry, federal government and USAID is beginning to show good results.

With recent program successes under Corporate Social Responsibility programs like SUPERATE, and a renewed USAID interest in funding job training in English and technology to increase the labor pool, El Salvador has firmly planted the seeds for future prosperity. In actuality, the first call center initiatives were started back around the year 2000, initially with TACA airlines, and later expanded under the direction of PROESA, El Salvador’s foreign investment agency (then headed by the country’s Vice-President).

To meet the labor needs of such companies as Dell, Sykes, Teleperformance and Transactel, the Saca government helped found a National English Center, currently under the direction of ITCA/FEPADE.

Comes Down to Quality

Quality in education is a perennial theme in the region and much has been written on the need to modernize curricula and improve quality, as reported last year. In the meantime, however, there continues to be a growing need for well-trained personnel due to expansion efforts; and many believe that even greater coordination can help address this on-going shortfall.

One such effort is USAID’s Program of Access to Employment, which is part of an alliance with an initial group of three call centers to “prepare people with English fluency good enough for employment in call centers,” explains Beto Brunn of CARANA/USAID. “These “advanced” speakers receive training for seven to eight weeks, and most of them are immediately hired.”

During the ramp up, USAID developed a tailor-made curriculum, trained teachers in its application, and certified four training organizations as authorized training providers. Call centers nominate persons for training, committing themselves to pay half the cost of the training, with the other half paid by the USAID Program. “The first group started training in February and through early November 2011, 71 persons identified by the Transactel and Teleperformance call centers had completed training at Technological Institute of Central America (ITCA); 51 of these have already been hired or promoted (including 20 women, 41 youths). Moreover, 33 persons are in training now. The target is to generate employment for at least 2,000 persons over three years,” said Brunn.

“Our experience with CARANA has been fantastic. They have been very engaged in understanding the needs of our organization. This has allowed us to work together in making changes were needed in order to provide a better candidate for employment,” said Transactel country director Guillermo Valiente. “The take rate from the program has been close to 70%, making CARANA the most successful program in developing English skills for the call center industry. We are highly committed in making this a sustainable source of new hires for our business.”

Evidence of Success

As reported on Nearshore Americas  in May 2010, “the initiative seeks to improve the link between employers and training providers to improve program quality.” A formal alliance has been created between with the Professional Training Institute (INSAFORP) and the Investment Promotion Agency of El Salvador (PROESA). 

INSAFORP`s programs are already funded by private sector contributions of one percent of payroll expenses, so the call centers, among the companies with largest payrolls in El Salvador, are contributing significantly to INSAFORP. Recently, the call centers have agreed to pay 15 percent of the cost of the expanded INSAFORP-sponsored training. This could mean that the USAID pilot will become a permanent government work force training program.

At the start of this effort last year, the goal, according to Economy Minister Hector Dada, was “to improve the functioning of the Salvadoran labor market.” The minister said they were working to modernize the economy and “the training of the workforce is critical.” The current program has an estimated total funding of $7.5 million for a period of four years.

As late as 2008, when Dell Computers sold its contact center to Stream Global, fewer than 15% of the National English Center graduates were actually employable in the contract center industry. Today, however, that percentage has climbed to over 70% and rising.

Jon Felperin, MA TEFL ( jfelperin@negociosunidos.net ) has over 27 years experience as an educator, teacher trainer and educational consultant.