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[January 26, 2005]

Effective and Efficient Management for Off-shore Call Centers

BY KENT CHARUGUNDLA


Near shore (Canada and Mexico) and offshore (India and the Philippines) location is gaining traction with US outsourcing firms, as this mega trend is irreversible. A recent report (November 2003) by Datamonitor reveals that 1 out of every 24-call center agents serving US customers is outsourced to a near or offshore service bureau. The report predicts that by 2008, 50% more agent positions will be outsourced to a foreign market. According to the report, this is being triggered by the fact that the traditional big spenders on customer relationship outsourcing services such as financial services, communications and technology are on the brink of being expended. As a result, the incessant pressures to cut costs and reduce capital outlay have triggered the offshore and near shore exodus in the US Customer Relationship Management (CRM) outsourcing industry.

Even with the political backlash from offshore outsourcing, companies continue to evaluate and incorporate it as an integral part of their overall business strategy. As more companies execute offshore pilots or jump head first into offshore initiatives, the businesses sponsors accountable for the overall success of the offshore program need to understand the complexities involved and foster Management Control from the start. They cannot afford to repeat the mistakes made by some of their predecessors, who found themselves troubled with organizational readiness, change management, transition management, communication, and relationship management problems are common factors in offshore failure rates.

What Does This Mean?

Companies in their haste to get an offshore initiative underway, fail to stress the importance and the means for establishing Management Control in the early stages of sourcing. A typical scenario includes a short-term approach, which is transaction-oriented. In doing so, they miss an ideal opportunity to lay the groundwork for a partner-based offshore relationship.

When launching an offshore outsourcing strategy for the first time, do not assume that the status quo approach to initiating, sourcing, and executing an outsourcing project will be successful. The business reasons behind traditional outsourcing may be similar when sending work offshore, but the delivery model is fundamentally different, demanding an even higher level of collaboration between the service recipient and provider.

Companies that underestimate the nuances of offshore sourcing and take the laissez-faire approach in creating the early relationship development and management strategy are at a disadvantage from the start. The sooner the intended service recipient and potential offshore service move through a process of aligning common goals and build an environment of collaboration. The sooner they will increase the likelihood of success and understand the relationship potential.

Contact Center Direction

Internet Protocol (IP) revolutionized the way businesses communicate, making e-mail and web transactions as commonplace as phone calls. Now IP is revolutionizing the way contact (call) centers operate, manage, and control. The maturity of IP Telephony standards and quality of service on IP networks has opened up a new realm of possibilities i.e. efficiencies, management, control and savings. More specifically, IP communications have created the corporate global village much closer where distance is irrelevant.

Due to IP revolution, work activities for back office and call center services are now distributed globally. This paradigm shift requires a distributed architecture rather than a centralized solution as jobs are dynamically rotated amongst workers on a need basis. The traditional premises-based set up cost for a contact center may not be as prudent for small to medium size companies, given the high and uncertain financial recovery.

Management Challenges and Pitfalls

Many organizations weigh the option of moving their contact centers to offshore locations to lower their cost of operations. Some companies open up offices in offshore locations directly, while others go through the call center outsourcers. In their efforts to drive down costs, many companies base decisions to move offshore purely on labor costs, ignoring critical factors, such as call routing, monitoring, management, and control. What is now emerging is the increased interest in deploying centers at varied geographical locations in order to serve the diverse functions and deliver the right mix of services.

So, how does a company protect itself from the pitfalls when it outsources one or more of its business functions offshore? Of course, there is no substitute for careful, diligent Management Control, and discussions at the management level before deciding the if, what and where to outsource. The key issues to be taken while contemplating off shoring include, setting up governance, due diligence structures and management processes. If not done properly, it not threatens the success of your company, but potentially exposes it to unexpected costs and liability. While the stakes are high when a company outsources crucial business functions offshore or even outsourcing non-core business functions, such as customer service call centers, can create problems for a company when the outsourcing arrangements turn sour.

Outsourcing has rapidly become an effective management tool to reduce cost, control outcome, and focus on core business practices. However, because success is often dependent on routing, monitoring, tracking and management, it can be replete with pitfalls. A well-planned management control can help minimize pitfalls. A lack of discipline undermines collaboration, project success and business goals. Below are key provisions that any outsourcing agreement should have to help mitigate unavoidable problems as they occur. There are many problems within the offshore vendors themselves, which makes this issue even worse. These challenges can be summarized in four major categories:

1. Executive Management
2. Information Management
3. Call Routing
4. Monitoring and Tracking

1. Executive Management

An executive management mechanism has to be in place, which allows you to keep your finger on the pulse in regards to the offshore team.

Work and perform under US laws

Before entering into an outsourcing arrangement, it is imperative to determine whether or not the outsourcer has a US based company, by which local laws protect your company. Armed with this information, make sure your outsourcing agreement has a well-drafted, bullet-proof intellectual property provision that clearly establishes ownership of an IP in existence at the time the outsourcing agreement is entered and it is clearly establishes ownership of IP that is developed or improved during the course of the outsourcing relationship which restricts the supplier, in the strongest terms, from disclosing any of your proprietary software or other information.

Litigation of disputes with a supplier can prove to be your most costly expense when outsourcing. For example, a large US pharmaceutical company that has a dispute with its offshore supplier based in Prague, Czech Republic, the company decides to bring a lawsuit against the supplier based in Austin, Texas corporate headquarters. The company learns that under Czech law, the contracting parties must litigate all disputes involving Czech companies in The Czech Republic, absent express agreement otherwise. Suddenly, the company is forced to find Czech counsel to handle the lawsuit and budget an expensive overseas litigation. In order to avoid these types of situations, ensure that outsourcing agreements addresses properly. Consider which laws should govern the contract and where the disputes will be adjudicated. Also consider, that all disputes should be arbitrated through a local or international arbitration firm, thereby avoiding courts.

Control your own 800 number

800 toll-free numbers are the most powerful marketing tools and at times it is tied to the Product Branding. Typically, the company gives the outsourcer the paper control of the 800 numbers when services are transferred. When the contract is terminated, the control of transferring the 800 number lies with the outsourcer, which can create unnecessary headaches and delay in transfer.

One reason why outsourcing has become so popular is that it enables a company to respond quickly to changing market needs by switching 800 toll-free numbers to the outsourcer. However, a change in the geopolitical climate or change in the company's focus or profitability could necessitate the need to terminate an outsourcing relationship. Moreover, a well-established supplier could suddenly fold or otherwise become unable to perform, forcing a change in the suppliers at a moment's notice. Therefore, be sure, to develop an adequate exit strategy that takes into account the transition of the 800 services back to your home office or another outsourcer. In addition, during the transition phase to a new supplier, make sure that supplier cooperation leads up to and follows through termination of the outsourcing agreement. A better solution would be to work with a US based outsourcer who does not have the paper control of the 800 numbers.

Immediate Responsiveness

It is vital that outsourcer can implement changes and provide competitive services in a speedy manner. The more the outsourcer about the buyers ability, the better they are able to respond. This attribute is ranked as one of the highest amongst the customers concerns. Organizations have real worries about the ability of outsourcers to provide immediate responsiveness. For organizations looking to move to an offsourcing model, the hosted option should simply be considered as one of a number of potential delivery models rather than as something distinct.

2. Information Management

Data to be written directly to the US based Database

Typically, when the customer calls an outsourced location, the call center agent handles the transaction and the data is stored at the outsourced location. At times storing data on an offshore location can be a headache. Finally, the most widely accepted basis for permitting the writing of information, regardless of jurisdiction, is obtaining. In the worst-case scenario, youre exposed to liability. At times even the most routine cross-border transfers can cause problems for a corporation. Therefore, make sure that the outsourcing agreement requires the supplier to store the data in US. Thereby eliminating data retrieval problems.

Checking real-time traffic reports regardless, of the fact that the vendor is accepting the calls

It is important to have the multi-tenancy platform, so that the customer can access real-time communications traffic reports. The latter allows ones ability to perform Real Time Call Management. In addition, Custom Reports package lets you modify reports, or create your own, to fit your unique requirements. It is important for managers to access vital information through customized, graphical real time reporting on call volumes, individual and team productivity, call results, hold times, abandonment rates and other performance variables for inbound/outbound and blended projects as well as real-time agent statistics.

Customizing CRM application?

A central thesis of a hosted IP call center is that outsourcing should be done by integrating the capabilities of vendors. After all, you are making the vendor a part of the value chain of your company. Create partners out of them, not confrontational suppliers, and you will reap great success. Uniformity of CRM (i.e. top leading CRM application software: Salesforce, Siebel and Microsoft) through out the enterprise rather than using the proprietary software is very important. A lack of uniformity can jeopardize the entire operation.

Companies have expressed concerns about the CRM integration process and feel that an outsourcers agents have influence over their customer relationships. Worries around the loss customer relationship control could inhibit the uptake of a fully outsourced contact center service. The perceived lack of control associated with the hosted contact centers remain prejudice in the minds of companies, especially given the need to respond quickly to new marketplace developments.

Previously trained agents should work on web based customers via web chat

As customers communicate via different media, it is important to give same agent multi-media tasks using Unified Solution Platform. This gives significant satisfaction to customers and reduces training costs considerably. Contact servers with channel blending capabilities make it possible to manage multiple contact channels as a single operation and blend telephone, e-mail, and Web contacts into a virtual queue. Enabling you to ensure a consistent response for all contact channels and to base routing on the overall mix of incoming contacts. This facilitates you to get maximum use of an agent skill, keeping your agents consistently more productive, and decrease turnover by training elite agents to handle multiple contact channels.

Do you have a US based company host your data?

The outsourcers will need a party in US to host data, so that it can be assessed easily. Most significantly, it is now possible to integrate contact-routing software with enterprise databases where critical information about customers is storedinformation like customer entitlements, buying histories, trouble tickets, service case histories, and account balances. Your business can employ this information to refine contact routing.

3. Call Routing

The challenge for you as an executive or business manager is to select the call routing applications that best meet your companys specific needs. A company with a single, telephony-only contact center must apply different routing techniques and technologies than a company with a multisite, multiskill, multichannel operation. But no matter what your companys business requirements are, contemporary routing applications offer ways to build your bottom line.

The challenge for you as an executive or business manager is to select the call routing applications that best meet your companys specific needs. A company with a single, telephony-only contact center must apply different routing techniques and technologies than a company with a multisite, multiskill, multichannel operation. But no matter what your companys business requirements are, contemporary routing applications offer ways to build your bottom line.

The challenge for you as an executive or business manager is to select the call routing applications that best meet your companys specific needs. A company with a single, telephony-only contact center must apply different routing techniques and technologies than a company with a multisite, multiskill, multichannel operation. But no matter what your companys business requirements are, contemporary routing applications offer ways to build your bottom line.

Increased call completion
Optimized use of existing trunk facilities
Reduced reportable outages
Enhanced network survivability during switch or transmission failures
Customer satisfaction
Revenue potential

Have the ability to route calls based on priority USA vs. India call center

Features such as priority-based calling are becoming very important as business trying to offer a combination of convenience and service level. Recently, a number of companies are offering features such as press 1 for wait time for US based customers is x minutes and wait time for y minutes for offshore call center. The multisite virtual contact center offers many business advantages, such as leveraging regional labor pools, balancing workloads across sites to keep staff productive, and giving customers better service and more opportunities to buy.

Route calls based on area code routing

This feature could be used for routing traffic for an example west coast based originated calls to one team of call agents and east coast based traffic to other team. You can give customers more opportunities to buy, for instance, by using follow-the-sun multisite routing to extend service hours.

Route your VIP calls to your internal or USA based call center

Recognize VIP and route calls based on set priorities. This enables call control on a dynamic, call-by-call basis, along with full telephony functionalitythen takes this to the selected route.

Ability to change the call routing in real-time to call center B Provide there is a problem with call center A

Ability to change from the call center one to another call center in real time is very important, due to uncertain business, political, disaster, etc. conditions. Call routing's network-wide knowledge of traffic loads and real-time surveillance allows an intelligent selection of alternative routes around localized network congestion.

4. Monitoring and Tracking

The hosted contact center model is a valuable tool for giving small and medium businesses the functional equivalent of a premise-based call center, including a full operational, administrative control and access to all real-time and historical reports, without the implementation lead time, the system integration cost, and the capital expense of an in-house system. These centers offer full control of call treatment with monitoring and recording of all media for the most effective call center management and quality assurance. Contact centers are able to offer telephone calls, Web-Chats, and Emails, as well as IVR and other advanced communications services. Even home-based businesses can operate as virtual offices with other home based employees, achieving the look-and-feel of very large companies with IVR, ACD, web chat and email contact modes.

Communication Manager includes Integrated Management as a component of the base software, with the aim of providing enterprises with powerful management, administration and monitoring tools for converged networked systems. Not only can the enterprise have world-class telephony software, now they have second to none systems and network management tools included at no extra cost, giving them a truly turnkey telephony solution.

Check the quality of voice

It is very important to check the quality of the voice and monitor (silent monitoring) your calls, so that you can eliminate some of the agents who cannot handle your customers in a responsible/responsive manner. Also, the management should be able to record incoming and outgoing calls in real time. This inspection method becomes a very powerful management and monitoring tool.

Quality monitoring systems generally record agent conversations with customers, but can also capture web collaboration and e-mail. The purpose of the system is to facilitate agent training, skills improvement and increased customer satisfaction. The system also can record agent desktop sessions, so users can assess agent conversations and desktop Interactions together for performance evaluations. Hackers can compromise quality-monitoring systems and steal customer conversations. Although it is unlikely hackers would take the time to peruse the recordings, speech recognition tools are becoming available that allow search and retrieval of specific conversations. Also, because the systems can provide screen recording, a hacker can spoof the system to record agent screens and obtain corporate data.

Record your own web chat transcripts for check ups

Knowledge captures and information flows are typically fragmented and this is reflected in wasted resources, excessive disputes and the failure to consistently meet goals. There are some unique ways to capture real time recording of web chat traffic. Using this captured knowledge, one can predict holding time and duration of web chat traffic similar to the voice traffic. This is done by undertaking comprehensive on-line traffic analysis and benchmarks, to identify the key control points and develop a solution. This can be a significant service advantage as the web chat traffic is growing rapidly.

Record your calls

It is important to record calls in real time. This is a powerful tool that lets managers monitorin real timeany area of contact center performance, such as the number of abandoned calls, average hold time, and number of calls in queue. This ability alerts managers whenever any thresholds are being approached or have been exceeded. Managers can then immediately respond by redirecting contact center resources to increase agent productivity and respond more effectively to the influx of incoming calls.

Summary

If you have not taken a careful look at how your contact center Management and Control contribute to your companys bottom line, now is a good time. No matter what size your business is today or how much it will grows; proven solutions in US are available from hosted IP call centers that can make your contact center a more effective business. You can easily adopt these solutions individually or in any combination, and, taken together, they form a seamless total contact center solution with a smooth upgrade path that allows you to implement now what meets your current needs and add as your business expands. And with a solid business communications platform at the core of your solution, you have the same easy-to-use interface no matter whether you are deploying basic contact center applications, or enhanced services.

The challenges and pitfalls regarding offshore outsourcing places an additional stress on business sponsors to get it right the first time. Any significant failures after contract execution could result in a costly exercise of transitioning your offshore initiatives back in-house. Offshore business sponsors that can help to address following checklist from the very start can mitigate some of the risks while providing a solid foundation for success. The key to maintaining success is to keep the same management and control environment and planning throughout program execution. The following check list will help to manage effectively outsourcing.

Check List

Executive Management
1. Is your contract drawn under US law?
2. Do you have complete control of your 800 numbers?
3. Is your outsourcer immediately responsive?

Information Management
1. Is customer database housed in US?
2. Can you access reports in real-time? 3. Do they work your CRM application?
4. Do agents work on multi-media platform?
5. Do you have a party in US to host your data?

Call Routing
1. Do you have priority based routing?
2. Area code based routing?
3. VIP based routing?
4. Change call routing in real time?

Tracking and Management
1. Can you check quality of voice in real time?
2. Can you record your web chat in real time?
3. Can you record your voice calls in real time?

Kent Charugundla, a well-known telecommunications entrepreneur, has founded Eagle ACD. Kent is a veteran of telecommunications since 1986 and is also a founder of Eagle Teleconferencing Services and Eagle Communications. EagleACD is a product of EalgeIP, LLC, located in Wilmington, DE, with multiple sales offices in US, U.K., Spain and India. Kent has written a number of articles on the call center subject and is extremely knowledgeable about the industry, and can be reached at 1-800-339-7171 or [email protected]

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