At the executive roundtable this month is Tom Cardella, CEO of
Precision Response Corporation, an outsourced provider of consumer care
services headquartered in Plantation, Florida.
CIS: What are your thoughts on the trend of outsourcing offshore? There
are a variety of mixed opinions being expressed. Do you think that many
companies are bringing their teleservices back to the U.S., and if so,
which services and why?
Cardella: I believe that the trend of outsourcing offshore is certainly
here to stay. According to Gartner research, the offshore outsourcing hype
cycle is still significantly on the rise and is in the early stages of
maturing. In fact, a similar Gartner study of 76 top U.S. brands found
that 20 percent of them will be outsourcing some part of their business
offshore by 2004. PRC has been doing business offshore since early 2001.
As a result of this experience, I feel we are poised to not only support
our clients in this offshore transition, but to guide them through the
process so that it is seamless for their customers.
With four PRC locations in offshore markets, we recommend to clients
who are looking to go offshore that they keep a percentage of their work
in domestic locations. This builds in the necessary redundancy/ business
continuity and allows for proper benchmarking between locations. We
believe that e-mail management will continue to grow in offshore
locations, but voice services will remain strong here in the U.S. Customer
service needs will continue to grow and I believe this growth will be felt
domestically, offshore and nearshore.
CIS: What advice do you have for call centers that need to quickly build
their inbound services to make up for the potential loss of outbound
services? Is there any advice about technologies, hiring new agents and
management concerns you can offer?
Cardella: It is important for outbound organizations to remain responsive,
flexible and proactive with clients. Establishing a solid relationship
with the client and an understanding of their industry and specific
marketing challenges has always been an important key to success. In the
case of PRC's subsidiary, Access Direct, this approach led us to establish
inbound relationships as a result of successful outbound campaigns and we
have grown naturally into a provider of both outbound and inbound services
for several of our clients.
Companies faced with the loss of outbound market share may find
themselves in a position of having to shift focus from primarily outbound
to a greater percentage of inbound services. This shift in services will
certainly present more of a challenge for some organizations. But those
companies that have maintained a good product mix in addition to
demonstrated value to the client will be able to successfully weather this
transition with minimal impact to the bottom line.
It has been our policy to hire top talent at all levels. In the case of
Access Direct, we are fortunate to have operations, client services and IT
staff who have all had training in both outbound and inbound
telemarketing. Telephone sales representatives are hired with the premise
that they will call outbound campaigns first and, if they become top
performers, will have the opportunity to be considered for cross-training
to inbound programs. This allows the organization flexibility as staff can
be moved as decisions are made in the best interest of the client.
In terms of technology, we have always used the SER (formerly EIS) Call
Processing System, considered top of the line for outbound predictive
dialing, yet our team has been able to fully leverage the system's inbound
capabilities. We were able to transition into inbound calling without the
need to introduce a new technology platform. So flexibility in one's
outbound technology is critical. A good IT team can develop solid,
customized inbound and outbound applications on any system provided the
system is flexible and the staff has the right experience.
Organizations that are lean in bureaucracy and agile in nature are best
positioned to make the transition from outbound to inbound services.
Again, our determination to hire the best possible staff for our
management positions has provided us with a core management team that has
solid experience running both types of campaigns for a wide variety of
industries. Our client management model is designed to oversee campaigns
from the client perspective ' not separated out by outbound versus
inbound. We have found that organizing account management by client rather
than by application keeps the team focused on the needs of the clients and
their campaigns while delivering the best program results.
CIS: Though outbound is only a small part of PRC's business, what are you
doing to make sure you remain compliant?
Cardella: PRC's core business is inbound customer service, but again,
our subsidiary Access Direct is more focused on outbound service for
clients. As the founder of Access Direct, I am very familiar with current
compliance issues that outbound companies face as well as the existing
constraints. Our business at Access Direct is focused on calling the
existing consumers of our clients. We have always been compliant with the
various forms of legislation that have governed this industry and, because
of our niche and existing structure, believe that the newer regulations
will have a minimal impact on our business.
CIS: Over the years, has it become more or less difficult to hire and
retain good agents, as client demands have increased and the number of
media options (e-mail, Web and form-sharing, plus telephone, postal mail
and fax) have broadened?
Cardella: Hiring and retaining good-quality employees has not been a
problem for us at PRC. We have always been very stringent with our
recruiting and hiring practices. Because our site selection process has
been so intertwined with our human resources group, the markets in which
we operate have proven to be quite good for recruiting quality-focused
agents who enjoy handling multiple communication channels.
For example, in April of 2000, PRC opened a facility in Cutler Ridge,
Florida, just south of Miami. Our goal was to create approximately 1,200
jobs in this area within three years, but we chose to start out small with
400 jobs to test the market. Because of client satisfaction and the
superior quality of this labor market, we reached our goal of 1,200
employees a year and a half ahead of schedule.
To complement our external recruiting, we continue to invest in PRC
University, our internal training curriculum for enhanced skills
development. This enables our employees who, for example, joined the
company as phone representatives to expand into an e-mail position or into
management. As a result, over 70 percent of our team managers are promoted
from within.
CIS: What do you think are going to be the big issues in teleservices,
moving forward?
Cardella: Offshore operations will continue to be a high priority for us
at PRC, and I believe it will be the same for everyone in the industry.
With pricing pressures on the rise, providers like PRC are positioned to
offer an end-to-end solution to clients, one that marries top-notch
service with a blended service model when needed.
As we look ahead, we will continue to face issues in our industry as
they come up. However, the focus for the entire organization is on the
core basics ' service and quality for our clients. Strategically, I
believe we are poised for solid growth, but as competition tightens in the
industries we support, maintaining high customer satisfaction levels
becomes even more critical. Therefore, exceeding the expectations of the
clients that we currently support is, and will always be, PRC's number one
priority and area of focus. To this end, we have recently hired several
seasoned service professionals to augment and grow our management team.
I'm very enthused with this team, and certainly with where we are going.
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