OEConnection has announced that its Customer Care center has been awarded the BenchmarkPortal (News - Alert) certification, given in conjunction with the Center for Customer-Driven Quality at Purdue University.


BenchmarkPortal is a source for Customer Relation Management (CRM) best practices information for call centers worldwide. This recognition, OEConnection officials say, means that the company's call center now qualifies as a "Certified Center of Excellence."

The certification is based on best practice metrics drawn from the world's largest database of call center information, CCDQ officials say. Centers that attain certification do so on the basis of objective, quantitative data, which is audited and validated by researchers from BenchmarkPortal and the Center for Customer-Driven Quality.

"The achievement of the Center of Excellence Certification from Purdue University's (News - Alert) Center for Customer-Driven Quality represents a contact center's commitment to delivering customer service that is both effective and efficient," said Dr. Jon Anton of the Purdue CCDQ.

OEConnection's certification was awarded following an audit benchmarking its call center against the best practices of comparable centers. Auditors measured "a variety of metrics," CCDQ officials say, including average speed of answer, percentage of calls satisfactorily handled on the first call, average length of call, and the number of hours new customer service agents spend in training.

They also interviewed all of OEConnection's Customer Care Representatives regarding their work environment and the call center's culture and philosophy.

When measured against the more than 55,000 companies in the BenchmarkPortal database, OEConnection scored in the top 3-5 percent in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.

Investor interest in CRM and the outsourced customer care industry is at an all-time high, with mergers and acquisitions in the sector hitting record levels in 2006 both in terms of the number of transactions and dollar value, according to a report released this summer by Baird.

The sector ended 2006 with $8.2 billion in total global M&A deal volume, including a record $7.4 billion in the U.S. and is currently on pace for continued strong activity in 2007.

In the report, "M&A Market Analysis: Outsourced Customer Care Industry," Baird defines the Outsourced Customer Care industry with four broad categories: Customer Interaction Services (customer service, technical support, marketing services and sales), Fulfillment and Logistics, CRM Technology Hosting, and Consulting Services.

The global market for these services has been expanding at a double-digit compound annual growth rate over the past five years. Industry sources estimate the global customer care market to be about $300 billion worldwide in 2006, including both in-house and outsourced services.

The market is expected to reach $377 billion by 2010, with the outsourced segment contributing 25 percent of the total, or $92 billion, up from $58 billion, or 19 percent in 2006.

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David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.