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IP Contact Center And Home
Agent Technology And Management
Background And A Review Of
Offshore Outsourcing
In recent years, offshore outsourcing gained popularity for two reasons, as
follows:
a. Extremely low labor costs,
b. High level of education of the available labor.
The combination of the above has created significant offshoring of
teleservices to several countries such as India, the Philippines, Indonesia,
South America, Europe, Canada and elsewhere.
On the other hand, the American economy, which is best described as a
'jobless recovery,' was heavily blamed by many for jobs going offshore to
the above countries. Indeed, a significant portion of all offshore
teleservices is done by U.S.-owned companies. In fact, the following are the
statistics:
U.S.-Owned Companies Lead The Way In Offshoring
At the recently held 'Global Call Center Outsourcing Summit'' (GCCOS)
conference, which featured 'National Offshore Outsourcing Debate,'
considerable information on the subject was presented to the attendees. The
following represents excerpts from my presentation at the well attended
GCCOS conference. These numbers are derived from analysis of the companies
ranked in the 19th-Annual Top 50 Teleservices Agencies Ranking.
' 35 percent of international offshore OUTBOUND is generated by U.S.-based
companies,
' 65 percent of international INBOUND is generated by U.S.-based companies,
' International call centers are located in 22 countries worldwide,
' 9 percent of teleservices agencies currently use home agents,
' 34 percent of U.S.-based agencies have both domestic and international
operations,
' Average number of call centers per company: 12.76,
' The U.S. interactive inbound growth rate from 2003 to 2004 is +4.8
percent.
At the same time, offshore outsourcing has been growing in the vicinity of
25 percent growth per year. Not too long ago, i.e., the year 2000 and prior,
outsourcing in this country was also growing at an average of 27 percent per
year.
All of the above developments have really created major national debate on
offshore outsourcing. In the Online Exclusive sidebar (www.cismag.com/0704/posidebar.htm),
we have gathered complete information about the views of many leading
politicians as well as dozens of proposals for anti-offshore outsourcing
legislation that have been proposed.
The West Solution To Offshoring And Making Domestic Teleservices
Competitive With Offshore Teleservices
West Corporation has recently developed a complete and revolutionary
solution to take teleservices outsourcing to the next level.
About West Corporation's Leadership And Industry Reputation
Those of you who know West Corporation's impeccable reputation for
integrity, quality and leadership know that West Corporation literally does
not need an introduction. However, for those of you who may not be familiar
with West Corporation, I would like to share with you the following:
Back in 1982, shortly after we launched this publication, which laid the
foundation for the current multibillion dollar contact center, CRM,
teleservices outsourcing business, I visited a number of call centers,
telemarketing and teleservices companies, including the pioneering team that
would later found West Corporation in 1986. I had the great pleasure and
honor of meeting with two of the elite pioneers of teleservices in America;
namely, Gary West and Mary West. I spent several days with these industry
leaders, and they were gracious enough to train me and teach me practically
everything about telemarketing, call centers, teleservices and contact
centers. The above persons are indeed among the legendary leaders of our
industry. They used their valuable time and trained me for several days. To
this day, I have nothing but respect and admiration for the integrity and
commitment to excellence, quality and the great Midwestern work ethic that
they all exemplified and that is instilled in the company they founded 18
years ago.
Having had my hand on the pulse of the industry since 1982, I have heard
nothing but the greatest possible testimonials about West's reputation and
to use the words of Jack Nicholson, West is 'as good as it gets'!
Having said that, I was honored to learn of West's new leadership solution
dealing with home agents as far back as last October, and was surprised to
learn that West has been routing calls to home agents for the past eight
years. I am also pleased to share with you some of the highlights of what
West has done to take our industry to the next level. I have spent
considerable time discussing with West's senior management and reading about
their new home agent solution. Here are some of the highlights and the
benefits of their home agent program:
' Exceptional Scalability
' Agent Flexibility
' West's Industry Experience ' West has been a leader in the outsourced
customer care business since 1986.
' Higher quality agents: 75 percent of West's home agents have some college
education. Ninety-two percent have some post-high school education.
' Excellent alternative to 'offshoring' ' According to West Corporation, not
only are home agents less expensive than traditional call center agents,
they provide superior levels of customer service. And it provides the kind
of flexible work schedules that agents crave, particularly students and
stay-at-home moms, or people who have other part-time jobs.
' Eliminates geographic barriers ' West is able to draw from its thousands
of active home agents across the country to find specific skill sets in any
industry (healthcare, real estate, technology, etc.).
' Rapid recruiting ' West has over 2,500 agents working now, and many
hundreds more on a waiting list. Active agents can be notified of a new
assignment within minutes, and new agents can be recruited, screened and
trained within weeks.
' Built-in motivation ' Home agents are compensated on a per-minute basis.
Whether the customer's criteria are one-call resolution, conversion rates or
satisfaction levels, West's technology constantly monitors agent performance
and routes more calls to the best performing agents in real-time. This
creates a 'win-win' situation for both the customer and the agent.
' Never miss a call: West's front-end capacity and complete system
redundancy essentially eliminates busy signals and long wait times.
' Available as a hosted solution ' West's VACD (virtual ACD) platform makes
it possible for companies to manage their own agents. This is perfect for
companies who want to continue managing their own call centers, but want the
flexibility and scalability of West's home agent technology.
For more information about West's pioneering at-home concept, please contact
Mark Frei at 402-963-1365 or e-mail him at
[email protected].
Having said the above, it should
be abundantly clear that the home agent concept is indeed significantly more
cost-efficient than traditional methods of doing business while using TSRs
who are substantially more educated than traditional ones.
The Benefits Of IP Contact Centers
As I indicated in my column in the April 2004 issue, IP contact centers
offer a considerable amount of benefits, not the least of which is 70 to 90
percent cost savings in your telecommunications expenses. To refresh your
memory, here are some excerpts from my comments in that editorial:
' Time To Converge ' From our vantage point, we feel that now is the time
for IP telephony and contact center technology to converge because there is
NO other choice if you want to compete profitably!
' Some Benefits: Marriage Made In Heaven ' Call centers are by far the
biggest users of telecom. The Top 100 teleservices agencies alone use in
excess of 30 billion billable minutes. Considering that teleservices
represent only a small fraction of worldwide in-house CRM, contact center
and customer interaction centers, then the worldwide consumption can be
roughly estimated to be about 3 trillion minutes. As such, savvy call center
management MUST plan to adopt the new Internet telephony technology.
' Huge Cost Savings ' A recent article in BusinessWeek estimated that from
70 to 90 percent cost savings can be realized from adopting IP telephony, to
say nothing about other unparalleled advantages. Today, IP telephony is
being implemented in a variety of industries and for both cost savings and
revenue-generating objectives.
The bottom line is that, by integrating the synergy of using American
innovation and experience with IP contact centers, we would be able to
provide cost parity with offshoring.
I invite you to read an interview with Mark Frei, Senior VP of West
Corporation, which provides you with additional information on this truly
unique and much needed concept.
The Key To Success
I would like to reiterate that the keys to the success of the home agent
process are as follows:
1. Having the technology and the sophisticated networking capability to
monitor each and every TSR's activity.
2. The ability to manage and control the quality of jobs performed by ALL
home agents. If this step is not fully controlled with zero-tolerance for
mistakes, in my opinion, this project will not work.
As I have studied the West process, I have come to the conclusion that the
West home agent program has addressed all of our concerns.
We congratulate West Corporation for playing a leading role and taking our
industry to the next level. As always, I welcome all of your comments. You
may e-mail me at [email protected]
Sincerely Yours:
Nadji Tehrani
Executive Group Publisher
Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]
Editor's Note: To get the
complete picture, we strongly urge you to read the Publisher's Outlook as
well as other related articles written in the last 12 issues of Customer
[email protected] Solutions' magazine.
Acknowledgment: This publication gratefully acknowledges significant and
valued contributions made by the following in the development and research
for this editorial:
' Mike Faulkner, Senior Vice
President of the DMA
' Mark Frei, Senior Vice President,
West Corporation
' Mack McKenzie, Vice President of
Marketing, West Corporation
' Mac McNeer, Ashton Partners.
In addition, I am also gratefully acknowledging significant assistance
provided by the TMC staff including Tracey Schelmetic, Stephanie Menkes and
Bill MacRae in preparation of this editorial.
Please be sure to read this article's Online Exclusive sidebar, which
explains the current status of state and federal legislation and other
concerns regarding offshoring. The sidebar is located on TMCnet.com at
http://www.cismag.com/0704/posidebar.htm.
If you are interested in purchasing reprints of this article (in either
print or HTML format), please visit Reprint Management Services online at
www.reprintbuyer.com or contact a representative via e-mail at [email protected]
or by phone at 800-290-5460.
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visit www.TMCnet.com or call 203-852-6800.
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