What Is Next In The Call Center BPO Market?

The Philippines was considered the new frontier of high quality off shore contact center support operations, and for the most part it was.  It did not have the extreme accent India brought to the table, and found a culture that LOVED the U.S. and all our craziness.  But, with that love of our culture has also sped up the pace of the formation of a middle class in the Philippines, specifically Manila.

It may sound odd, but the middle class formation and growth is the kiss of death for call centers in countries like the Philippines.  The reason is that people begin to want more, and when a center is willing to pay $.10 - $.15 more they jump ship, many times still during training.  In the last six months I have heard from countless consultants and client's beginning to complain seriously about the attrition levels in training and post training they are beginning to experience in their Manila sites.

These drastic increases in attrition has opened up some huge opportunities for other parts of the world, specifically in Latin America, the Caribbean, South Africa and yes even the U.S.A.  Many organizations like Discover Card, have decided to stop playing with the offshore model and bring it all home to the U.S.  This has allowed them to produce a HUGE marketing blitz technique, that looking at their stock prices seems to be working.  But, for some companies U.S. labor rates are just not possible to work inside of.  For these organizations I have been seeing an extremely growing interest into Latin America and the Caribbean, where labor markets are extremely plentiful and cost is very low relative to the U.S.

So what does this mean for the call center market as we look forward into 2013 and 2014?  In my opinion we are going to see one major shift, and one subtle, but impactful shift.

Major Shift:

Organizations are beginning to separate out different lines of communications between multiple carriers.  Many times this is being done strategically so they can place non-verbal support (Email, Web-Cat, SMS, etc...) in countries with great English grammar and technical abilities, but accent issues for the U.S. market (a.k.a. - India).  I see this trend growing, and you will begin to see countries like India get a resurgence of BPO once again, but not with voice support but non-verbal support.  As for the verbal support I see this beginning to move back to the country of origin, or to a near-shore support model, depending on budget availability for verbal support.

This shift will be a great opportunity for companies that have support centers in multiple countries, and the management abilities to control a program worldwide.  This way their client can take advantage of the specialization of the country and the labor costs, but not have to deal with managing multiple vendors.  But, as we know the list of companies who can support this environment is limited, and many organizations steer clear of them.  This then leads me to subtle, but impactful shift.

Subtle, But Impactful Shift:

One of my favorite sayings used to be, "No one ever got fired for hiring/buying IBM."  In the call center market you could replace IBM with Convergys, West, Aegis, Stream, or a few other global juggernauts of the call center market.  But, looking forward I can see this saying, like in the IT world beginning to break down.  These companies do offer a great international support solution to their customers, but what they miss is the ability to be "boutique."

In an era of customer service departments beginning to take on a look of marketing, IT, customer service and help desk; the old models are beginning to become extinct.  Today companies want a contact center that cannot just support their client's but become their company and culture.  As any BPO executive knows this is MUCH harder than it may sound.  To take on a culture, you must have a culture in your organization that allows for sub-cultures to be introduced and allowed to grow.  This is something many of the big BPO companies have not been able to master, and honestly may never be able to.

So the subtle switch I see coming quickly is the introduction of the new IBM approach.  LOL!  I even chuckled when I had to write it, but it is true.  IBM a few years back finally realized that they really are not the experts at everything, and that there are people and companies who do things better than they do.  So their approach has become to focus on what they are best at, and to bring in other organizations that are even better at other aspects of the project to help.  What this means to the BPO market is the introduction of contact center management companies who can piece together and manage multiple centers for client's to build the ultimate solution.

Just imagine the ability to run your DRTV program with a DRTV specialty center near shore, your web chat and email with a center in India or the Philippines, technical support through a boutique specialty center in the U.S. with escalation in India and finally customer service in a center in the U.S. and near shore to keep costs down, but provided that next level support.  Now imagine all this being managed by one company for you, so rather than making 5 - 6 calls to vendors you just make one.  This is the future in my opinion, and something we are already starting to see take place.

To Your Success & Prosperity!

Originally Published on Creative Business Mind Blog

Remember To Fish While You Whale Hunt!

Image Courtesy of www.SuperStock.com

Top sales executives will tell you that the reason they are successful is because while they are hunting their next big deal (Whale Hunting), they do not forget to continue to pick up the small accounts (Fish) along the way.  This practice is very well laid out in a book by Tom Searcy appropriately titled, Whale Hunting: How to Land Big Sales and Transform Your Company.  In it he explains how the mixture of small deals and large whales is how you build stability in your organization and make sure your hunters stay fed while on the hunt.

These practices are typically well understood by sales executives, but all to often lost on many business leaders.  What happens is a company will land one or two whales, then they get complacent or sometimes worse, get super picky about the deals they will take on going forward.  Now, I am not saying you should not be selective of the business you take on, but it is a fine balancing act that you must be ever evaluating to make sure it is inline with the continued success of your sales team and overall organization.  

Unfortunately many business leaders realize their need to readjust their threshold for new business to late, and watch their top sales performers move on to another company or find out that one of the fish they turned away became a baby whales for a competitor.   Both scenarios hurting their organization, because they stopped allowing their team to fish while they were on the hunt.

Remember fishing is like practice for the big hunt.  It sharpens the spears and skills of your sales executives so when a whales comes along your sales executive has the sharped tools and practice to drive their harpoon into the whale and make sure it sticks.  Without that practice their tools may get dull and their skills weak, so when they go for the close they miss and your team loses the whale.

So as your team begins to sit down to review Q1 sales results and look to Q2 and beyond.  If you see your top performers not being consistent with deals, you need to evaluate how much business you have refused.  If it is more than 1 or 2 deals, you may need to sit down and revaluate your threshold for new business so you are not missing those chances for your team to practice closing, or those future baby whales that look like fish.

To Your Success & Prosperity!

4 Initial Steps to Self-Service Success

The amount of knowledge consumers have for our services and products today is astounding.  The great part of all this knowledge is consumers are eager to first rely on their ability to fix an issue, or answer a question they have on their own, before engaging your organization direct assistance.  This is why Self Service, has become such a HUGE buzzword in the customer service world, and it seams like there are support solutions every where for your company to chose from. 

So how does your team pick the best solution for your customer’s specific needs?

My answer is that there is no one end all, be all solution.  The best solution is found by the combination of a few solutions to make sure to cover your entire customer base, which only take 4 easy steps to get started:

Step 1: Knowledge Base

Before you have any hope of building a self-service solution for your customer, you first must perform a complete review of your current knowledge base for your technical support, customer service, and billing teams.  What you are looking for is that all questions are documented digitally and the answers to them are documented and correct.

Once you have performed your review, make sure to update and correct any mistakes you have found so the knowledge base is near 100% as of that moment.  Don’t worry if something changes the next day, you can and should be continually updating and review your knowledge base, as it must be a living database.

If you are not already doing so, I would strongly suggest you have a way for these teams to submit questions they are asked for review by subject matter experts; so new data is continually being added to your knowledge base.  

Step 2: Interface

Now that you have all your knowledge base updated and ready to go, it is time to talk about interface.  The easiest place to start is going to be the Internet, and will be the most used. 

Don’t start thinking huge cost here!

There are plenty of ways to build extremely affordable self-service tools that work great.  My suggestion is to get a web designer and developer together and put together a page that can search your knowledge base by keywords, and allow some type of ranking system for relevant articles and use by customers.  This will allow your customers to help improve the system and make it much more user friendly.

Remember K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid!)

The easier your interface is, the more likely your customer will be to use it.

Step 3: Video

The best self-service tools on the Internet always incorporate some amount of video demonstration in them.  

Again, there is no reason to begin thinking huge cost here.

All you need to provide great, usable content is a digital video camera and a person willing to take some time to record content from your knowledge base.  The key here is (from your knowledge base)! 

This should not be original content, as that would mean your knowledge base is not up to date.  All you are looking to do is make your content easier to understand, and help your customer get a visual for what they need to fix.

Step 4: Integration

The most common sin I see committed by organizations is that they get to step 3 or 4 and call it a day.    They have built the tool, and now just hope their customers will begin to use it.  The reality of this is that your customer has no clue about it, and more than likely will not use it.

This is why I tell my client’s to begin integrating their self-service tool into every aspect of their organization that directly interacts with their customers. 

Example:

Your long-term customer Mike emails your billing department because he has a question on an invoice and needs supporting materials before he will pay it. 

Most companies would simply send the supporting materials and maybe call to review them with him.  Instead, send the supporting materials, but also include a link to your self-service system which show Mike how in the future he can obtain this information by him self.  In addition, when your representative calls him to review the supporting materials, make sure he/she also informs Mike of the ability to get this type of information by himself online.

This not only satisfies your customer, but also teaches your customer of this great tool you have, and how to use it.  Now your customer is empowered, and next time he/she has a question they will first check your self-service system before having to use the most costly support solution you have, labor…

Self-service systems are nothing new, especially online.  But, their demand is growing and the need to keep them current and updated is an ongoing effort that your customer will appreciate.

To Your Success & Prosperity!!

How I Would Design A Customer Service Solution

Image Courtesy of Chandoo.org

If you could wipe the canvas clean and start fresh, how would you design my companies customer service solution?

Not a new question for me, but the answer has been evolving as I have grown up in the call center (sorry contact center) industry.  In the late 90's early 00's my response would have been about cutting costs, and introducing automation to the call to streamline it's support.  In the mid 00's my answer would include self service operations via the Internet, as well as introducing email and web chat as a standard communications platform.  Now in 2013, my answer has evolved to a solution that sounds more like an SAP software solution for a major manufacturing organization who is obsessed with Six Sigma.

So I realized that I need to simplify this painted picture of customer service.  After some very hard work, and internal debate, below is my first shot at what an ideal customer service solution would look like here in 2013 to me.

1. Phone Support: The most expensive, but still the most critical part of any customer service strategy is phone support for your customer.  Unlike years past where my first reaction is to place IVR support on the front end of the call, this year I am taking a page from Discover card and suggesting a live agent answering who can support the caller for any of their needs.  From a training perspective this will require additional time and effort, but the outcome is the ability to create a horizontal career path for agents, which is great for moral and attrition in a contact center.  

Important points for your call center operations:

- Stop managing by Average Handle Time and Average Speed to Answer, and start focusing on First Call Resolution.  What you will begin to see is that your overall call volume will begin to decrease and typically your average handle time may go up a little, but not as much as you would believe.  Dont stop tracking these figures though.  They still tell a story, but they are not the stick, just numbers to use and support mentoring of your agents.

- Empower agents to make decisions in the best interest of the customer, so they can support the call end to end.  In 2012, *26% of Americans said they would switch brands because a customer service department always had to transfer them around.

- Hire agents that match your culture and be open to training the skills they need to support your customers.  So many contact centers look for skills first, and forget that a skill can be taught, but an attitude cannot be changed.  I always look for agents who are willing to go the extra mile and always looking to do things for other people, before themselves.  This is the mark of a great customer service person, that will always do right by your customer.

2. Email: So many organizations set-up forms on their websites, or offer up an email address that goes to some black hole some where in their organization.  Email, though annoying and overused, is still a critical communications channel for customer service.  The trick to supporting email successfully is a good software solution that can intake the emails, and read them and offer up suggested canned responses to an agent.  This allows your team to be efficient and have a knowledge base guiding their responses.  But, make sure you always stress that responses MUST be personalized.  This way your customer knows they are not just getting an auto response, but a response from a company that cares about what they emailed you about.

Important points for your Email operations:

- Do not have your voice contact center agents handle non-voice support!  Agents who are great at non-voice support have very different characteristics that than of a voice agent.  For instance, with a voice support agent you look for strong auditory skills and a gentle voice.  But, in a non-voice agent, auditory skills do not matter, but grammar and word-smithing are everything.  In my experience my non-voice agents are solitary and logical learners, who have amazing resumes and writing samples, and bomb in an interview.  

- I personally treat email response like live calls, and strongly suggest your team looks to do the same.  What this means is rather than the old 100% of emails responded to in 24 hours, I use 80% of emails answered in 30 seconds or less.  Customers hate waiting and it has been found that 75% of customers will call about the same issue they emailed about if they have not seen a response to their email within 20 minutes.  Once that customer picks up the phone, you are basically doubling your cost to support the same issue.

- I mention the use of systems in my support solution above.  My organization uses eGain which has worked great for us.  Other systems available are Salesforce.com, ZenDesk, and Right Now Technology.  All are vetted out in a contact center production environment, and can scale as your customer base grows.

3. Web Chat: Thought to be a fad for so many years, web chat has become a required standard of support today.  If your organization is not supplying your customer the ability to chat with you on your website, you are forcing that customer to pick up the phone and call you, when you could have solved the issue in a much more cost effective manor by using web chat.  The trick here, is to make sure you set-up chatter for success. Similar to email with a great software platform that will allow them to have real time knowledge base integration to help them quickly find the answers to questions they are asked.  Another strong tool I love, is at the close of the web chat to email the customer a copy of the chat session along with links to self service tools on your website that can help support their needs in the future.

Important points for your Web Chat operations:

- Unlike phone and email, I strongly suggest mixing web-chat and email together.  They are a perfect paring as the communications channels are so similar.  Plus since web chat is real time interaction, you will find that it will help your team meet and exceed a service level of 80/30 with email.

- Again I bring up software as a critical part of this operation and want to share some suggestions here.  Our organization uses many web chat platforms, but have found LivePerson to be one of the best on the market.  Besides chat, it also allows your agent to push the customer to a website and take over control of their screen.  A great tool if you have online self service tools, and your agent just needs to then guide them to help themselves.

- Another reason I love to mix email and web-chat is that the hiring profile is exactly the same.  Please see #2, point 1 for details about the agents I look for.

4. Social Media: Commonly referred to as social customer service, social media has become a customer service channel that is so unique that in some companies I am seeing whole departments being formed to support it.  Breaking it out of traditional support channels, is something I am 100% in agreement with.  This is because social customer service takes a blend of customer service and marketing skill sets.  It is the first time that we are seeing the demand for the marketing team and customer service to work together to help support the customer.  Because of this unique blend, I see this team as a third team in your organization that must have a leader that understands marketing, but has a primary focus of customer service.  To be successful, like email and web-chat it takes a great software platform to support it.  

Important points for your Social Media operations:

- For social media support you can use the hiring profile for email and web-chat, but you need to place an emphasis on their ability to understand analytics.  This is because as much as this role is customer service, it is also marketing.  Everything your social customer support agent does will affect the long term abilities of marketing your company online.  You need agents who get this, and make sure what they put out there helps the customer, but also is in line with your organizations marketing plans.

- Yes, again we have software!  For social media support you really need a combination of support solutions, but the important one to mention here is monitoring software.  Depending on the size and complexity of your organization will depend on the level of investment you need to make.  My two favorite software solutions are Radian6 who is owed by Salesforce.com and Jive Software.  Both are amazing at monitoring social channels, and building custom notifications for your social customer service team.  But, that I will need a full article to talk about...

- Data mining for past interactions.  Knowledge bases are okay for social media, but what you will quickly find is that your CRM and documentation of past interactions with your customer is what you really need to support your social customer service needs.  I strongly suggest to organizations to take every piece of the client record and make it searchable for your social customer service agents because, they will need access to it at some point.  There is nothing worse than when something is mentioned and your agent does not have access to a data point that could stop a negative comment before it goes viral.

- Service levels are something that are not talked about enough in social customer service, because most people have no clue how to support this portion of your customer service strategy.  The reality is that service levels need to be 100% as fast as possible.  This is a big reason why social customer service must be performed by a separate team. Their reaction time must always be N.O.W. (No One Waiting).  Social media is all about instant gratification, and if your team does not support something as it happens, it can quickly spin out of control and cost your company thousands if not millions of dollars.

5. Self Service Tools: No matter how great your customer service is, given the choice I would still take care of something myself, given the ability.  Self service tools are so critical today, and guess what?  They only save your company a HUGE amount of money.  The trick with self service is to make it easy to find, use, and navigate.  Another critical point here is to make sure you update your self service tools regularly.  

Important points for your Self Service tools:

- Not everyone learns the same way, and your self service tools must be able to handle all the different learning styles of your customers.  I hate when I know I have found the answer to my question, but the specific item I need is buried in a 30 page PDF!  This is why when I help organizations design self service tools I always use the initials V.B.S.D. to guide me. (Video, Bullets, Summary, and Detail)  Every question must offer these four solutions.  This way your customer can chose what they need at that time, so they actually use it.

- The ability to search a knowledge must not be limited to keywords or search terms.  It must include the scripts of a video, the bullets in a document, etc...  In addition, it must allow for your customer to navigate to that specific portion of the Video, Bullets, Summary or detailed answer.  That way your customer does not have to waste their time sifting through everything to find the 10 words they needed.

- Make it accessible EVERYWHERE!!!  Just because your self service is on your website does not mean it is every where.  To be everywhere you must include mobile into your strategy, and this does not mean just a smaller version of your website.  I tell my customers all the time, self service is the best app you can make for your customers, and they will love you for it.  Make sure to use a good app developer and don't skimp on cost.  A good app will be great for customer engagement, but a bad buggy app can be the kiss of death.

The main thing to remember this year is that more than ever customers want fast access to accurate, updated information that can help them.  And, when it is not available need your business to act quickly to help them on any communications channel they feel comfortable on.  No longer does your company get to choose the communications channel, it is your responsibility as a good brand/vendor to be every where.  

To Your Success & Prosperity!

*2012 Global Customer Service Barometer, Echo Global Research.