The Contact Center Blog

Contact Center Outsourcing Myths #2 and #3

Hi all, its been a while since my last post, I am going to try and make a regular post going forward at least once per week.

This week I was interviewed for Internet Retailer magazine regarding what goes into a successful relationship between a outsourced contact center and their clients.  I found myself explaining that one of the key factors to success is not being tempted by one of several "myths" many clients believe when outsourcing.

Two common myths I have come across are:

If I outsource, I wont need to spend any time managing the contact center.”

The truth of the matter is that without at least some client involvement, many contact center outsourcing arrangements can be doomed from the beginning.  It amazes me how the majority of clients we onboard are surprised when we request they attend a weekly operations meeting as well as QA calibration sessions (weekly or monthly depending on the complexity of the account).  We also ask that the client visit us as much as possible, at least once per quarter, to view the operation and give feedback.  Even with some of our smaller clients, who dont have the weekly meetings etc, they are speaking with our client services team as often as once per week and need to have a firm grasp on the contact center needs for their organization.  The bottom line is that even when outsourcing, it is imperative that you have resources available to work with the outsourcer in making your campaign a success.  Clearly, you will need to invest less time than if you were to manage the contact center in house, but it would be a mistake to think you are going to hand over the keys to an outsourcer and never have a worry again.

Contact Center Outsourcers that have experience in my industry will be better prepared to handle my account.”

I couldnt begin to tell you how many prospects that ask us for references in their industry.  In reality, having industry experience can mean very little to the success of the outsourcer.  I would suggest the most important experience comes in the function the contact center will be playing.  For example, if a retail/apparel company was looking to outsource customer care including refunds and exchanges, I would suggest the contact center outsourcer with experince in refunds and exchanges will have a leg up on the contact center outsourcer who has experience with the retail/apparel industry performing other functions.  Also, experience with client requirements, such as enhanced reporting or workforce management, can be far more crucial than any industry related experience. 

Cheers,

GF

ERA Conference 2007

I recently attended the Electronic Retailers Association Conference 2007 in Las Vegas.  I was there looking for new partners and possible clients for my contact center outsourcing business.  Although, in the end, I didnt get the value out of the trip I was hoping for, I certainly gained a couple of interesting perspectives:

1)  The ERA, in general, is truly focused on DRTV clients with "spikey" volumes that come in short spurts.  Although at 24-7 INtouch we service a fair amount of medium sized DRTV clients nicely, I realized the scope and complexity of some of the larger, more established DRTV brands.  As an outsourcer, you really need to decide what you want to be because a traditional customer care or order taking call center is not equipped to provide superior service to these clients.  In the end, I struck a deal to become part of a consortium of call centers that will combine to have about 7000 seats of capacity and focus on high volume (10,000 calls or more a week) DRTV clients.  The company running this DRTV call center consortium provides all of the technology that distributes the calls to the different call centers based not only on agent availability but agent performance.  This company provides all of the reporting and truly gives us a chance to compete for the larger DRTV clients.  In the end, I just wasn't comfortable taking on these clients on my own.  I truly would prefer to share the volumes (we don't typically like to do this) but provide an exceptional level of service.  Although we will continue to handle our small and medium DRTV campaigns in house, this truly gives us a chance to provide exceptional service to the very niche DRTV call center client with large volumes and complex needs.  Anyways, the point of this was definitely NOT to plug my company, but to point out how very distinct the needs of these clients can be.

2)  Las Vegas is a bad place for a conference.  Tough to keep focused and way too easy to get sidetracked.  I prefer more neutral locations, like Chicago, for conferences.  Thats all I'll say on that, I'm sure you get my drift!

Greg Fettes

Great Customer Service - Good to Great

As a guy who lives in the call center industry, I am always grading the quality of any interaction I have with call center agents.  I just can't help myself.  I am overly critical of the "average calls" but then realize thats what seperates good from great.  In my professional life and in my personal contacts with call centers, there is nothing that drives me crazier than "average" calls.  Unfortunately, I think in most cases the public accepts "average" from call centers because over the years this is what they have come to expect.  That's why when I experience a call that goes way above and beyond my expectations, it totally blows my mind.

Recently I had a call with the Air Canada Super Elite Desk (yes, I fly WAY too much!) that was truly above and beyond.  I was having trouble with the Air Canada website trying to book a flight so I called in for help.  Typically there is a 15$ charge for using the call center (highway robbery I say!) instead of the website.  I explained my situation (I wanted to use the website but it was not working) and she explained that in order to waive the fee she would need to send me to their tech support line to troubleshoot first.  Then I explained, somewhat annoyed, I had already spent a half hour trying to book this flight and wasnt willing to invest any more time in booking with Air Canada.  This is where the call could have gone 1 of two ways:

1)  Agent:  "I'm sorry, sir, but the Air Canada policy states that you must go through tech support to waive the fee.  There is nothing I can do about this"

    Greg:  "Can I talk to a Supervisor Please! (in an annoyed tone)"

2)  Agent:  "I'm sorry, sir, but the Air Canada policy states that you must go through tech support to waive the fee.  I completely understand and wish there was something I could do to make it up.  If you dont mind holding a second, I will check with my Supervisor. (on hold 15 seconds)  Sir, my supervisor has allowed me to go ahead and waive the fee.....

I know it seems like something small, and the result either way would have been the same (supervisor would have approved the waived fee), but option 2 leaves a very good feeling while option 1 leaves something less than desired.  Thank goodness, this Air Canada agent took option 2.  And not only that, but her ability to empathize with my situation and make me feel important was incredible.  She kept total control of the call and made sure that by the end I felt good about the way it was resolved.  The only complaint I had on the call is that the agent herself was not empowered to make the decision to waive the fee.

Anyways, it was such a positive experience I felt inclined to write about it.  Call center agents like this give everyone in the industry a good name!

Things that make me go HMMMMMM

As anyone who is in the contact center business knows, there are things that happen every day that are sometimes almost impossible to understand.  A management blunder, an agent misbehaving, strange but true miscommunications between management and front line staff.  I am amazed each and every day that no matter how hard I try it is virtually impossible to avoid these annoying but sometimes funny situations.  One such instance came up today and it had to do with one of my main competitors... Convergys.

Convergys is one of the largest contact center outsourcers in the world.  They operate on a scale that few in the industry can compete with.  Unfortunately, although in many ways it is a strength, their size works against them as well.  One of the chief areas is in employee communications.  By no means an easy task as it is one we consistently struggle with but have only a few hundred employees.  Nonetheless, what I saw today was one of the most insane things I have seen in this business during my entire career.  I was searching Convergys on Google and the third listing in the organic results was a website called www.convergyssucks.com!  To be clear, this is not a Convergys sponsored website but a employee founded messageboard for past and current convergys employees to complain about working there.  Everything from there not being enough stations to clients leaving to agents committing vulgar acts in the washrooms is discussed at length....UNBELIEVABLE!  As an outsourcer, I really cant imagine having a client come across this site only to discover Convergys employees discussing their account and often disclosing confidential information.

Here is my question, if you hate working at convergys so badly why dont you just quit?  There are lots of places to have a job where with any luck you will enjoy your work.  I know its not that simple, and I know that convergys employees most likely have several legitimate issues, but I would hope that the people responsible for convergyssucks.com are putting as much energy into their work as they are into the website!

My take on this is that the blame rests on both sides of the fence.  Clearly, based on the posts I read, management has a major communication issue with their staff.  Fairly typical of large corporations like Convergys but also incredibly damaging to staff morale and the quality of work performed at the contact center site.  At the same time, again based on the posts I read, the employees are taking a very one sided view and often coming across as complaining with no real purpose in mind.  The solution, you ask?  A company sponsored message board, hopefully not located on the URL www.convergyssucks.com that encourages open and honest communication that allows the management to post back with solutions or comments.  All agent posts could be kept confidential while management posts would be signed by the author.  All agents would be encouraged to post entries with fixing the problem in mind as opposed to just complaining.  This way, hopefully some good will come out of all the energy spent on the website!

I am interested to hear your feedback!

Welcome to the Contact Center Blog!

Well folks, here it is, finally, at long last, the contact center blog has arrived.  What is the contact center blog you ask?  The general idea was to create a blog where people who are stakeholders in contact center outsourcing companies, whether it be clients, suppliers, partners, or even outsourcers themselves can have open discussions on all things contact center.   Whether it be topics like operations, new technology, driving volumes, workforce, human resources or whatever, we want to encourage open and honest communication in our industry.

I'm sure your next question is "who the heck is this guy?"  Well, my name is Greg Fettes, and I am the President and CEO of 24-7 INtouch, a contact center outsourcer based in Canada.  You can check out my LinkedIN profile or visit the about us area on the 24-7 INtouch website.  At the risk of sounding too "salesy" (a big no-no on this blog from here on!), we have been recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in Canada two years in a row and pride ourselves in being a true leader in innovation for technology, process, and management in contact centers.  In fact, that is the underlying reason this blog got started.  It was a way to create a community that will push the industry in a new direction.  In the coming months you will see guest authors from inside and outside the contact center world make posts on different issues concerning contact centers.  But here's the trick; we are depending on you, the readers, to make comments and push discussions forward.  Maybe you agree, maybe you disagree, or maybe you have experiences that you can share that will bring the conversation in a new direction.  We will not be censoring posts or comments for any reason (except vulgarity of course!) so you will be free to absolutely speak your mind.   Anyways, enough background already, lets get on to the blog!

My plan for posting comments on the contact center blog will be to follow a somewhat similar format each week.  I am hoping to post regularly once per week on Mondays and have a few random posts throughout the week.  Please feel free to give feedback on the blog in general as my goal is to make it as useful and informative as possible.

Thanks and happy blogging!

GF