BUSINESS
5 KEY ELEMENTS OF SUCCESSFUL CONTACT CENTRE PROCESSES OUTSOURCING Customer service outsourcing has existed in Poland since the end of ‘90s. In those early years the core of the outsourcing industry contracts comprised the key mean industries: telecommunications, banks, insurance companies and publishers. Others either did not outsource at all or the scale of outsourcing was marginal and scattered across several isolated campaigns. Gradually, the idea of transferring not-essential processes outside of one's own company progressively spread to other industries along with more service providers and a growing awareness of potential benefits.
stages. Most contact centre companies have a minimum project scale that they are willing to take in. These differ of course depending on the company, but generally such limitation is needed due to the time and human resources commitment required to launch each new campaign. Furthermore, in the case of outbound campaigns (sales, leads), almost all companies use automatic dialling systems. In the last several years, I have noticed These are the most effective with 5,000a trend of growing popularity of out -10,000 records in the database at their sourcing among industries that previo disposal, hence the minimum required usly withheld everything at their own scale is also dictated by technologipremises. So what should be checked cal limitations. when you company decides to outsource contact centre operations? 2. OUTSOURCER EVALUATION Once the outspring decision is taken, 1. PURPOSE OF OUTSOURCING the next step the selection of your partner. Is the purpose to support for internal sales It is one of the most, if not the most diffior customer service departments? Is your cult element of the process. As in any company moving just one isolated process industry, it is sometimes difficult to or all customer service processes will be look behind a curtain of marketing to handed over to an external company? reveal a genuine image and capabilities In any case, it is important to start with of a selected company. a needs analysis. At what cost of customer acquisition or contact service, outsourcing The price of the service is only one of will be profitable for us and the partner? the criteria. It is very easy to start a coope It is worth estimating your own costs, ration that will end after a few weeks with including, in addition to the employee lost time, funds and without achieving costs, other related costs and overheads? the expected results. There are several key points that should be taken into account, In the case of very short marketing cam e.g. the experience of the management paigns, running the process internally may team, especially the middle level staff be more worthwhile, at least in the initial such as team leaders, because they are
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responsible for the implementation of quantitative and qualitative results. The largest companies engage their specialized departments, even resort to hiring specialized external companies that prepare a due diligence analysis of a potential partner. If using them is not an option, it is really worth taking the time to meet two or three potential contact centres to see what their premises look like and what conditions our future employees will work under. For instance, staff turnover rate is an important point as it revels and ample amount of information about team's experience. I suggest paying thorough care to the analysis of internal documents such as procedures and e.g. cards for assessing the quality of calls, frequently referred to as coaching sheets. They prove the level of professionalism and structured customer service processes in the organization.
3. 2X „I”, OR INTEGRATION AND IMPLEMENTATION Another important and frequently neglected aspect is the integration of outsourcing services with internal company processes. Looking from a wider perspective, BPO is a part of our organization, which is merely placed in a different location. One of good practices is designation of the main person responsible
Outsourcing&More | July–August 2021
