Go BackWhy do organisations outsource their customer care?
ClientLogic is a leading international business process outsourcing provider of customer care, technical support and customer acquisition, with 50 facilities in 13 countries across four continents. Our consistent service quality helps clients reduce costs, improve retention and increase revenue per customer.
In this day and age products and services can easily become a commodity, price-based purchase. Often, the only differentiator is the customer care received by the consumer before, during and after the sale. Why then would companies dare to give such a vital part of their business away to an external partner?
Top Five Reasons For Outsourcing Customer Care:
Outsourcing has fundamentally changed the global business landscape. Not long ago, outsourcing was viewed as a means to reduce operational costs. However, as competition increases and budgets become ever tighter, organisations are now using outsourcing to add value to their processes beyond simply lowering costs.
A recent University study of 100 'Fortune 500' companies found that respondents were overwhelmingly satisfied with their outsourcing operations. 72% said their implementations met or exceeded expected savings. Outsourcing providers have all but perfected the process of helping clients strategically reduce costs, but leading BPOs have already evolved to meet the additional demands of today's clients who embrace outsourcing as a way of increasing revenue, brand value and loyalty.
In recent years, five distinct reasons have emerged as the most important factors companies consider when electing to outsource:
1. Lower Costs
Reducing cost remains the number-one reason that organizations elect to outsource. Virtually every company cites lowering costs as a primary driver. According to industry analysts at Gartner Group, 80% of companies name cost-cutting as the main reason for outsourcing.
Case Study: A global ISP running a large contact centre operation were generating great results, but at unsustainably high cost. Under pressure to maximise return on investment across all functions, the company began outsourcing. Using ClientLogic's global expertise, average handle time and abandon rates rapidly decreased, increasing agent productivity. Additionally, ClientLogic leveraged its expansive geographic footprint to deliver service from optimal global locations to maximise savings for the ISP whilst implementing sales programs to generate additional revenue. Today the client saves £17 million a year whilst retaining the high quality of service expected by their customers.
2. Up-sell/Cross-sell Opportunities
Outbound calling is increasingly considered intrusive by consumers in some markets. Failure to adapt strategies in such environments could prove damaging to the customer relationship. Inbound calls, on the other hand, can be a powerful and productive alternative to generate revenue. Companies leave a great deal of potential sales on the table by not effectively up-selling and cross-selling at the right moments during in-bound interactions.
Case Study: One of the world's largest issuers of credit cards decided to use ClientLogic for their outsourcing to meet three primary objectives: drive additional revenue; create lead generation; and manage customer inquiries related to credit card services. The campaign successfully met these objectives, through agent rewards and by increasing supervisors' interactive role, up-selling nearly £30 million in balance transfers, ranking first among all service centres in customer satisfaction and generating an additional £320 million in revenue.
3. Retention
One often overlooked benefit of outsourced customer care is the ability to generate higher retention rates. The combination of creative programs, talented contact centre agents and timely execution can lead to dramatic increases in customer retention. Agents need to be trained and supported to view every customer interaction as an opportunity to boost satisfaction and retention.
Case Study: A world leading interactive services brand turned to outsourcing to increase their capabilities in retaining subscribers from their 25 million strong customer base. Using skilled, highly trained, empowered agents on a dedicated "saves desk", ClientLogic consistently achieved a 40% save rate against a target of 25%. The client's win-back initiatives also benefited from extensive expertise that would be difficult to replicate internally, with targets consistently exceeded by almost 50%.
4. Scale & Flexibility
One of the biggest benefits of outsourced customer care is flexibility. Outsourcing companies with deep stable of agents worldwide enable client organisations to quickly scale up or down based on customer demand. Two of the biggest drivers that create this demand are seasonal spikes and marketing promotions.
Case Study: Some consumer goods and retail companies that outsource their seasonal calls to ClientLogic experience a volume increase of more than 500% during Christmas, requiring several hundred temporary agents to provide a high quality service for a relatively short period of time. ClientLogic meets such needs through the use of its expansive network of over 20,000 agents, award-winning training and tried-and-tested project implementation that can see major campaigns implemented in a matter of weeks.
5. Diversification
Some companies retain part of their customer contact operation and outsource others, looking to supplement the program with outside expertise, language skills or geographies. Diversifying call centre operations in this manner is an excellent way for companies to maximise their resources whilst optimising growth and change opportunities.
Case Study: One rapidly-expanding financial services company turned to ClientLogic to outsource its prepaid debit card products and services. This company sees customer support as its most important competitive differentiator and diversified its contact centre operations to utilise off-shore options. Such tactics increase access to alternative and additional markets through language skills and geography, whilst potentially reducing the cost to serve existing customers.
So why give such a vital part of your business to an external partner?
Business processes are best delivered by experts. Customer care is no exception. When outsourced to global experts such as ClientLogic, a number of opportunities arise that may otherwise go untapped by an internal function. Effective cross-selling and up-selling can release latent potential that transform a contact centre from an unavoidable cost centre to a desirable profit centre. Increased loyalty and retention can also be realised due to the expert training, focus and knowledge applied by the outsourced function, pre-tested across geographic cultures, language barriers and vertical sectors. Clients can immediately benefit from significant expertise that would otherwise take decades to acquire.
Internal customer care facilities can distract from a business's revenue generating core business. There are no distractions for outsourcers such as ClientLogic as customer care is their core competence.
About
ClientLogic is a leading international business process outsourcing provider of customer care, technical support and customer acquisition, with 50 facilities in 13 countries across four continents. Our consistent service quality helps clients reduce costs, improve retention and increase revenue per customer. ClientLogic's clients include brand-leaders in ISP, Telco, Financial Services, Travel, Technology, Retail and Consumer Goods sectors. ClientLogic is a top-five global customer care provider, managing over 296 million customer interactions.
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