Outsourcing of the Customer Dialogue – Jens Moeller Consulting Ltd.

How can you integrate and control activities of service providers?

The third part of the series Make or Buy looks at the integration of call center activities between client and the external service provider. As well as the control mechanisms to manage quality and costs of service providers.

The integration of processes, technologies, qualifications of personnel, as well as management of costs and services for both the client and the service provider is often the most underestimated task within the framework of an outsourcing project. From experience though, the whole project’s success is dependent on the quality of the integration

Qualification
In terms of qualification there are interfaces for measuring the service when doing a subjective evaluation of communication skills during a site visit. During the collaboration, the experiences of the service provider need to be evaluated continuously. Critical elements for success are hands-on training, a minimum induction period (4 – 6 weeks), specialist trainers and specific training modules for team leaders. Briefings with regard to the business itself, its products and key personnel should be done at the client location, as it allows conveying their philosophy and corporate identity and it encourages identification with the client. Interpersonal skills of social and communicative nature should be the focus of recruitment, as they can only be influenced in a minimal way through training. Necessary aptitude for new technologies as interface and general enthusiasm for learning are core issues that need to be taken into account. With regard to training, it is important to train all competencies from the beginning and that some of the project or product specific competencies and communicative competencies should be trained by the client themselves if the project is partially outsourced. Hands-on training, a minimum induction period, specialist trainers and specific modules for team leaders are critical elements for success. There should be regular on the job training and coaching, which should be based on targets for staff in question – otherwise, they are not very meaningful.
Business Processes
The aim is the integration of processes of the service provider with those of the client. For this, the goal is to minimize the interface of the handover to a single point of contact. Areas of responsibility, interfaces and reaction times need to be clearly defined. Decision makers and their remit need to be agreed on with the service provider.

Furthermore meetings, reviews, and reports are needed, in which current problems can be addressed and any necessary process changes can be agreed. Staff at the core of activities should be included in this process, as they are closest to the tasks. Even before the start of the project, these people should be trained in processes and they should be informed of any process changes immediately throughout the life cycle of the project. They should have access to business processes, either through Intranet or a knowledge bank. In order to give staff the ability to communicate any process changes as quickly and efficiently as possible, a change-process should be implemented, which defines at which point and how process changes should be communicated.

The involvement of staff, however, is only successful and of long-term benefit, if suggestions for process changes are supported by appropriate feedback.
Technology
With regard to technology it is important to be aware of the nature of data and how it will be exchanged. Data needs to be identified very clearly in order to avoid duplication. The first question is which data is needed. It is more efficient to exchange data in electronic form, by files. It needs to be considered how often result data needs to be relayed to the client, which information they need and in which format. It should also be considered how the client would like to be contacted. There should be a unique identifier in each data file, so it can be re-integrated into the existing data in the clients’ systems. Client and service provider needs the same communication systems.

When using a service number it is vital to take contractual rights into account, otherwise, the number may be lost, if there is a change in service provider. With regard to data protection, the relevant legislation should be used for control and management; this is even more stringent for the service provider. Any personnel should sign a disclaimer with regard to data protection and use of data, which will stay in force even after they leave the company. Any sub-contracting needs to be taken into account for this point. Only project relevant staff should have access to data.

Call center agents should, through the definition of access rights, have no ability to export data, to delete it or to copy it to a different database.

Table 1 shows a checklist for technology relevant point

Checklist Technology

Which data are needed for the project?

Where is that data held?

Can the data be transferred to the service provider electronically?

Which unique identifiers does the service provider need in order to be able to re-integrate the data into the clients’ systems

How often does the service provider need data updates or new data?

How does the data get to the service provider (taking data security into account)?

How will it be guaranteed that only relevant service provider personnel have access to the data?

Does the service provider have a data protection officer who can give information on relevant legislation for data protection?

Which access should the service provider have to data (read only, read/write, full access)?

Decide at which point the service provider will release results data

In which format and how will you receive results data?

How can this data be re-integrated into the clients’ software system

Who looks after the resulting follow-on activities?

Are service numbers necessary for the project?

Clarify rights to the service number

Management of costs and services
Reporting is the most significant and comprehensive method of measuring costs and services. The results of the report need to be compared with the billing for the same period. For inbound activities, the following are the most important factors:
- Service level: x% of all incoming calls are answered in y seconds
- Loss quota: amount of lost incoming calls
- First contact solution rate or first contact conclusion rate: amount of concluded calls from all incoming calls
Most other ACD data are included in this. The number of handled calls, as well as call and post-call handling duration, are relevant from a cost perspective, but they give little information on the quality of the calls. If the project is not charged by calls or call minutes, but agent hours the following factors might be important as well.

For outbound activities the following are the most important factors:
- Achieved revenue / profit margins / profits / appointments: those factors should be contractually defined up front
- Net- / gross quotas based on:
  
  Amount of gross calls: all calls are taken into account irrespective of whether the decision maker was made contact with or no
  
  Amount of net call: these are only those calls, which got through to the targeted person. The term “net calls” should be defined contractually in any case, as most service providers bill by net calls.
  
  Over and above reporting there are “mystery calls”, which can be used for monitoring purposes. These are anonymous test calls in which the caller simulates a customer.
  
  In order to evaluate the mystery call, an evaluation form in either electronic or paper format needs to be designed, which should only contain directly observable criteria.

Checklist Cost and Service Assessment

Cost drivers and the contractually established targets and price agreements as described in Part 1, should be the starting point. Service and cost assessment from overall business aims should be analyzed and transferred into individual call centre activities

These activities should be used for reporting. Together with the service provider it should be decided, which parameters are needed and how the relevant data can be collected.

Mystery calls should be made by the client or their consultant, specialist or another agency – but it should not just be left to the service provider.

Regular site visits are important – not only, if there are problems – but unannounced and in irregular intervals. These visits should be used to promote mutual trust

Customer surveys are a good way of gaining direct feedback from customers. These should be compared to the competition. Desired and actual outcomes should be looked at and questions should be raised for reasons of consistent and significant deviance.

Service results and costs should be compared.