February Offering
March 17th, 2007
Convergys To Open New Call Center In Red Deer, Alberta…..
Convergys Customer Management Canada plans to open a 47,000 square-foot contact centre in Bower Place Shopping Centre, 4900 Molly Bannister Drive.
“Convergys is dedicated to meeting the high standards of billing and customer relationship management services that our clients expect and deserve,” said Convergys Senior Director of Site Planning, Gloria Griffin. “We look forward to working with the talented people of Red Deer to build a successful business and a good relationship that allows us to give back to the community.”
The contact centre is scheduled to open this spring, with training for new staff starting in April 2003.
“Convergys will be one of Red Deer’s major employers,” said Howard Thompson, Land and Economic Development Manager. “Its entry into the Red Deer market adds another dimension to our local economy. Instead of producing traditional goods and services, this high tech facility will focus on providing its clients with advanced, customer care.”
The customer care centre in Red Deer will be Convergys Customer Management Canada’s tenth centre in Canada.�
This clip is not aimed at advertising a previous employer as a Contact Centre leader. (Which they are) The observation is more to note the fact that when this company opened its second and third Canadian Centres, it expressed confidence in our delivery capabilities from this side of the border. Opening ten Canadian Centres is a real seal of approval!
Over the years, more than 125,000 Canadian military personnel have served on peacekeeping missions for the United Nations – more than any other country. Though the term “peacekeeping” didn’t become widely used until 1956, the UN began deploying peacekeepers almost 10 years earlier. And Canadians have been a part of it since the beginning.
This clip takes me back to my service beginning (later than 1956), and I am impressed by the fact that we only have ½ of 1% of the world population and we achieved this recognition.
To-day many years later in the commercial environment, I am once again impressed that we still only have ½ of 1% of the world population and we are achieving world recognition as a spot for remote service centres in the current globalization process. I guess it should not be a great surprise though, since the underlying skill set would be that of “skillful reconciliation”. Canada offers a North American niche.
So…. should you require remote service or just a remote monitoring, mentoring or tune-up service, stop by Outsource Oasis, a Canadian Service Centre.
CPQ
March 17th, 2007
Here is a short simple weighting formula Oasis developed to provide a metric on a company’s communications path. The result will be the CPQ for:
Company Personality Quotient.
(Communication Profile Quotient or Communication Path Quality may be substituted)
Equation to rate Company Personality Quotient:
CPQ = (I+V+R+A+C+D)/6
Technology as installed
IVR Interactive Voice Response ACD Automatic Call Distributor
(0) + (0) + (0) + (0) + (0) + (0) 0 /6 = 0
Therefore a CPQ of 0 for just having the technology!
As used effectively
Initiate and Validate and Resolve Accept and Contribute and Direct
(10) + (10) + (10) + (10) + (10) + (10) 60/6 = +10
Therefore a CPQ of 10 for effectively using the technology!
¼br /> As misused
Interrupt or Veil or Repel Abandon or Challenge or Deflect
(-10) + (-10) + (-10) + (-10) + (-10) + (-10) -60 /6 = -10
Therefore a CPQ of -10 for totally misusing the technology!
For those that believe communications is personal, then a negative CPQ is unacceptable.
A positive personality is a company imperative!
The intention of a numeric baseline is to provide constructive metrics, objectively aimed at CPQ continuous improvement.
Lee Carey
April Offering
March 17th, 2007
April 1, 2003
“America Online has laid off 420 employees at customer service call centers as part of the firm’s effort to slash annual expenses by more than $100 million.
With advertising revenue falling and subscribers departing for high-speed Internet providers, AOL has said cuts are necessary to give the Northern Virginia-based firm a shot at improved financial performance in 2004. The job cuts, which did not affect employees at AOL’s headquarters, were in Oklahoma City; Tucson; Ogden, Utah; and Columbus, Ohio.”
I have, for the last few months, been identifying some of the significant enterprise moves to the outsource model. From manufacturing companies outsourcing logistics to hydro utilities outsourcing information systems, there is a steady flow to advanced business models. This month’s observation is that of a company that seems not to have outsourced their customer support process. �
Although company contractions have been plaguing the news for the last few years, this article particularly notes the impact to customer service providers in the AOL savings plan. You would think customer service would be one of the last places to save a few dollars when mass customer acquisition and retention are so vital to success.
I say a few dollars because that is what the impact of 420 support people will mean to a company that reports a $98,700,000,000.00 loss for the year.
There are two observations from an outsource providers perspective.
The first observation is that, based on numerous industry studies, had AOL outsourced the customer service their loss would have been somewhat less than the 98.7 billion dollars reported. Less loss would be a good thing.
The second observation is one of optics. If a company chooses to outsource a process like customer service and for any unforeseen reason, has to reduce that service, the result is simply a purchase reduction. (How the service provider deals with the reduction is another story.) Purchase reductions are not monitored and regulated in the same bureaucratic fashion as staff reductions. This advantage has been the second most compelling attraction of outsourcing. The first advantage being that of cost reduction. The process truly becomes a demand service. If you need more or less, you buy more or less. This moves closer to perfect commercial balance.
Although the company examples plucked from news items are of the larger size, nothing small about 98.7 billion, the message is scalable down to the small enterprise. Globalization, specialization and communication are creating a new form of business processes. Business Models are becoming more “risk” resistant and non-core processes are being shopped out on a “Pay for Performance” on-demand basis.
Specialized service providers are challenged with the scheduling, blending, pooling and tooling to meet the new expectations on cost and quality. The messaging being, an attempt to be all things to all customers, may well disappoint the shareholder and do even less for all the other stakeholders. I advocate outsourcing as a means to purify commercial processes.
Do not allow your business to be hampered by the harness of last century’s business models as we strive for leading edge advantages in a global economy. Ensure you are creating the purest form of commercial entity to compete within your industry sector.
July Offering
March 17th, 2007
“Despite the impact of SARS, mad cow and the surging loonie, Canada’s economic outlook improved in May, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The OECD said Friday its composite leading indicator for Canada rose by 2.6 points to 132.4 in May, the first monthly increase since January. The indicator for the U.S., Canada’s largest trading partner, rose to 131.0 in May from April’s 129.4. It was the first monthly increase since February.”
As we move forward from our commercial malaise, more than transport traffic will surge at our border. In this age of communication dominance, the hidden dimension of international information processing will accelerate dramatically. We can track and report our trading levels monthly to monitor our economic performance at the longest undefended boarder in the world. Trade is increasing. Our Canadian-U/S trade is evolving. Information is a commodity and information processing is an international service. The Canadian service sector is growing.
Competitive companies shopping globally for “best in class” service are looking to Canada. This new requirement goes a quantum step beyond “best price” service. In this environment of deregulation and privatization, the consumer gets to take part. It is now time to move ahead from the 1 800 GET-LOST service to the 1 800 GET-HELP service. New rules apply. The market is now responding harshly to companies that ignore their service responsibilities. A churn in your customer base is just as costly as a churn in your employee base. Keeping customers is not a cost Centre; it is a profit Centre.
Growth in the breadth of communication mediums and hyper competitive nature of markets has affected the values and service expectations of customers who can now easily switch between competitors. Businesses are looking to programs that increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. Customers are looking to deal with companies that understand their wants and acknowledge their purchase history. They are looking for companies who can cater to their preferred communication devices and allow them to communicate seamlessly across channels
Over the past few years, corporations have migrated from product-centric business models to customer-centric models. Companies are reaching out to communicate more effectively and more often with their customers to successfully manage their most important non-book asset “their customers”! These rapidly emerging models require different and unique skill sets. If you do not already have these skills in your company’s human and technical inventory, the solution will reside in outsourcing. The assignment of these particular business processes to a specialized force of skilled resources is a cost-effective approach. These are services branded to your company’s identity and purchased on a pay per use basis. Risk mitigation is a pleasant bi-product of this service.
Best in class Canadian Outsourced Service Centres are providing competitive advantage to companies looking to rapidly advance their position.
If you need assistance, contact http://www.outsourceoasis.ca/�
June Offering
March 17th, 2007
Established in 1994, the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) is a uniform and independent measure of household consumption experience. A powerful economic indicator, the ACSI tracks trends in customer satisfaction and provides valuable benchmarking insights of the consumer economy for companies, industry trade associations, and government agencies.
This month’s observation of outsourced models is the success story of DirecTV as noted by ACSI (and two other private research groups) to be at the top of its industry as a provider of great customer service. With more than 11 million customers, this achievement was reported as having significant financial impact on the company’s performance. DirecTV declared that great service reduces the cost of replacing lost customers.
At the other end of the spectrum, Comcast was noted as earning one of the lowest scores of any industry since ACSI started measuring. With more than 21 million customers at stake, poor customer service must be very risky if not financially painful to Comcast.
What’s different?
It’s not the outsource provider! Both DirecTV and Comcast use Convergys.
Here is my analogy.
On a drive home from work several years ago, I had the unfortunate experience to follow a gravel truck. The driver had neglected to cover the box with a tarp. The sand, dust and flying rocks aggravated me. I knew that this fellow was an independent. It was Friday afternoon, and he was in a hurry. To work for the Construction Company, he had to be branded and blended as in the outsourcing industry. That meant his truck had been painted to match the company trucks and he was wearing a company baseball cap. When I picked up the phone to make my irate citizen’s call, it took a few seconds to decide whom I was angry with. It was not this driver; it was the Construction Company. I not only knew their number from the side of this truck, but I knew the president’s first name and residential number. Given he owned the company, I explained in construction terms just how upset I was with him. The long and the short of an unrepeatable conversation was, he agreed! It was his company and he was accountable. He did not need the truck number, he would give the whole company a tune up.
That’s the TARP story.
So to bring this back to outsourcing, the tarp would appear over the outsourced contract as a protector of good service. An initiative to ensure success.
TARP…Training And Retention Program
Should you choose to outsource without a tarp, you have set the stage for less than good service. This will lead to a new set of cost requirements.
To be like the Construction Company when outsourcing, take a leadership stance and address your issues, use the TARP.
If you need assistance, contact www.outsourceoasis.ca
March Offering
March 17th, 2007
“VICTORIA (CP) – British Columbia’s publicly owned power utility signed a $1.45 billion deal Friday with a Bermuda company to privatize one-third of the Crown corporation.
The 10-year agreement between B.C. Hydro and Accenture came less than 24 hours after the B.C. government passed an energy law that allows Hydro to privatize everything but its core assets of transmission, distribution and generation services.
The deal with Accenture is guaranteed to save B.C. Hydro $250 million over 10 years, said Larry Bell, B.C. Hydro’s chief executive officer.
Accenture takes on Hydro’s support services – customer services, information technology, human resources, computer services, financial systems, building and office services and purchasing.
“The structure of this deal and the purpose of this deal is to increase performance and save money for our ratepayers,” Bell said. “It’s got enormous potential for this province.”
B.C. Hydro rates have been officially frozen since 1996, but have not changed since 1993. The freeze ends March 31.”
To date we had been watching activities in the manufacturing, technology and banking services. They appeared to be simple outsource transactions for performance improvements. Here, it appears a public company can get to the same dance with a two step shuffle. Step one, you privatize and step two, you outsource.
This clip, and a litany of articles on B.C. Hydro’s re-structure, gets through the $1.45 billion deal without ever using the outsourcing word.�
Outsource.
You may not have stumbled over this word if you were not concerned with evolving business models of the last couple of decades, or actively looking for this word on the World Wide Web, or at www.outsourceoasis.ca (which contains the non dictionary definition of the word outsource in the Glossary). If you have not been involved in the discipline of business process cost reductions, you may have missed this word, which has grown into an industry. This is a large industry. It now combines telephony, computers and the Internet to deliver service. This industry has over 100,000 centers in North America and millions of employees contributing to its growth rate of 20 percent a year. This is worthy of mention at this particular time in technology’s horizon when contractions and flattening are the norms. The omission of the word outsourcing from the dictionary doesn’t reflect the use and popularity of the industry, just the posture it has taken. We do not talk about outsourcing a lot outside the industry because by nature the service is to appear transparent to the business process. So outsource will not get cited enough to qualify as vocabulary, and people will not read about this section of commerce in the dictionary. This particular industry is not much “into” being published, anywhere. So, outsource, as of today, is not in the latest release of Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. Not yet!
However, Business Process Outsourcing will become as popular to the service industry as sub-contracting is to the manufacturing industry.�
May Offering
March 17th, 2007
Proctor & Gamble announced a $3 billion, 10-year managed services contract with HP to cover operations in 160 countries.
This month’s observation of outsourced models is the success of the New HP, with its win of Proctor and Gamble. The size of the contract was not the eye catcher, but the fact that HP adds yet another major win to its roster of more than eight hundred outsourced customers.�
There was a time when other players shared the coverage; however, the new HP is now capturing most of the attention. Gone also is the secrecy of such moves. The New HP is openly acknowledging and promoting its transformation from hardware to service. The rapid evolution of Digital to Compaq to HP to “The New HP” will put any original survivors from Digital back where they started, working for a company interested in service.�
Also difficult to ignore is the increasing demand for increased specialization within the global business arena. Classical models developed during the last century cannot compete with today’s leaner commercial models. For those of us experienced in such lean models, now would be the time to apply our expertise across the entire organization. The need for broadly applied efficiency, standardization, and continuous improvement has never been greater.�
It would seem that a lot of our larger organizations have decided to work with the best, and concentrate on the rest. This provides an opportunity for the new model to flex its strength. The recent popularity of outsourcing is coming about in part from organizations that tried the “we can do all things” path and found that as its focus went to areas of weakness, its areas of strength began to slide. The internal solution of improving support processes placed unacceptable risk on core processes.
The prevailing climate for outsourcing is that corporations need to maintain flexibility and responsiveness in order to exploit market growth and transformation. At the same time, corporations must accelerate a high-quality, cost-effective operation model with a focused scope. To accomplish this, outsourcing must be viewed as a strategic tool, and not just a method to minimize costs. Outsourcing must get executive level attention.
Even though the larger companies are getting the news coverage, the need is just as great in small and medium sized companies. Advanced business models, outsourcing, globalization, and communications are equally important in creating strategic remodeling of these organizations. In response to this need, www.outsourceoasis.ca has much to offer.
November News Letter
March 17th, 2007
Manotick has just opened a Tim Horton so statistically I know that 7 more contact centres have opened some where in the region. Tim is my barometer. Last year we had 2000 Tims and 14000 Contact Centres in Canada. Tim Horton’s growth is more apparent than contact centres. Tim Hortons signs are obviously everywhere and must be successful based on the growth. Then times 7 for contact centres.
Pembroke may be the next Ontario City to have an outsourcer touch down and create hundreds of jobs within days of landing. Stream is considering a 500-person operation here.
For Oasis, a new wholesale client rides the telecom rail from San Fran CA to Cornwall Ontario to cope with the seasonal demand in the customer care department. Help truly can be just around the corner, here in Canada, for global challenges in customer care scheduling and delivery!
Company reviews of outsource options are seeping down the pecking order of corporate size to touch all involved with creating, promoting and justifying a corporate budget. It is unacceptable to find a higher quality approach at less cost after you present your final go forward plan. Investigate and evaluate this alternative on commercial efficiency.
HR-DEPT.COM selected Oasis for it channel partner in the Technology and Contact Centre arena. Oasis will actively market and sell this outsourced service as part of plans for increasing corporate efficiencies by improving access and minimizing administrative costs of HR functionality in the fast paced world of technology.
About HR-DEPT: www.hr-dept.com
System Works of Vermont has entered into initial discussions with Outsource Oasis to provide reciprocal marketing and sales support.
About Systems Works: WIP
The SCE section:
(Small Company Enterprise)
Ottawa 2002 As 25 to 30 thousand technology employees reestablish themselves; new company names will dot the landscape. We have been through the crunch several times before and emerged from the storm with more companies and more bandwidth each time. This is just another cycle, albeit, a large one. The backside does not just happen, we create it. So start thinking and doing. Plan to be at the back end, not just a back end.
The message is, we are on our way to getting bigger and better, this just happens to be the creative path required to push the force forward. For those of us who have been down the path before, this is the time to lend a helping hand to our new SCEs.
“Remember that brainstorming by yourself is just plain tunnel thinking!”
December News Letter
March 17th, 2007
“WOOD DALE, Ill., Nov. 21, 2002 – Rockwell FirstPoint Contact Corporation, a global provider of complete call center and contact center solutions, today announced the introduction of its Seamless IP Program, which reinforces its VoIP solution strategy.”
By itself, another technology nugget! However, for a long term practitioner, it reads as such: A commercial entity (Rockwell) with roots back into the 1800s became recognized as “the company” that introduced the computerized call centre technology in the 1970s – ACDs (Automatic Call Distributors). This company also pioneered computer to telephone advancements in the 1980s – CTI (Computer Telephony Integration). This company also led in the release of web based support in the 1990s – (Web Enabled Solutions). This company is now (2002) releasing their VoIP solutions – (Voice over Internet Protocol). This technology will allow us to share both our phone and Internet connection simultaneously. Now this must be an adaptive company and worthy of observation. The call centre service has been here for a while, but the full contact centre industry (phone, fax, e-mail, chat, and web) is just arriving and reshaping the support experience.
So I won’t need the additional phone line? Sharpen my pricing pencil? Stay tuned!
It has been 100 years since Orville Wright flew the first powered flight. A century of superb transportation improvement. This century is for communications! Consume bandwidth, not natural resources. Do not allow your business to be Telecommunicationally Challenged in a global economy.
And for this year’s lessons learned:
The one that got away.
Rail and aerospace giant Bombardier Inc. is outsourcing about $1.1 billion to CSC for provision of desktop, help desk, call centre, data centre, network and application management services for its divisions around the world.
I let this one go by because I could not fathom the commission.
To Oasis’s new business partners in this our inaugural year, a special Season’s Greetings
To: AnswerPlus ClienTelPlus
ConnecTel CymaCom
Davenport Advantage HRDEPT.com
Market Canada Open Vision
Sigma Spec Sonitek
SurveySource System Works
xFusion�
And to all of you, not on a 24/7/ support schedule: