From Skepticism to Strategic Partnership

The Client’s Story.

The Client comes from the Social Care Industry, and is committed to help customers of all ages from birth into retirement live a socially acceptable life by providing financial protection and helping them maintain a basic well-being, particularly when these encounter social difficulties.

What were the initial thoughts on Outsourcing?

The client had a small team managing the call centre in-house, but due to the various peaks and trends, the continuous changes in the resources, maintaining a high level of service and quality was always challenging. When the decision makers proposed the concept of outsourcing the call centre to a third party, they key people manning the call centre in-house were skeptical. These key people believed that the risks of outsourcing may have a potentially significant negative impact on the operations of the organisation when the outsourced activities are of ‘critical’ or ‘key’ significance to the performance of the organisation, as was the call centre to their organisation. Their concerns were driven by the fact that their service offering was very technical, and training, which was always given on the job, would be lengthy and it would take at least six months for someone to start handling the basic queries.

The outsourcing took place in 2017 – have the client’s perception on outsourcing changed?

Centrecom believes in building relationships, and when onboarding this client, Centrecom understood the client’s position and their concerns. It was agreed that the call centre would be outsourced in a phased approach, but the results were positive from the very beginning. After only three months of handling an overflow service, the client requested to completely outsource the call centre functions to Centrecom. Further to that, six months from the go-live date, the client did further internal changes and centralized its customer support function via telephone through one channel: Centrecom’s team. When asked how come this change in perception, the client stated that “the successful outsourcing relationship over these past two years is primarily the result of Trust, Integrity and Capability, enabling both parties to work together in a partnership with mutual respect and success aspirations.”

A TAILORED solution.

Centrecom believes in building relationships and providing solutions that are tailored to each and every client.  When it came to this client, customization and understanding the particular requirements made by the client has been crucial to the growth and success of the partnership.  Here is a snapshot of the tailored service delivered:

• Engaging of people who not only have a passion for customer service, but who have empathy skills and are able to understand the unique social background that the calling customers are coming from;
• Using the expertise in workforce management and forecasting to analyse the various trends and peaks the client experienced, and ensuring that the call centre is not only adequately staffed, but that productivity is not achieved at the detriment of quality;
• Designing a training plan that allows the client’s key staff to actively participate and meet the call centre agents;

Besides providing a tailored-made service, we still ensure to deliver the highest quality of service to our client and our customers by maintaining our standards in terms of business continuity, ensuring Service levels and targets are consistently achieved, and that rigorous management of performance and workforce is done so that the client can focus on their product and service offering, and we manage the d-to-day running of the service.

Why does the client recommend Centrecom?

The Chief Information Officer responsible of the call centre operations states:

“Competency is a critical area which Centrecom strives to achieve and improve upon at all times. Another aspect in addition to the company’s track record, is the actual people delivering the service. At Centrecom their leadership team effectively adjusted their operating model to cater for our cultural demands and sensitivities. This targeted focus on customer experience is designed to provide clients with a higher level of value-add.”