Outsourcing: how to successfully transfer knowledge with your provider

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Today, companies have to juggle several factors to face competition, to position themselves optimally and effectively in a market that leaves no room for doubt or lack of information. So much so, that knowledge is an obvious, inescapable and essential component. As part of your outsourcing project, you will need to focus on acquiring, retaining, transferring and applying knowledge to your provider. It all starts with internal teamwork.

It must be noted that the creation of knowledge in-house is a process that involves risks, expenses, and complexity associated with new technologies. In order to achieve concrete and sustainable results that can evolve equanimously, it is essential for your company to involve your partners, including your outsourcing provider. This is what will be called interagency learning.

The importance of knowledge sharing for the development of your business

By engaging in knowledge sharing with your outsourcing provider, your company will achieve several major goals:

  • Becoming more effective: knowledge is clearly recorded and easily accessible to those who need it at the right time. Business processes are becoming faster, reducing the possibility of mistakes occurring.
  • Maintain a high level of knowledge: this becomes possible, even when key people in your company resign.
  • Maintain an optimal level of knowledge: through exercises, tests, situation tests and continuous training of your employees, you will allow the provider to access these updates to avoid any misunderstanding or error.

How to share your company’s knowledge with your provider?

A company that willingly shares its knowledge with its provider, whether through training manuals, guides or even FAQs, had to do an important job. This work enabled it to highlight errors that it corrected in order to grow and to face the competition. The cascading effect has allowed the company to continually improve its level of service delivery.

Learning to share knowledge is a thoughtful process, which requires a certain amount of time in order not to be surprised by the factors that might prevent the company from moving in that direction. By engaging your company in such an approach, it will lead to a change in culture and funding that is equal to the mission. The goal is to create an environment conducive to the creation of knowledge, so that it can be shared effectively, easily and quickly.

In practice, knowledge sharing can now take place through new technologies. There are many easy-to-use and affordable tools that can support the sustainability of working with your provider. The important thing is to know how to adapt the sharing system to your employees and to those of your service provider. These may be:

  • Webinars,
  • An intranet or extranet,
  • A blog,
  • Social networks,
  • Learning management systems (LMS),
  • A knowledge base or a
  • A Wiki.

Why use your outsourcing provider?

Outsourcing is not just the simple delegation of one service from one company to another, however specialised it may be. In reality, it is a collaboration, a partnership, an opportunity for exchange and, above all, the propagation of knowledge between two business partners. It is not just a matter of exchanging information that is easily transmitted, but of sharing real know-how, for example, in the areas of human resources, satisfaction surveys, remote secretarial services, tele-shopping or telemarketing.

List of benefits

The exchange of knowledge with your provider requires a fairly large amount of upstream work. However, the impact is not to be taken lightly:

  • For you: improvement of your performance towards your customers; improvement of your services; optimised prices; deadlines met; increase of your provider’s competence which favours your existing customers and prospective ones.
  • For your service provider : improvement of its Know-How; increase in the volume of customers.

Increasing the chances of successful knowledge transfer

If knowledge transfer is an exercise in itself, it carries risks that can be overcome. The secret lies in the commitment and trust that will come to support the customer-provider relationship. As such, these two elements must be granted sparingly.

All this to say that the choice of provider will be the key to your outsourcing project. You will share a local and close collaboration, on the condition that the company is located, for example, in Mauritius. For this, your outsourcing process will provide a team entirely dedicated to monitoring the smooth running of the collaboration, meetings in person which will be sufficiently developed for a long-term relationship.

As your service provider undoubtedly offers its services to other customers, it is essential to pave the way for a strong, tangible, transparent and respectful collaboration, especially with regard to your critical data and information, such as your production costs.

Here again, Knowledge Transfer can play a major role!

In conclusion

Knowledge sharing must be seen as an added value. So during your outsourcing process, you will need to ensure that your organisation clearly understands the ins and outs of your project. The people at the top of the hierarchy must be sufficiently convinced of the benefit of such an initiative to, then, be able to convince your employees so that they too can understand the importance of your sharing approach.

In the long term, this will allow to feed the support that will offer your provider information composed of unique elements of quality, relevance and without any redundancy.

« Business continuity Plan »: why is it important?

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The information system of a provider is an essential element. When outsourcing one of your services, make sure that your partner has a Business Continuity Plan (BPC) in case of a threat to its digital systems, network, infrastructure, power outage, hardware failure or even in case of a natural disaster.

The importance of establishing a BCP

With the dematerialisation of data, the data protection has, undeniably, become a major concern. Any failure of your provider’s computer system can have serious consequences, in some cases it can endanger your business.

Your provider has the duty to think and plan about the occurrence of these risks. He must in particular plan to introduce a solution designed to back up the data that he has at his disposal. This requires a business continuity plan (BCP), which includes a mission recovery plan. This plan must be up-to-date, robust, continuously tested and easily understandable. Human and technical resources are part and parcel of the equation.

Therefore, the purpose of the BCP is to allow the company to limit any harmful impact that may be caused by the interruption of its activity. It is a secret to no one that in the world of outsourcing, where the information system is one of the central nerve, an interruption of activity can quickly occur and this can have heavy consequences for the « victim » and especially for its clients, in other words, you!

Understand how the risk of downtime will be treated

Ask your provider frankly about his or her method of reducing the risk of downtime:

  • Does he accept it even if it impacts on his business, his customers and their respective profitability?
  • Has he planned to stop or not launch its delivery as part of a potentially high threat?
  • Does he have an alternative so that he can transfer his business or protect himself (other offices, insurance, etc.)?
  • Does he have a well-established procedure to deal with the risk upstream in order to reduce any possibility of downtime?
  • Has he implemented a BCP (Business Continuity Plan) or a RBP (Return to Business Plan) to limit the impact of any incident?

What are the consequences involved?

  • Financial: Time is money to repeat the old saying. In case of an interruption of activity, the bill can amount to several million euros in the most complex cases.
  • Customer Satisfaction: the image and reputation of a company is sometimes depends on several factors. An interrupted service can be detrimental to customer satisfaction.
  • In-house: employees, contractors, management; the interruption of activity always has consequences on the normal course of an organisation.
  • Legal: as a provider, a company must be legally able to meet its obligations towards its client, otherwise it will be financially penalised, not to mention the impact on its reputation.

 Understand the implementation of a  » Business Continuity Plan »

Continuity of activity is an important issue for the provider, so he must think and plan his approach, without leaving any room for improvisation. If he chooses to create his Business Continuity Plan in-house, he will have to have trained and competent employees who can take charge of this sophisticated and technical approach in order to develop a plan to manage the disruption with a recovery time objective.

It all begins with the establishment of three essential foundations:

  • A crisis unit,
  • Means,
  • Procedures to be activated in the event of an incident to ensure continuity or resumption of activity.

The purpose of this set is to determine:

  • Critical data and process availability issues, needs and requirements,
  • The importance of your company’s assets and information and
  • Risks to the information system.

It will then be necessary to dissect, analyse and exploit the following elements:

  • Key suppliers: Verify the contractual commitment; whether it has a pool of relay suppliers or if it is able to re-internationalise its activity.
  • Substitution sites: The provider must have the possibility to propose a relay to one or more substitution sites in order to save the data.
  • IT and telecom providers: The provider must have procedures and strategies in place to manage its human and technical resources in the event of an emergency.
  • Human resources: the provider must have HR procedures in place to ensure continuity of service in the event of a threat of business interruption due to exceptional circumstances.
  • Written documents: the provider must be able to provide his client with written documents that clearly explain his actions in the event of a problem.

Good to know:

Your provider must also put in place test procedures to ensure their effectiveness during a possible failure.

These procedures need to be constantly reviewed in order to be up-to-date.

The business continuity team must also be trained and tested and it must also carry out simulations based on the plan and the strategies agreed upon.

To summarise

In the context of outsourcing, it is in the client company’s interest to check with the chosen service provider whether it has put in place a Business Continuity Plan, as this is not only a question of sustainability but also of the profitability of both parties.

This process would certainly take a long time to set up, requiring permanent maintenance. However, it will allow the provider to offer a system of prevention and recovery of data when a potential threat occurs (computer, climate, etc.).

The Business Continuity Plan serves to protect all stakeholders involved in outsourcing, so it must be robust, tested and continuously improved to ensure that no identifiable flaws remain in a sensitive system.

When is right time to outsource?

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Outsourcing is a powerful solution for companies that want to grow and face fierce competition, while positioning themselves favourably in the market. Regardless of their size, they are able to bridge the skills gaps within their teams, improve their efficiency and better focus on their core business.

Today, technology makes outsourcing particularly affordable, so much so that some countries have made it their field of expertise, like Mauritius, the leader in its region, when it comes to call centres. However, it is important, as a potential customer, to ensure that this solution is adequate. This can be done by, for example, taking stock of the ability of your services to perform certain tasks effectively.

3 questions to determine if outsourcing is the solution for your business

Before you start, keep in mind that outsourcing is a tool. If used with thought and organisation, it will allow the company to better focus on its core business while allowing another firm to, also, focus on its specialty!

Will outsourcing help your business grow?

Deloitte’s 2018 Global Survey on outsourcing highlighted the financial factor as one of the main benefits of outsourcing. However, companies are not content with just this. On the contrary, they turn to this solution for the opportunity to work with partners to integrate services that they would not otherwise be able to provide.

For start-ups, outsourcing can be the key to fast and efficient development, which would not be possible without this added value.

Will outsourcing bring additional know-how to your teams?

Yes, outsourcing can enhance the skills of your teams! Take, for example, a marketing team that is well trained, but does not have the time to deal with teleprospecting and remote marketing. By outsourcing this part of their mission, you will allow the same team to implement its expertise and to improve it, thus completing its mission. In other words, whether it is regarding human resources, satisfaction surveys to measure the quality of your services or even your secretarial services, outsourcing is a way to help your internal teams improve and excel.

Is outsourcing likely to make your teams less efficient?

Outsourcing is not just about entrusting « time-consuming » or low-value-added tasks. Indeed, in some cases, the conclusion is that your company needs to outsource some basic services. In such a case, it is not a question of stealing the expertise of a team, but of an opportunity for it to devote itself more effectively to its profession and to be more productive. How? Outsourcing is an opportunity to streamline processes and free up time for critical projects.

To sum up this part, any company, whether it is an SME or a very large organisation, can start its outsourcing process by asking these three essential questions. Outsourcing is above all a strategic solution, which allows, for example, small companies to position themselves favourably in relation to the larger ones. In any case, it is essential to take stock of the services that can be entrusted to a third party company, always with the aim of obtaining optimal results.

Signs that it’s time to outsource!

Nowadays, in a merciless competitive environment, with constant pressure on the global market, every company has the mission to manage its business in the most efficient way possible, while reducing operational costs and maintaining a high quality of service. If you find yourself in one of the following balance sheets, your company is ready for outsourcing.

My employees do not have the time, resources and training required to manage certain tasks: Let us imagine that a department of your company must manage an essential task on a daily basis. However, the people working in this department do not have the time, training or even the resources to tackle it in a smooth and efficient way. In such a case, outsourcing is the most appropriate solution, as it will allow you to collaborate with competent and well-equipped professionals who know and understand your problem. In addition to saving time and energy, these professionals will also be mentored.

My company operates on a controlled budget: It is a fact, outsourcing is very successful because it significantly reduces the operating costs of its followers. Delegation of certain services (remote secretary, satisfaction survey, HR, teleshopping, telemarketing and others) will allow your company to reduce its operating expenses, those related salaries and to increase its profits.

My company is stagnating: There is no question about it; your company is not able to develop properly in its sector. For example, your marketing department is too busy with daily routine tasks and is thus unable to come up with new ideas for marketing your product or service. Outsourcing these tasks will allow your marketing department to change its core objectives and to focus on its core mission.

My employees are short of ideas: This phenomenon is quite typical in companies that have been in the market for a long time with a strong team of employees. If recruiting new heads can be the miracle solution, it has a cost not only in time, but above all in money. Outsourcing is here a perfectly reasonable solution since the arrival of outsiders is synonymous with new ideas! It will allow your company to take new directions and to implement new ideas.

My management team is overburdened: outsourcing specialists are reliable and responsible, which will save you from constantly monitoring their work to make sure they are serious. If your management team is overburdened, outsourcing is a very feasible solution, provided, of course, you create an internal control team, which will supervise the whole.

Outsourcing is not a futile attempt to keep our heads above water, but a real organisational decision to delegate certain functions to outside professionals specialised in this type of mission. To support them, they can rely on technologies, which also evolve with phenomenal speed and this is particularly reassuring for companies wishing to outsource.

9 tips for successful outsourcing

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It is a permanent mission for entrepreneurs and small entrepreneurs: They must be creative to achieve their business goals while saving time and money. Outsourcing is a particularly effective strategy to do so.

9 tips for outsourcing to be successful and smooth

Clearly define the steps of your outsourcing project

Successful outsourcing must be prepared, with a timetable, specifications and accessible resources. The very first step is to define the requirements of your project in order to create precise, complete and realistic information on which your provider will base itself to provide you with a cost price and put in place the necessary human and material resources.

Clarity and precision will become the basis of your outsourcing project.

Assess claimants as candidates for hiring

Once you have defined a list of potential suppliers, evaluate each outsourcing company’s proposals and most importantly: ask them questions! As is the case with a job applicant, choosing a service provider can be a relatively subjective experience. Nevertheless, for a relevant, economical and efficient outsourcing that will allow your company to achieve its objectives, you must be meticulous in checking references, comments and opinions of other customers. This will involve building a dialogue in which you will express your expectations and concerns about the provider’s ability to meet your expectations. To use a popular expression: discuss without shame!

Choose an experienced provider

For an enterprise to grow, it must be able to rely on experienced and trained forces with the necessary equipment and resources. This also applies to outsourcing. Rely solely on a supplier who knows his subject and eliminate those who grope in their area.

Don’t just save money

While this may be particularly tempting, choosing a provider solely on the basis of its tariffs can be a trap. If this is your first experience with outsourcing, choose a service provider with a pricing grid between the very high and very low rates. It is about finding a service provider who will offer you value for money.

Take an interest in your provider’s portfolio and results

Check the chosen provider’s portfolio and make sure that his contracts have met his clients’ expectations regarding both the quality and the process. If in doubt, offer to give him a trial run throughout a well-defined period of time. A service provider who really wants to win a contract must be able to provide you with a reasoned description of his work and what he can offer your company, if it outsources.

This approach is not without a cost. However, it will allow your company to make considerable savings.

Start small

Always guided by a responsible and well-thought-out approach to your company’s development, start by entrusting the provider with a small project. This will allow you to gauge its organisation and its ability to meet your needs. You will know if it will be able to meet your expectations in the future, when it comes to taking charge of complex projects.

Pay your provider at specific times

Just as you need to clearly define the scope of the project, you need to define a schedule with clearly defined milestones and planned checkpoints that will give your company visibility on the completion of your project. This way, you will be sure that the deadlines are met, especially if you tie them to payments. In concrete terms, this would mean paying, for example, 20% to 30% of the total project price in advance and with the rest of the payments would depend on the completion of 3 or 4 stages.

Priorities must be negotiated upstream

Whatever the outsourced service, you must make sure that the provider has understood the purpose of your project. To do this, you must first negotiate the components of the service you expect and explain the « final product « .

The writings remain

As in any project, some components may be modified. This may be the scope of the service, the final « product » or the rates. In addition to a clearly communicated and searchable timetable, ensure that any information, agreement or refusal, however minimal, is expressed in writing. Take care to save any exchange as well!

To summarise

Outsourcing may seem daunting, but being well prepared will allow your business to grow serenely. By allowing your employees to concentrate on their real job; by entrusting essential ancillary services and tasks to a specialised professional, you will see a positive impact.

To summarise the key steps:

Define your needs and prepare a clear calendar with steps to follow.

Take the time needed to choose a service provider who will be able to listen to you, offer and exchange ideas, and above all, who has proven himself with other customers. For this, proceed as you would to find a key collaborator.

Don’t rely solely on your service provider’s rates, as low prices can hide nasty surprises. Choose a provider whose rates remain reasonable.

What are the customer feedback for the selected provider? Again, take the time to dig and to research.

Offer a trial period to your provider by giving him a small project at first. This will allow you to judge its ability to meet your needs accurately.

Do not pay the full price charged to your supplier from the beginning of the collaboration! Proceed in clearly defined stages.

Be clear since the beginning of your project about what your provider needs to consider so that it meets your needs accurately.

Record all exchanges in writing and keep an electronic record whenever possible!

Outsourcing: what are the factors of a successful project in every aspect?

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For more than 10 years now, companies have been looking to improve their performance, position themselves in an advantageous way in the competitive market while reducing their expenses. For this, they can rely on outsourcing. What factors were considered by those who made the transition?

Benefits of outsourcing

Outsourcing has become a real tool for companies that want to focus on their core business. This practice offers many advantages:

  • The customer can rely on a specialist service provider to perform specific tasks, while having access to the means and information being leveraged to ensure the smooth running of the service and saving on operating costs,
  • The client no longer needs to invest substantial capital to carry out complex tasks since the provider has all the resources and technologies necessary to take over these operations,
  • The client can remain confident of achieving good results on low value-added tasks. This allows the firm to focus on its core business,
  • The company can focus on its development. It can also, if possible, invest enough capital to split its organization.

Factors to be taken into consideration

Today, companies must be competitive and grow while increasing their turnover and modelling a more efficient, experienced and productive back-office. Many have opted for outsourcing to achieve this. While doing so, they have taken into account the following factors. They include the most logical ones to those which are too often neglected.

Cost evaluation: A complex but essential step, cost evaluation must be accurate in the context of an outsourcing project. This is especially relevant when services that are about to be outsourced have been, until now, managed within the company, in-house.

The quality of the service: Another essential point to consider is the quality provided by the future service provider. It must be high, even when the services concerned are not of high added value, do not involve the core business of the company and can be difficult to take charge of internally because of the lack of specific in-house skills.

Mastering your business before giving part of it to a supplier: For successful outsourcing, the customer must be able to master every part of his business, including the least « interesting » aspects before passing those on to a supplier. This will allow the company, once outsourcing is in place, to monitor and supervise the work being done.

Look for a partner rather than a provider: The provider must be experienced in the company’s market, so he will be able to execute the requests of his client. Most importantly, he will also be able to advise the client, keep him informed of the latest innovations, while offering him a secure framework.

The transition phase: This is an essential and sensitive part of the outsourcing process. During this phase, the client is not engaged and still has a way out in case of incompatibility with the service provider.

KPI-performance indicators: For the customer and his service provider to evolve at the same time, it is necessary to put in place performance indicators, but also a system of penalties. Here, feedback from the company’s customers must also be taken into account.

Pilot phases and safety nets in case of disputes: In order for the collaboration between the company and its provider to take place in a transparent way, it is important that both parties have information, concrete data, to exchange. This will require weekly technical committees, monthly pilot committees and annual strategic committees.

The outsourcing contract

Outsourcing is a kind of constant balancing game between the customer and the provider, within a legally secure framework for both parties. To achieve this, it is essential to draft a contract in due form, which will take up, point by point and with the greatest possible precision, the expectations and achievements of each party involved. This document should include the following points in detail:

  • Description of the service provider’s speciality,
  • The methods used by the provider to exclusively supervise the mission entrusted to him by the client and
  • The flat rate paid to the provider.

But also…

Project management: the contract will clearly define the obligations of the client, express his needs and constraints during the operation based on the internal problems faced and on his organisation.

The obligations of the provider to transmit information: With the aim of enhancing transparency, the contract must clearly set out the obligation of the provider to relay information, pieces of advice and warnings, both before and during his mission.

Legal constraints in case of termination of the client: The client should be able to terminate his partnership with his provider for a financial payment, if ever the initial contract provides for a legal action on the part of the provider for such a move.

The limitation of liability clause and the concept of obligation: This clause prevents the provider from being totally free of liability in the event of a dispute with the client.

The reversibility clause: It allows the customer to take over or have the outsourced service taken over by another provider of his choice, and this will be conducted according to the obligations and conditions of the contract.

Outsourcing can be defined as a constant exercise to create, maintain and preserve a consistent balance, for the client’s company, which must manage to keep a certain know-how, while allowing the provider to deploy its know-how.

By demonstrating courage, innovation, determination and objectivity, the various players in the outsourcing sector have woven a competitive and uncompromising market. This is an undeniable advantage for companies that need to outsource some of their services, as they are certain to benefit from a quality service. By effectively preparing for this change, a strong and sustainable partnership can be built.

Outsourcing helps a company to compete and succeed

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A company can implement various options to improve its competitive position in the market. Innovative process development, new business project and innovative technology are solutions that can be deployed in-house. To these, we can add outsourcing and its many benefits, including the possibility of repositioning the company, renovating its activities, and quickly implementing projects while making savings. How can you turn outsourcing into a tool for your company’s competitiveness, regardless of your firm’s size or its core business?

Outsourcing: definition

Outsourcing is the concept when a company decides to outsource, entrust the responsibility of, one or more of its services to a third-party, a specialised company that is often located abroad, such as in Mauritius. In the collective mind, outsourcing aims to « rid » companies of tasks that are too time-consuming and that demand too much energy and human and financial resources but which must be completed with a new perspective/outlook. Today, it allows employees to participate actively in the development of the company by focusing on the core business of their employer, whatever it may be, without having to manage parasitic tasks.

Outsourcing companies are indeed experts and they are equipped with the necessary human and material resources to support one or more services, such as human resources, satisfaction surveys to assess the quality of your services, remote secretary services or even telemarketing.

Why do companies choose to outsource?

According to a recently published study by an offshore outsourcing specialist, 35% of companies are turning to outsourcing for benefits related to costs. 25 % of them justify the adoption of this solution to overcome the shortage of local skills. Finally, 22 % were won over by the flexibility that comes naturally with outsourcing while 18% are motivated by its time saving capabilities.

As such, it is no secret that outsourcing has many advantages, the most important one being to give firm the ability to focus on their core business. Through time savings and savings on operating and wage costs, it gives managers the time needed to focus on the strategic aspects essential for business development.

Thanks to this, the company becomes more responsive and flexible as its forces no longer have to manage time-consuming tasks with little added value.

Good to know

People tend to confuse the concepts of outsourcing and subcontracting despite the fact that these are two different ideas altogether.

In the context of subcontracting, a main contractor will contact a subcontractor first and foremost to increase its revenues while reducing its operating costs and taking a leading position in the market. For this, the subcontractor will perform a sub-work task while the sponsoring company will direct the entire operation.

Why does outsourcing have a bright future ahead?

Outsourcing is a relevant and apt decision for any company wishing to improve and to increase its competitiveness in the market. As such, more and more companies are selecting this option and are choosing solutions that go beyond their borders. There are many reasons behind this. These are:

The providers have succeeded in helping their customers effectively to develop their products in a qualitative and professional environment. To do this, they are constantly working to develop and master a core set of skills that enable to meet the many challenges while offering a wider range of services.

If companies fall behind on technological advances and innovations, the providers are always up-to-date! Whether it is regarding equipment, training, quality, best practices in general, outsourcing companies are always up-to-date.

Specialised service providers are able to make the necessary investments to be at the forefront of technology, even in the face of shorter time-to-market and product life cycles. By outsourcing one or more services, client companies will be able to benefit from these competitive advantages!

Why is outsourcing an ally of enterprise competitiveness?

Each company will decide to outsource according to its needs and objectives, so the benefits will be different:

  • Outsourcing offers companies a way to break free of market competition by hiring a service provider, but more importantly a partner, with the expertise and capabilities needed to bring innovations to the market quickly
  • The presence of an experienced supplier will encourage companies to enter and execute new markets quickly
  • By no longer having to invest funds from non-critical services, businesses can grow thanks to a reduced financial burden and therefore can respond opportunistically to new markets
  • Finally, outsourcing allow businesses to focus on key skills and create skills that directly add value to customers.

On the road to outsourcing!

Outsourcing has an infinite range of direct and indirect benefits. It allows companies to develop a powerful relationship with their suppliers, through a collaboration based on innovation and development.

In view of the considerable advantages, outsourcing, of any kind, has over time become a strategic, even transformative, asset. By becoming a powerful tool for the concentration on activities, for the effective management of its workforce and generating ever greater value, outsourcing rhymes with innovation, advantages and expansion, but above all with competitiveness. By entrusting certain processes to an outsourcing company, you make the winning choice for your entire organisation.

Outsourcing: Key Performance Indicators

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Key Performance Indicators – KPIs allow companies to quantify their objectives so that they can regularly monitor their performance and determine what works and what needs to be improved within the business. Each industry has its own indicators, but what about call centres?

Performance indicator: definition

The performance indicator is a measurable value that gives direct visibility to data and trends. It is leveraged at several levels to assess a company’s ability to achieve its objectives. It is divided into two categories: high-level, which focuses on the overall performance of the company and the lower level will focus on procedural services such as sales, marketing, human resources, support and others.

What are the performance indicators for call centres?

The monitoring of performance indicators is the responsibility of call centre managers who collect different types of data across multiple platforms focused on different business processes. As such, when you are preparing to outsource one of your services, you should discuss the performance indicators that will be monitored, based on your company’s expectations, with your provider.

Some examples of performance indicators that are taken into account in the context of outsourcing of your human resources, satisfaction survey, remote secretary and telemarketing services:

Active Calls Waiting: This metric provides an overview of the number of calls currently on hold in the queue. It is essential for the team of operators who will then be able to adjust their work pace accordingly. The aim is to ensure that the traffic meets the company’s objectives and at the same time to collect real-time information on the workload of telephone operators.

Longest waiting time for a call: This metric is more important than it appears to be! Its measures both the target holding time and the longest holding time per day. Thanks to this, necessary measures can be taken to maintain customer loyalty. One example is by increasing the number of agents on call

Peak traffic time: This metric allows you to target the busiest time slots in order to prepare and plan for the availability of enough agents.

Status indicators of the call centre: This key performance indicator provides an overview of the team performance through several other indicators. These measures give an idea of the current capabilities and performances of the team.

Call abandonment: This metric provides an overview of the number of disconnected calls before any interaction with the telephone operator. It also provides the background information of the number of the disconnected calls versus active and pending calls.

Average processing time: This metric monitors the average duration of a call to understand the workload required for each call. It also helps to know the performance and effectiveness of agents.

Cost per call: This metric takes into account the hourly rate of each agent, the resources made available to generate a call and the investments made into the required equipment. Its monitoring is essential to avoid any loss.

Customer Satisfaction: It allows a direct view on the performance of the telephone operators. This will have a direct impact on the perception that customers have of companies.

Post-call processing time: This metric is used to monitor the effectiveness of agents while performing post-call operations. This would help to determine the time that should be allocated for this action.

Waiting time: While it is not advisable to put customers on hold, this metric allows you to get an overview of the average waiting time of a caller before he/she is connected with a telephone operator.

Customer calls processed as from the first minute: Customers do not like to wait before being connected to an operator. As such, this measure helps to ensure that customer calls are processed within set deadlines.

Call arrival rate: This measure tracks the number of incoming calls per day over the last 30 days. This allows call centre managers to identify the trends and to determine days on which the number of calls was particularly low or high.

Call resolution: This measure tracks the number of calls resolved. It also allows you to research for more specific data, such as the resolution rate of the first call and the number of calls requiring a subsequent resolution.

Call Setup Success Rate (CSSR): Not all attempts to call are conclusive. Thus, the Call Setup Success Rate gives an idea of the successful call completion rate according to the specifications provided by the client.

Time lost due to technological problems: It is important for the provider to understand downtime and to be able to identify the causes of this production loss. This particular measure therefore provides an overview of the total downtime due to technological problems.

Call arrival rate: this rate measure provides information on the number of incoming calls over a given period.

Call back messages: This metric indicates the total number of messages left with a call back number. The provider will therefore have to monitor the number of customers who have left messages requesting a call back in order to ensure that all messages are processed on time and according to the specifications provided by the customer.

Repeat calls: this metric identifies recurring problems. Thanks to this, when a particular problem occurs at a high frequency, teams can prioritise their tasks while implementing a solution. At the same time, they will ensure that this does not have a negative impact on production.

Agent usage: this metric gives a view of the total time spent by agents on the various tasks related to a call. It also helps to assess team productivity with regards to defined objectives.

Call completion rate: this metric monitors the total number of calls connected and successfully completed against the number of calls that failed.

Wish to outsource? 8 key points to consider

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Today, thanks to outsourcing, companies that are overburdened or over-dependent on deadlines can delegate one or more services to specialists. However, the market for outsourcing companies is huge. So, it can be difficult for the entrepreneur to have an accurate idea of the quality of the work of the provider, of its compliance with standards and regulations, of the supervision and of the relevant transmission of information. In addition to this, the entrepreneur must be able to determine which service(s) to outsource and which one(s) his company will keep. The aim is to ensure that no vital action is taken in hand by a third party, however specialised it may be.

If you’re thinking about outsourcing, below are 8 key points that you can work on to make the best decision for your business.

The provider: its history, evolution and added value

Outsourcing is act that should be improvised as it is about the development and success of your business. Thus, it is essential to take the required amount of time, as you would to choose a team leader or key collaborator, to determine which service provider exactly meets your needs and your company’s ambition. In practical terms, you must make an in-depth check of his know-how: does he have the resources needed to take charge of the mission you want him to carry out? Can he illustrate this with examples?

Do not hesitate to compare several providers by distributing the tasks in order to determine which one will be the most efficient and the most reliable. Afterwards, choose the one that will stand out of the lot. It will take time and a financial investment. However, the gain is worth it for your business.

Clearly determine what will be delegated to the provider and what will be kept in-house

The best approach is to determine exactly which tasks:

  • Can be done with simplicity and for which there is a process to follow,
  • Require additional information, improved processes over time and involvement of other team members because of their importance.

This will help you understand which tasks can be delegated because they are simple and which ones must be managed internally because of their importance to your organisation. Keep in mind that internal employees are able to understand the company, its culture and its objectives in more depth.

Outsourcing supervised by an in-house manager

Outsourcing is in no way a sign of total disengagement on the part of the client company. Whether it involves outsourcing, for example, your human resources, your satisfaction survey service in order to measure the quality of your services, your remote secretary services or even your telemarketing services, you must entrust the supervision of operation to an in-house manager. If your company does not have such a profile, you must, without wasting much time, find the appropriate person who will manage the process and who will work with the outsourcing team to ensure that it delivers quality and on time work. He/she will work with the project leader to ensure that all players are on track with planned and achievable objectives.

Hire a consultant to create a flawless standard operating procedure

The outsourcing of one or more services depends on the quality of the service and the resulting performance. In order to determine these two elements, it is essential to have in-house expertise, and if this is not the case, you must hire a consultant. The latter will therefore be responsible for creating a standard operating procedure (SOP) by auditing and observing the procedures of your own staff. In case of failure, he/she can also help you to recruit an external profile in order to remedy the situation.

A documented outsourcing process

By choosing outsourcing, your goal is to save time and to allow your internal team members to focus more on higher priority tasks. How are you going to determine the quality of a provider’s work to achieve this? The best way to do this is to « test » potential niche companies by providing them with a clearly written and documented process for carrying out the tasks that interest you. By documenting this process as much as possible, you will be able to maintain quality control and consistency between your expectations and the results delivered with minimal revision. In addition, as a partner, the right provider must be able to provide you with the right pieces of advice that will improve your processes.

Time: an irreplaceable and essential ally

Once you have selected the tasks that you want to outsource, determine the time and cost necessary to carry them out internally. It is then that you will have to start gradually integrating external sources into the performance of these same tasks. This will allow you to compare the productivity of the two parts (internal and external) in relation to the cost.

With these metrics on hand, give the service provider more and more priority by investing in tasks that have to abide by time and budget constraints, while reducing those that are close to your normal operating margins.

Quality, reliability, communication and accountability?

A good service provider must be able to guarantee you four characteristics: the quality of his teams and equipment, his reliability, his sense of communication and his assumption of responsibility. In clearer terms, you can outsource when you are certain that the chosen company:

  • Provides quality work,
  • Has always that are always available,
  • Ha supervisors who can communicate clearly and effectively and
  • Is always willing to take on extra work.

Always outsource tasks without added value for your business

Last but not least, it is important for your business development to outsource only non-core tasks, which take too many resources in-house. These tasks must prevent your teams from focusing on the core business of your company. If you find out that a task is being handled in-house without affecting the normal day-to-day operations, review the points in your outsourcing project.

By taking care to weigh and scrutinise every task that you want to outsource, you will be able to more easily determine the difficulties and growth points of your business.

Let’s zoom in on CRM

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You plan to outsource one or several services in order to boost your business development. During this process, you hear about CRM, Customer Relationship Management. What is it about exactly? Let’s zoom in on this feature that can turn this step into an extraordinary tool in many ways.

CRM-definitions

CRM can be leveraged as a technology, a process and a strategy. Companies use it to manage interactions with existing and potential customers, as it represents a complete equation for:

  • Streamlining processes,
  • Building relationships with clients,
  • Increased sales,
  • Improved customer service and
  • Increased profitability.

In other words, the Customer Relationship Management System allows companies to improve their business relationships, communication between different internal actors and also with customers and suppliers. It enables the recording and the analysis of the various interventions with users and the management and maintenance of the relationship with potential and loyal customers.

The various advantages of CRM

This list of benefits is not exhaustive. However, it is important to remember that CRM:

  • Collects, analyses and sorts out interactions between the company and its customers, allowing each player in the trade chain to exploit the collected data.
  • A centralised CRM system allows for improved management, tracking and access to contact history thanks to the recording of all interactions taking place.
  • Allows the various departments of the company to interact seamlessly.
  • Increases productivity by, for example, reducing the administrative burden of sales representatives.
  • Provides sales managers with all the necessary updated data, in real time, to, for instance, assess the viability of certain transactions.
  • Managers, for their part, are equipped with a tool capable of providing accurate forecasts, giving them visibility on current sales.
  • Sales teams are able to analyse current data to predict future customer trends thanks to a predictive analytics system.
  • The tool ensures the creation of reliable reports through a comprehensive view of sales tunnels. This circumvents any problem that may arise.
  • In addition to making the required data more easily available, the reports improve team productivity by saving time on manual data extraction or through dynamic cross-tabulations.
  • Provides ‘reportings’ that improve customer conversion at the right time, regardless of sales channel.

Operations of CRM in software format

The companies that adopt CRM wish to:

  • Improve contact management,
  • Render collaborations among teams more dynamic,
  • Increase productivity,
  • Manage sales,
  • Anticipate and plan targeted sales,
  • Obtain numerical reports,
  • Improve sales statistics,
  • Satisfy and retain customers exponentially,
  • Improve their marketing ROI,
  • Enhance their products and services

For this purpose, the CRM software will analyse the interactions between the company and its customers. It will do so by recording and saving the information of the company’s customers. These are phone number, e-mail address, etc. At the same time, it will extract, organise and store accurate information in order to continuously improve customer relationship.

The significance of CRM

CRM is therefore essential for several reasons.
It allows companies to deepen their relationships with several key players. These are:

  • Customers,
  • Those who utilise the services offered
  • Collaborators,
  • Providers and

Moreover, it allows firms to build strong and long-lasting relationships while keeping track of customers and prospects to cater for loyalty purposes.

For this, CRM has a table that can be customised by companies. This can be consulted easily and employees can use it without difficulty.

Take advantage of CRM – an approach benefiting various services

Yes, CRM is generally used as a marketing and sales tool. However, nothing prevents other services from enjoying its many benefits. Some examples are:

In the sales department, CRM helps to a better understanding of their pipeline, particularly by providing managers with information on sales objectives, products, campaigns, team performances, etc. As for sales representatives, CRM contains enough information for them to build customer profiles.

In the human resources section, CRM saves time by speeding up employee performance monitoring and recruitment processes.

CRM, a tool centred on customers!

CRM is a customer-centric management system with specific objectives and a clear vision on how the customer should live his experience. If we consider Gartner’s report titled « Improving the customer experience « , we can advance that customer experience feeds CRM because each contact between a customer and the company is an opportunity to elicit an opinion, whatever it may be. This contact will therefore be essential in order to maintain customer loyalty through a positive long-lasting image.

In our current era, quality is very important. This involves matters of customer relations as well, so businesses have every interest in offering a service, a personalised support, that will resonate positively with the consumer’s sensitivity.

CRM and outsourcing

If you are looking for a solution to offer a customer experience that is customised according to your targets, if you want your company to generate commitment with its customers and with prospective ones, choose a provider that will be able to offer you multi-channel marketing solutions, from the phone to SMS, emails, chats, etc.

The ideal provider must be able to carry out actions aimed at achieving an optimised conversion rate via several means:

  • By segmenting your customer database for optimised targeting based on criteria defined with you (business affinities, geographic affinities and others),
  • By setting up dashboards and performance indicators for a better monitoring of technical and commercial actions put in place,
  • By analysing your client base, its expectations, its actual or potential needs and then adapting the discourse of its teams,
  • By analysing the multi-channel campaigns carried out, allowing your company to make a better ROI calculation

SLA: what the purpose of Service Level Agreements in outsourcing?

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The Service Level Agreement (SLA) is an agreement between a provider and an end-user. This agreement establishes, in very clear terms, and defines the level of service that the end-user expects from the service provider. For this purpose, it contains the measurement parameters of this service and the solutions or penalties, if any, if the agreed service levels are not respected. It is a crucial element for the company that decides to outsource one of its services to an external provider.

Application of SLA

Let us consider, as an example, a telecom provider, whose contract promises a network available at 99 %. In case of breach of this promise, the customer will be entitled to deduct the downtime from his payment, on a pro rata basis.

The use of SLA

Service level agreements are an integral part of a consolidated outsourcing contract. They provide information on all contracted services and on the agreed expected reliability and they clearly set out the parameters, responsibilities and expectations so that in the event of a problem with the service, no party can plead ignorance. Clearly, the SLA ensures that both parties have the same understanding of the requirements.

Who provides SLA?

Service providers generally have standardised service contracts, which can be customised according to the service chosen by the customer. However, in the event of a modification, the document should be notified by a legal department, for example, that of the client’s company.

It is also convenient for the customer to amend the service contract by indicating the level of service expected. This will allow the service provider to adapt its tariff and also the human resources made available.

Contents of the SLA

First of all, the service level agreement includes two key components:

Management: the definition of measurement standards and methods, the reporting process, content and frequency, the dispute resolution process, an indemnification clause protecting the client from third party disputes resulting from service level violations and a mechanism to update the agreement if and when required.

The service : the specificities of the services provided, the exclusions in case of doubt, the conditions of availability of the service, the time limit for each level of service (peak hours, off-peak hours, etc.), the responsibilities of each party, the climbing procedures and the compromises on costs and services.

The following elements can be added:

  • A description of the services to be provided,
  • Expected levels of service,
  • Service metrics,
  • The duties and responsibilities of each party,
  • Applicable remedies or sanctions,
  • Addition of services protocol

The importance of metrics

The metrics allow the right attitude to be adopted in case of failure on the part of one of the parties. An example of failure would be if the customer has not provided information in time and that this affects the quality of the service provided by the provider.

In such a case, the customer may not claim compensation from the provider!

The importance of the indemnity clause

The indemnity clause is essential. Through the latter, the service provider undertakes to indemnify his client in the event of a breach of the guaranteed services.

As a client, be sure to ask the legal department of your company, or an external one, to include this provision, negotiable if requested by the provider, within reasonable limits.

Continuity of SLA in case of changes related to the provider

It is important to note that in the event of major changes related to the provider, the SLA may, in turn, be modified. However, this is not common practice. In such a case, the client may have to negotiate a new contract.

Verification of service levels

Providers offer their clients to monitor the progress of service levels through statistics, which are generally available online.

With regards to the methodology used by the provider, it can be discussed with the client in order to find a refined solution that suits both parties.

Setting up the metrics

To set up metrics, start by determining what behaviour you expect from the client (as a provider) and the provider (as a client).

Among the metrics to consider, everything will depend on the customer’s activity, his expectations and the provider’s ability to provide relevant reports. The goal is for both parties to work together seamlessly and communicate effectively and productively in times of crisis.

These metrics must therefore be easy to collect while being meaningful enough to expand the provider’s business and achieve the client’s goals. To do this, choose items that can be collected automatically and quickly. It is not necessary to implement a considerable quantity of metrics: the provider must be able to advise the client on those that will allow him to have a visibility on his activity, without overloading him with data.

Among the metrics usually considered are:

  • Availability of service (time slot),
  • Default rates (production failures, missed deadlines, etc.),
  • Technical quality (defects in delivered products)
  • Security (data security protection)
  • Business results (key performance indicators)

The SLA requires time and energy, especially from the customer’s side. However, by choosing an experienced provider, the company secures its outsourcing thanks to clearly established conditions, minimises losses and damages in case of failure by the provider while benefiting from a satisfactory performance.

As its name indicates, the service level agreement consists of an agreement between two companies each specialising in a core business. This contract, which is moral, financial and legal, contributes to the smooth running and development of businesses.