ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008 - (Page 19)

eview RECOMMENDED READING Multi-Sourcing Benefits: A Common Hosted Platform Is Key BY BRUCE DRESSER Many companies are moving to multi-sourcing for call center agents, largely in pursuit of the cost savings that can come from flexibly tapping into a variety of labor pools. The trend is also growing because multi-sourcing enables call center resources to be rapidly scaled in either direction to align with business growth, call volumes and seasonality. Still, multi-sourcing is not without peril — particularly the risk of negative impact on customer service and, thereby, damage to customer loyalty and brand. Nor are all companies that have adopted multi-sourcing realizing the expected levels of savings. A single overarching problem is often the cause when multi-sourcing delivers disappointMulti-sourcing can offer substantial ing results in service and savings: the lack of a advantages — but it has risks, too. In common infrastructure across multi-sourced this excerpt from their white paper, call center resources. While many call centers have all of their in-house agents on a centralEchopass’ Bruce Dresser examines ized platform, their multi-sourced agents — some of the pitfalls caused by the lack working at various outsourcer locations or at of a common infrastructure across home — may be using a hodgepodge of sysmulti-sourced call center resources. tems. Differences among these systems can result in problematic performance issues: > AGENTS — WHOSE WORKFLOWS ARE SHAPED BY THE SYSTEMS THEY USE AND BY VARIOUS DEGREES OF ACCESS TO DATA AND TOOLS — ARE UNABLE TO DELIVER CONSISTENT CUSTOMER SERVICE. Problems stemming from lack of a common multi-sourcing platform aggravate and accentuate other inconsistencies, in agent skills, training and management, which companies are trying hard to eliminate. A company’s most valuable customers are often the first to notice these inconsistencies, and are put at risk for attrition. > COMPANIES AND THEIR CUSTOMERS STRUGGLE WITH UNPREDICTABLE AND LARGELY UNMANAGEABLE RESPONSE TIMES. TO DOWNLOAD Bruce Dresser is Chief Marketing Officer at Echopass Corp. www.echopass.com Because managers lack real-time visibility into the status of all their multi-sourced call center resources, they are slow or unable to react to problems — from carrier outages to volume spikes — that affect | APRIL 2008 icmi’s insight www.icmi.com 19 http://www.echopass.com/Multisource_Whitepaper.pdf http://www.echopass.com http://www.icmi.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008

ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008 Operations: Small Call Centers, Big Potential Ad Index Contents Editor's Page Contact Center Spotlight People: Assessment Tools Recommended Reading Technology: Speech Recognition Special Feature: Best of Show Strategy: Service-to-Sales Success Expert's Angle - High Volume, High Stakes: A Better Strategy for Hiring Experts Angle - Secrets of Recruiting Success/Job Brands: Changing Applicant Reactions to Your Openings Experts Angle - Speech Analytics: Uncovering the Voice of the Customer

ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008

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