Americall Group (AGI), a Teleperformance subsidiary specializes in outbound telemarketing services to insurance and financial services industry. The following QA provides more information on AGI's and Teleperformance business.
- Why outsource?
- What are you doing in BPO?
- How do you guarantee the highest quality level of service in the different contacts you manage?
- What type of well-being programs are you running for your employees?
- How do you retain agents?
- How do you test language capabilities for international or offshore projects?
- What is the difference between onshore, nearshore and offshore?
- What percentage of your business is offshore?
- You are a decentralized group, so what is your true experience in managing global accounts?
- How can automation optimize cost per transaction without decreasing quality of service?
- Do you work with virtual agents (working from home) or are you planning to?
- What makes you different from your competitors?
- How do you add enough value to be competitive with an in-house contact center solution?
- How can you make the contact center a true profit center rather than just a cost center?
1.Why outsource?
Many of the world's largest and most successful companies have found that full or partial outsourcing of their customer contact center operations offer tangible and sustainable strategic and tactical advantages.
In our experience, companies who choose to outsource cite the following reasons/benefits most often:
Access to strong & highly focused contact center and local market expertise so the client can concentrate on their core business
Improvement of the customer experience/customer satisfaction through higher quality contact handling & better accessibility
Shifting or eliminating risks such as permanent headcount exposure, CAPEX investments, redundancy & disaster recovery, etc.
Access to leading edge technologies and customer handling standards, tools and processes
Significant ongoing operating cost efficiencies based on a combination of the above factors
2.What are you doing in BPO?
Americall offers a variety of CRM contact center business process outsourcing (BPO) services for our clients ranging from simple data entry and white paper handling to more complex specialty services such as warranty claims. We handle millions of CRM BPO transactions a year, generally in support of live or automated contact handling inquiries. We have particularly strong capacities to handle large customer care BPO volumes in our offshore sites, based on time zone differences and staffing patterns. When possible, we integrate BPO data entry or administrative functions during a live agent call to maximize the customer experience and the client supply chain efficiencies.
3.How do you guarantee the highest quality level of service in the different contacts you manage?
Americall offers real-time, daily and compiled tracking of all key metrics including service levels, staffing, traffic, quality, productivity, satisfaction, financial performance, system reliability, HR and all other required key performance indicators (KPIs). Our dedicated quality assurance specialists collaborate jointly with their client peers on a daily basis in many cases. Additionally, Teleperformance conducts comprehensive formal monthly and quarterly business reviews to analyze and improve quality, processes and performance systematically. We are ISO9001:2000 certified, thus ensuring our ongoing performance improvement and optimal quality for our clients and their customers.
4.What type of well-being programs are you running for your employees?
At Americall, we value and respect each individual and we have many well-being & development programs in place for both our people and related to the 'world's well-being' in general through our charitable initiatives. From an employee standpoint, we offer many types of training & personal development programs too numerous to mention here.
From a wellness standpoint, and depending on the physical location of the operation, Teleperformance offers our staff members access to a wide range of programs ranging from physical and emotional well-being to family assistance, counseling etc. Some of our locations also have internal fitness/wellness centers such as work-out facilities, gymnasiums, etc.
Finally, Americall along with Teleperformance also assists our employees and their families (and affected communities at large) to help recover from Typhoons, Hurricanes and other natural disasters.
5.How do you retain agents?
At Americall, attracting and retaining the very best people is a top priority for us. Our approach starts with the recruiting and hiring process which is tailored for eac h specific geography based on local market considerations. Depending on locale and job requirements, both attitude and aptitude testing may be used.
We also invest heavily in Human capital resource management initiatives (HCRM) designed to ret ain and grow our people through a combination of training, development, involvement, communications, reward and recognition. In addition, high achievers have a great career path at Teleperformance based on our extremely high rate of promotions from within. We also offer attractive wages, benefits and working conditions which further help us maximize agent retention.
6.How do you test language capabilities for international or offshore projects?
We test language capabilities for international projects with native speakers. Often our clients attend these tests to control the level of language competency accepted. When it comes to offshore operations, we also provide accent neutralization trainings, including cultural courses in order to obtain a complete, all-around native capability.
7.What is the difference between onshore, nearshore and offshore?
Onshore is an outsourcing solution conducted in the domestic country. Nearshore activity is performed through a close delocalization of geography (for example Poland for Germany), whereas the offshore solutions are conducted in even more distant countries (like the Philippines for U.S.).
8.What percentage of your business is offshore?
Non-domestic contact center operations now accounts for approximately 15% of our business and this is growing steadily based on several factors including labor arbitrage, seamlessness of delivery, customer transparency and high client satisfaction with strong return-on-investment (ROI).
9.You are a decentralized group, so what is your true experience in managing global accounts?
Most of the world's largest clients have discovered that Teleperformance being de-centralized is actually a tremendous advantage in servicing multi-country needs. This is particularly true for those clients who partner with us and at least one other outsourcer so they can constantly compare head-to-head performance results.
Why does Americall generally perform so well compared to other outsourcers and even client in-house operations? Because we are experts in each local market. We believe a 'top down" cookie cutter approach to develop a regional or global customer contact handling solution is, frankly, ineffective. The 'top down" approach invariably compromises some local market needs and nuances.
Of course, we also deploy primary and single points of contact and dedicated account teams to optimize client communications & collaboration. Again, the proof is always in results. We invite you to compare our relative results and total value offered for country specific, regional and global contact center applications so that you can see for yourself why we have emerged as a worldwide industry leader.
10. How can automation optimize cost per transaction without decreasing quality of service?
The intelligent use of automation in customer contact handling can not only reduce operating costs but actually improve customer satisfaction, retention and even sales results. The key is "intelligent use" and there are balances (such as cost versus customer satisfaction) that sometimes must be determined.
Like many tools, automation, if used improperly, can cause the exact opposite result than intended.
At Americall, we take a highly consultative approach in working with each client to determine if, how, when and where, to deploy automated solutions such as full or partial Interactive Voice Response (IVR) contact handling. This collaborative approach, coupled with our local market, cross-industry and automation expertise enables us to analyze, design and test potential approaches for you to maximize and/or balance your cost and quality objectives.
11.Do you work with virtual agents (working from home) or are you planning to?
As an industry leader, we are very aware of the virtual agent or 'work at home agent' approach. We are continuing to monitor both the long-term viability and market acceptance of this deployment model. While there is a lot of "hype" regarding virtual agents, there are still myriad issues to be resolved before this becomes a mainstream and multi-geographic reality. It is clear, this model is not yet suited for every client and/or contact handling scenario.
We takes a client-focused approach in deployment model decisions. In short, while this model is intriguing, it is by no means proven or perfect. Mainstream client demand along with a proven management framework so the model can be effectively operated at very large scales will be key determining factors on if, when and where we decide to implement virtual agents.
12.What makes you different from your competitors?
Please feel free to navigate this site and we believe you will find many competitive differentiators Teleperformance offers our clients.
13.How do you add enough value to be competitive with an in-house contact center solution?
Many of our clients operate in-house operations in addition to relying on us. There are multiple ways we add value to clients regardless if we operate all or part of their operations including;
Labor arbitrage and business risk reductions
Reducing or eliminating capital expense associated with contact center operations
Operating cost reductions (recurring costs)
Access to industry best practices and standards (this can include performance benchmarking between in-house, Teleperformance and/or other outsourcers).
Global Contact Center outsourcing is our core (and only) business, Our deep experience offers clients thought leadership in customer management strategies on both a market-by-market and aggregate basis
Access to leading edge technologies
Quick demand scalabilities for changing business conditions
Comparable or better customer satisfaction scores and up sell/cross-sell conversions than in-house operations that generally equate to an improved ROI
14.How can you make the contact center a true profit center rather than just a cost center?
We have assisted many clients in converting what were traditional cost centers into real profit centers. This all starts with a highly consultative and collaborative review process with the client. The review assesses the current situation with potential refinements to form a business case and functional transformation approach. A business partnership model which could include conventional outsourcing, facilities management or asset purchase-leaseback is determined based on individual client needs.
Each customer contact handling application is assessed to determine how value can be added in the form of up sell, cross-sell or anti-churn opportunities. For example, can a traditional customer billing inquiry be converted into an up sell or cross-sell? Can this be done through automated means, a live agent or a combination of both? In addition to sales and retention initiatives, receivables management and debt collection refinements are also common areas for transformation from cost to profit center.
In short, please contact us for more information regarding this or other ways we can help your business. Our experts would be happy to provide you with a personal and confidential consultation.