As a consequence of mergers, acquisitions, de-mergers, or shifting internal service centers like customer contact centers to an outsourced service model, companies are often faced with a host of challenges including employee layoffs, service interruptions, and, the resulting negative PR. However, when transitioning internal services to an outsourced service model, there is now a proven solution that presents a win-win scenario for all parties involved. It’s called “rebadging”.

What is Rebadging?

It is a process where a company’s existing workforce is seamlessly transferred to a third-party service provider, such as Teleperformance, avoiding service disruption and continued employment for employees.

Rebadge types include:

• Shared services buyouts
• Joint ventures
• Captive support
• Third-party outsourcing models

Since the third-party service provider has exiting technology and application interfaces, it ensures ease of transition and eliminates the risk of performance degradation during the transition. As the service provider assumes responsibility for the contact center – leveraging its industry-leading best practices – the client is enabled to focus on its core competencies, enjoy improved KPI performance, and reduce overall costs mainly by switching expenses from capital expense (CapEx) to operating expenses (OpEx).

Other benefits of rebadging include:

• Eliminate risk of performance degradation during transition to an outsourced provider
• Retain expertise and ensure continuity of “tribal knowledge”
• Ensure continued alignment with company culture
• Retain jobs in-region, mitigating social impact of shutting down a contact center facility
• Ensure ease of transition due to retention of exiting technology and application interfaces
• Financial flexibility using OpEx versus CapEx
• Speed to proficiency through reduced training hours and use of the same staff

Why outsource CXM in the “Age of the Customer”

Aside from being a solution that saves jobs and prevents service disruption, a rebadge boosts a company’s customer experience management (CXM) capabilities, thus, future-proofing its operations.

What is the customer age? It is a term that originated from a 2013 Forrester report titled “Technology Management In The Age Of The Customer: Only Customer-Obsessed Enterprises Can Survive Disruption.” It talked about the tech-savvy and empowered customers who seized control of the customer journey from brands, and how providing them with the best experiences is the only way to survive and thrive.

Today’s customers are more demanding and are using more channels with most using at least six channels to communicate with brands. These customers are expecting brands to know them from previous interactions and instantly attend to their needs. The pandemic further added to this trend, causing 24% of customers to contact brands more often in-app and 17% of customers to interact with brands on new channels, as per the latest CX Lab survey "Channels: What Consumers Want Versus What They Get."

Therefore, brands can no longer afford to run a basic in-house customer service project and remain relevant. To win in this age, as well as future-proof their business, they must proactively invest in CXM, which they can outsource from a third-party service provider, such as Teleperformance, which specializes in CXM and digitally integrated business services.

Five key benefits of CXM vs. in-house customer service:

1. Optimized cost: Running CX in-house means paying overhead expenses, salaries and benefits, facilities, on-premise technology, and so on. Outsourcing CX management, on the other hand, replaces these fixed expenses with a more flexible subscription-based option, which means that you only pay for the service at the scale you need.
2. Highly skilled workforce: Unless a company's core business is CX management, a business process outsourcing (BPO) company will be far and away from the best at ensuring the customers receive the care and support they need. Because CX management is its core business, BPO companies constantly develop their processes, train their workforce, and upgrades their skills.
3. Leading-edge technology: BPO companies proactively invest in new technology and develop propriety tools to ensure they can offer their clients the security and scalability they need. This will be an expensive and tedious undertaking for an in-house CX management project.
4. Unparalleled coverage: Aside from being open 24/7 and 365 days a year, BPO customer service teams can also speak multiple languages while in-house CX teams are running on limited time and linguistic skills.
5. Solid risk mitigation strategies: There are many risks involved in running a business, from legal and political to natural and even health/medical, just like with the pandemic, which BPO companies are prepared and equipped to handle, ensuring business continuity for clients, and in-house CX teams do not possess.

Choosing the right service partner

Rebadging is a critical step in a company’s transition to using a third-party service provider. So, it’s choosing the right partner is critical. Teleperformance has extensive, proven experience in rebadging both client and competitor employees. So, whether moving from an internal service delivery environment, or from another third-party provider, Teleperformance can manage the process from start to finish – ensuring the highest level of support throughout.

Learn more in our latest white paper, Rebadging Done Right.