31
Current Trends in Business Process Outsourcing December 2016 in association with Silver Partner
Current Trends in Business Process Outsourcing
December 2016
in association with
Silver Partner
2
Contents
Executive Summary ................................................................................................................ 3
The Research ........................................................................................................................... 5
What is your biggest customer service challenge? ............................................................. 8
The view from commissioners: working with an outsourcing partner ........................... 10
View from the outsourcers .................................................................................................. 20
Customer experience: issues and frustrations ................................................................. 27
Conclusions and recommendations .................................................................................... 30
3
Executive Summary
Business process outsourcing (BPO) has played a critical role in supporting organisations through
the economic downturn and a maturity has now emerged in many partner relationships. In
addition, CCA has seen an increase in enquiries in the capacity and competency about BPO
providers in the last 6 months and we are looking to support any strategic business decisions for
organisations to best source their customer service offering.
It is estimated that around 15-20% of customer service activity is currently outsourced however
this figure has remained relatively static for a number of years now. That poses the question, if
it works for some why doesn’t it work for more? With increasing customer expectations around
mobile and digital service, an opportunity exists for the BPO and outsourcing market to
showcase capabilities and expertise.
For this research, conducted in association with Silver Partners Agilisys, we surveyed both BPO
operators and in-house providers on their views on some critical issues related to the
outsourcing agenda.
Key findings
The majority of organisations expected their proportion of outsourcing to stay the same
or increase (90%).
The motivations for outsourcing were largely seen to be cost related. 81% of respondents
considering outsourcing as offering the potential to lower costs of service delivery as a
key benefit from working with an outsourcing partner. Other key benefits related to
flexibility (76%), access to the latest technology (76%) and the ability to access skilled
workers (62%).
In terms of the key capabilities ‘state of the art’ outsourcing providers should offer,
respondents reported that building their own staff’s capability and knowledge to solve
customer problems at front-line was essential (86%). Providing quality management with
closed loop feedback and continuous process improvement was also considered essential
(81%).
Offering the latest technological capability was clearly very important in the decision of
appointing an outsourcing partner and this was reported to be very important or quite
important by 90% of respondents.
Finally, when respondents were asked how important it was for their chosen partner to
have shared values with their own organisation, the most important factor was employee
engagement (90%).
When asked what the most challenging areas during the outsourcing process were,
respondents reported that the pressure to base the outputs on cost reduction rather than
improvements to customer experience as a key issue (noted by 76%). Closely following
this, respondents reported that culture was a major issue with 71% of those surveyed
reporting that matching the culture needs of their business with the culture of their
partner was a key challenge.
4
The most common issues facing customer experience reported by respondents were the
recruitment of skilled workers (80%) and the integration of channels to provide omni-
channel/digital experience (80%)
From the end customer’s perspective, the factors that respondents thought they find
most frustrating when contacting an organisation included, their enquiry not being dealt
with first time round (100%) and being given inconsistent information across different
channels (eg email, phone, website) (100%)
Ordering of the report
The following chapter gives further details of the research approach of this study. Next, the
respondents’ views of their biggest customer service challenges are explored to help identify
some of the central issues. After this the views of both contact centre professionals providing
views in-house or already in a partnership with an outsourcer are outlined, highlighting both the
advantages and challenges of outsourcing and their future plans. Next, the responses provided
by BPO providers and outsourcers regarding their core capabilities and current trends are
examined. Following this, the views of customer experience issues and frustrations are set out
before the final section draws together some key conclusions and makes several
recommendations based on the findings.
5
The Research
Outline of Research
Business process outsourcing (BPO) has played a critical role in supporting organisations through
the economic downturn and a maturity has now emerged in many partner relationships. In
addition, CCA has seen an increase in enquiries in the capacity and competency about BPO
providers in the last 6 months and we are looking to support any strategic business decisions for
organisations to best source their customer service offering.
It is estimated that around 15-20% of customer service activity is currently outsourced however
this figure has remained relatively static for a number of years now. That poses the question, if
it works for some why doesn’t it work for more? With increasing customer expectations around
mobile and digital service, an opportunity exists for the BPO and outsourcing market to
showcase capabilities and expertise.
For this research, conducted in association with Silver Partners Agilisys, we surveyed both BPO
operators and in-house providers on their views on some critical issues related to the
outsourcing agenda.
Methods
The research comprised several phases:
Member Survey: CCA conducted a survey of member organisations to determine current.
Responses were received from 71 organisations. They included BPO operators and in-house
contact centres, responsible for different-sized operations in a wide range of sectors.
The survey findings were analysed and interpreted in a desk research phase alongside
contextual information from other sources including CCA’s research archive.
Confidence in results
The results included responses from BPO operators (28%) and in-house contact centres from a
wide variety of industrial sectors including financial services (20%), central government (10%)
6
and utilities (11%). See
Figure 1 for more details.
In total, 60% of respondents were in-house operators and 40% were BPO or outsourcers (Please
see Figure 2).
Figure 1- Which business sector best describes your organisation? (Based on a CCA member survey of 71
Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
1% 1% 1% 1% 3% 6%7%
10% 10%11%
20%
28%
1% 1% 1% 1% 3% 6%7%
10% 10%11%
20%
28%
7
Figure 2- Please select the option that best describes your organisation (Based on a CCA member survey of
71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
60%
40%
I am from an in-house operator I am from a BPO/outsourcing provider
8
What is your biggest customer service challenge?
Respondents1 were asked what they regarded is their current single biggest service challenge. A
selection of their themed responses are presented below:
Consistency
Delivering consistently brilliant service on every customer interaction
Consistently delivering a superior customer experience
Regional and global consistency for customer servicing
Digital transformation
Shifting to digital
Digital shift
Channel shift and digital transformation
Omni channel communications
Moving customers to digital channels
Digitisation
Online
IT
Digital optimisation
Meeting customer expectations
Following customer demand through our multi channel process - adopting tech to
meeting the increasing expectations
Increasing client expectations against decreasing budgets
Recruitment
Recruitment
Quality of applicant
Selling call centre as an industry to candidates
Adviser attrition
Single view of the customer
Single view of the customer and system integration
1 Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016
9
One single view of the customer when you have different technologies and system
integration
The inability to see the full customer journey across all channels
Offering seamless, connected service
Raising profile of BPO
Getting access to contacts interested in creating outsourcing partnerships
Raising awareness of our organisation as a BPO provider
Cost reduction versus need for investment
Cost for system change and development
Reducing the cost and impact of avoidable contact
Contract profitability in the face of rapidly rising employee wages
Balancing quality and cost as volumes of contacts rise
Reducing cost whilst offering better service
Complaints
Complaint management
Complaints
Cost reduction versus need for investment
Cost for system change and development
Reducing the cost and impact of avoidable contact
Contract profitability in the face of rapidly rising employee wages
Balancing quality and cost as volumes of contacts rise
Compliance and regulation
Compliance with internal policy
Pensions regulations
10
The view from commissioners: working with an outsourcing partner
This section reviews the responses provided by customer contact professionals providing services
in-house or already in a partner arrangement with an outsourcer or BPO provider.
Outsourcing Arrangements
Of those who currently already had a partner arrangement and outsourced some of their
activities, the most common activity outsourced was inbound call handling (85%), followed by
outbound call handling (65%) and email management (60%). See Figure 3 for more information.
Figure 3 - If you do work with an outsourcing partner currently, which of these functions do they manage
on your behalf? (please select all that apply) (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre
Professionals, September 2016)
The Advantages of Outsourcing
The motivations for outsourcing were largely seen to be cost related with 81% of respondents
reporting this as the potential to lower costs of service delivery as the key benefit to be
accessed from working with an outsourcing partner. Other key benefits related to flexibility
(76%), access to the latest technology (76%) and the ability to access skilled workers (62%).
Please see Figure 4 for the full results.
85%
65%60%
50%45% 45%
35%
20%10%
11
Figure 4 - What key benefit(s) do you think you can access from your outsourcing partner? (please select
all that apply) (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
In terms of the key capabilities ‘state of the art’ outsourcing providers should offer, respondents
reported that building their own staff’s capability and knowledge to solve customer problems at
front-line was essential (86%). Providing quality management with closed loop feedback and
continuous process improvement was also considered essential (81%). Two other very important
offerings included better understanding of clients’ customers through the application of
analytical and insight tools (64%) and offering new initiatives to improve process and deliver
better ROI (59%). See Figure 5 for more details.
Offering the latest technological capability was clearly very important in the decision of an
outsourcing partner and this was reported to be very important or quite important by 90% of
respondents. See Figure 6 for full details.
81%76%
67%62%
57%
38%
10%
Lower the costsof servicedelivery
Flexibility toexpand and
decreasecapacity
Get access tothe latest
technologyplatforms
Get access toskilled workers
Enable in-housemanagement tofocus more onstrategy andperformance
Improvedcustomer
service
Other (pleasedetail)
12
Figure 5 - Thinking about customer service in general, what services do you think a ‘state of the art’
outsourcing partner should offer? (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals,
September 2016)
Figure 6 - How important is it for your business that your outsourcing partner can offer the latest
technology capability to support your drive to digital? (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact
Centre Professionals, September 2016)
Homeworking
Very few of the respondents surveyed offered homeworking as part of their customer service
offering (14%) and none of those reported that their outsourcing partner managed their
homeworking offer.
0 0 5 0 5 0 5
59
36
9 19
36
6770
41
64
86 81
59
3325
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Bei
ng
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, eva
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Not important Useful Essential
57%33%
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Extremely important Quite Important Important
Quite unimportant Extremely unimportant
13
Figure 7 - Do you have homeworking as part of your service offering? (Based on a CCA member survey of 71
Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
Outsourcing plans
The majority of organisations expected their proportion of outsourcing to stay the same or
increase (90%). Only 10% anticipated a reduction in this. See Figure 8 for more details. In terms
of the business options respondents reported being very likely or quite likely to consider in the
coming 12-18 months, the most popular were:
Outsourcing voice calls (72%)
Outsourcing digital/remote contact (61%)
Offshoring back office processes (60%)
Outsourcing back office processes (52%)
By far and away the most common aspect of customer experience that the contact centre
professionals surveyed reported that they would consider outsourcing in future was webchat
(56%). Following this with significant, but far fewer responses were: voice contact (40%) sales
contact (36%) social media contact (32%) and email (32%). See Figure 10 for the full results.
The main reason given by respondents as to why they would reconsider their sourcing
arrangements related to lower cost. This was reported by 96% of respondents to be very likely or
quite likely to make them reconsider. Other key responses reported to make them very likely or
quite likely to make them reconsider their sourcing arrangements:
Access skilled workers (91%)
Access the latest technology platforms (77%)
Flexibility to expand and decrease capacity (76%)
14%0%
71%
0% 10%
5% Yes – we manage this in-house
Yes – our outsourcing partner manages this
No
Trialling
Investigating
Planning to implement withinthe next 6-12 months
14
To improve customer service (75%)
Enable management to focus on strategy & performance (72%)
Access skills to handle social media/digital/remote channels (68%)
Please see Figure 11 for the full results.
Finally, when respondents were asked how important it was for their chosen partner to have
shared values around with their own organisation, the most important factor was employee
engagement (90%). Corporate social responsibility (58%) and diversity (68%) were also considered
important values to share. See Figure 12 for more details.
Figure 8 - In the next 2-3 years, do you anticipate you will outsource…(Based on a CCA member survey of
71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
33%
10%
57%
More Less The same
0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
100%
Ho
mew
ork
ing
Shar
ing
serv
ices
wit
h o
ther
org
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Off
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ack
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ase
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Very likely Quite likely Not likely at all Not sure
15
Figure 9 – Please tell us the likelihood of your organisation considering the following business options over
the next 12-18 months. (very likely, quite likely, not likely at all, not sure) (Based on a CCA member
survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
Figure 10 – What would you most likely consider outsourcing in the future? (please select all that apply)
(Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
Figure 11 – What will make your business reconsider its current sourcing arrangements? For those reasons
that apply, please rate on a scale of 1=not interested to 5=very interested)
(Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
56%
40%36%
32% 32%28%
24% 24%20%
16%4% 4%
0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
100%
Acc
ess
skill
s to
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dle
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cial
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igit
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els
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s
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1 = not interested 2 3 4 5 = very interested
16
Figure 12 – How important for your organisation is it that your chosen partner has shared values regarding
the following? (please select all that apply) (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre
Professionals, September 2016)
Challenges
This section reviews some of the challenges and issues reported by contact centre professionals
regarding developing partnerships with outsourcers. When asked what the most challenging
areas during the outsourcing process were, respondents reported that the pressure to base the
outputs on cost reduction rather than improvements to customer experience was a key issue
(noted by 76%). Closely following this, respondents reported that culture was a major issue with
71% of those surveyed reporting that matching the culture needs of their business with the
culture of their partner was a key challenge. A further 38% reported issues with the tendering
process itself which was regarded in some cases and laborious.
Figure 13 - When going through the outsourcing process, what areas do you find most challenging (please
select all that apply)? (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September
2016)
5%
42%
58%
68%
90%
Other (pleasedetail)
Employeebenefits
Corporate SocialResponsibility
Diversity Employeeengagement
10%
29%
38%
71%76%
Lack of engagementfrom the senior
executives in ourbusiness
Our procurementteam tend to take
over and we can losesight of the customer
service objectives
The tender process islaborious and could
be transformed
Matching the cultureneeds of our business
with the culture ofour partners
Pressure to base theoutputs on costreduction versus
improved customerexperience
17
Respondents reported a mixed picture regarding procurement and legal agreement on
performance measures that aligned with their strategic business aims rather than traditional
input measures with 38% reporting that this was quite difficult and a further 29% reporting that
it was neither easy or difficult.
When asked about the biggest challenges they currently face in managing their outsource
contracts, respondents reported that high agent turnover (57%), the ability to be agile and
change processes (52%) customer service levels (48%) and concerns over quality of agents (48%)
were key concerns. Less problematic to most, but still reported were implementing innovations
that are perhaps ‘out of contract’ but could improve customer experience (39%). See Figure 15
for the full details.
When asked what the most important issue currently facing outsourced contact centre
management more broadly, the contact centre professionals surveyed reported that employee
attrition was a key issue (62%). Following this the pressure to implement the latest technology
featured (43%) as did the recruitment of skilled workers (38%). See Figure 16 for full details.
Figure 14 - How difficult is it to get procurement and legal agreement on performance measures that align
with strategic business aims rather than traditional input measures? (Based on a CCA member survey of 71
Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
0%
38%
29%
33%
0%
Extremely difficult Quite difficult Neither difficult or easy
Quite easy Extremely easy
18
Figure 15 - What are the biggest challenges you currently face in managing your outsource contracts?
(please select all that apply) (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals,
September 2016)
Figure 16 - In your opinion, what is the most important issue currently facing outsourced contact centre
management? (please select all that apply) (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre
Professionals, September 2016)
57%52%
48% 48%
38%33%
19%14% 14% 14%
Hig
h a
gen
t tu
rno
ver
Ab
ility
to
be
agile
an
d c
han
ge p
roce
sse
s
Co
nce
rns
ove
r q
ual
ity
of
agen
ts
Cu
sto
me
r se
rvic
e le
vels
Imp
lem
enti
ng
inn
ova
tio
ns
that
are
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erh
aps
‘ou
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f co
ntr
act’
bu
t co
uld
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pro
ve c
ust
om
er e
xper
ien
ce
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ent
on
man
agem
en
t
Bra
nd
imp
act
Ge
ttin
g th
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igh
t p
rop
ort
ion
of
any
gain
shar
e ag
reem
ent
Co
ntr
act
tie
-in
s
Lack
of
con
tro
l
62%
43%38%
33%
24%
14%10%
Emp
loye
e at
trit
ion
Pre
ssu
re t
o im
ple
me
nt
late
stte
chn
olo
gy
Rec
ruit
men
t o
f sk
illed
wo
rker
s
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loye
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ora
le
Reg
ula
tory
ch
ange
s
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mp
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ion
/co
nso
lidat
ion
/M&
A
Incr
eas
e in
dem
and
fo
r o
uts
ou
rced
serv
ices
19
Figure 17 – A selection of responses In relation to contract SLA’s, what do you think is the biggest
challenge you face? (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
In relation to contract SLA’s, what do you think is the biggest challenge you face?
“Customer engagement with our Outsource Field Staff and Contact Centre”
“Consistency and not compromising to achieve”
“Balancing customer and commercial results”
“Accurate intra-day call forecasting”
“Transparency of KPIs and date sources”
“Focus on the SLA's and their achievement. Getting the vendor to understand the cost impact where they
are not met & measuring that impact”.
“Ensuring that our SLA's are achieved with no direct control”.
“Regulation”
“Looking beyond the contract towards aspirations”
“Targeted resource that delivers added value”
“To get quality measures that are reliable”
“Consistent delivery & understanding what impacts outcome based metrics”
“Ability to consider strategic objectives within a contract...not always clear that direction our
organisation is going in...in order to ensure appropriate SLAs are in contracts”
20
View from the outsourcers
This section reviews the responses provided by BPO provider and outsourcers regarding the
nature of their operations core capabilities and current trends.
Current operations and trends
The majority of BPO/outsourcing service providers surveyed had UK and Ireland based contracts
(80%) as well as some service provision in India (36%), Eastern Europe (16%) and the Philippines
(13%).
The most common average length of BPO/outsourcing contract was 5-10 years (31% of those surveyed) or 1-3 years (31%) followed by 3-5 years (29%). See Figure 19 for more information. In terms of the numbers of FTE, 40% of respondents had 501-2000; 34% had 2001-5000 and 29% had 251-500. See Figure 20 for more detail. 65% of those surveyed reported that their BPO/outsourcing contracts had grown over the last three years. See Figure 21 for full details.
Figure 18 - From which locations do you offer BPO/outsourcing services? (please select all that apply) (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
80%
36%
16% 13% 11% 11% 9% 4% 4% 2%
21
Figure 19 – What is the average length of BPO/outsourcing contract your organisation? (Based on a CCA
member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
Figure 20 – How many FTE are there in your business? (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact
Centre Professionals, September 2016)
3%
31%
29%
31%
3% 3%
< one year 1-3 years 3-5 years 5-10 years 10+ years Other (please specify)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
0-50 51-100 101-250 251-500 501-2000 2001-5000 5001+
In the UK & Ireland Europe Middle East & Africa AsiaPac Americas
22
Figure 21 – In the last three years have your BPO/outsourcing contracts…? (Based on a CCA member survey
of 65 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
Core capabilities
In terms of the core sectoral focus of the BPO/outsourcing providers surveyed, 28% were
financial services, 16% were utilities and 13% telecoms. Of the 19% who responded other, their
activities included multiple sectors. See Figure 22
52% of the BPO/outsourcing providers surveyed reported having multi-lingual capabilities. See
Figure 23 for more details.
The core service capabilities reported by the BPO and outsourcing providers (Figure 24) surveyed
were wide ranging and included:
Inbound voice – customer service (90%)
Outbound voice – customer service (68%)
Email (68%)
Complaints management (61%)
Inbound voice – sales (58%)
Social media (58%)
Webchat (52%)
SMS (48%)
Outbound voice – sales (42%)
The core technology capabilities reported by the BPO and outsourcing providers (Figure 25)
surveyed were wide ranging and included:
Workforce management (70%)
CRM system (65%)
Data analytics (65%)
Email management (65%)
Knowledge management (65%)
Social media monitoring (60%)
ACD (55%)
Queue management (55%)
65%
12%
23%
Grown Reduced Stayed the same
23
Blending and routing (55%)
Social media management (55%)
Outbound SMS (55%)
Cloud-based technologies (50%)
Multimedia (45%)
Inbound SMS (45%)
Speech analytics (35%)
Voice biometrics (20%)
Figure 22 – What are the core sectors your business provides customer contact activity for? (please select all that apply) (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
Figure 23 – Do you have multi-lingual capability? (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
28%
19%
16%
13%
6% 6%3% 3% 3% 3%
51%49%
yes no
24
Figure 24 – What do you think are your organisation’s core service capabilities? (please select all that
apply) (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
Figure 25 – What core technologies can you offer to clients? (please select all that apply) (Based on a CCA
member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
90%
68% 68%61%
58% 58%
52%48%
42%
26%
7%
70%65% 65% 65% 65%
60%55% 55% 55% 55% 55%
50%45% 45%
35%
20%
5%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
25
Homeworking
In relation to homeworking, only 30% of BPO and outsourcing respondents offered or were trialling homeworking. In terms of the range of benefits of homeworking reported by survey respondents, these tended to be associated with the opportunity for attracting the best employees and factors related to flexibility (Figure 27). BPO and outsourcing respondents reported possible advantages including:
Improved flexibility for our workforce (85%)
Opportunity to attract a different/wider skill set (70%)
Improved flexibility for resourcing our customer service (67%)
Cost reduction (63%)
Improved employee engagement/satisfaction levels (48%)
Reduced absence rates (48%) In terms of the main barriers to implementing homeworking the most commonly reported factors included: lack of trust (17%) lack of control over individual employees (14%) technology restraints/issues (14%) more challenging to have good employee engagement (14%) and compliance & regulation (10%). See Figure 28 for full details.
Figure 26 – Do you offer a homeworking capability for clients? (Based on a CCA member survey of 65
Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
26%
48%
4%
22%
0%
Yes No Trialling Investigating Planning to implement within the next 6-12 months
26
Figure 27 – What do you think are the main benefits of homeworking? (please select all that apply) (Based
on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
Figure 28 – What do you think are the main barriers of implementing homeworking? (please select all that
apply) (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
85%
70%67%
63%
48% 48%41%
22%7%
17%
14% 14% 14%
10%
7% 7% 7%
3% 3% 3%
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
16%
18%
20%
Lack
of
tru
st
Lack
of
con
tro
l ove
r in
div
idu
alem
plo
yees
Mo
re c
hal
len
gin
g to
hav
e g
oo
dem
plo
yee
enga
gem
ent
Tech
no
logy
res
trai
nts
/iss
ue
s
Co
mp
lian
ce &
reg
ula
tio
n
Dis
cip
line
of
staf
f
Secu
rity
Oth
er
(ple
ase
spec
ify)
Mo
re c
hal
len
gin
g fo
r in
div
idu
als
toh
ave
car
eer
pro
gres
sio
n/i
nd
ivid
ual
pro
filin
g
Co
nce
rns
ove
r h
eal
th &
saf
ety
Rel
ian
ce o
n c
on
nec
tivi
ty ie
bro
adb
and
inte
rne
tco
nn
ecti
on
/ph
on
e c
on
nec
tio
n
27
Customer experience: issues and frustrations
The most common issues facing customer experience reported by respondents were:
Recruitment of skilled workers (80%)
Integration of channels to provide omni-channel/digital experience (80%)
Pressure to reduce cost to serve (71%)
Drive to digital (71%)
Keeping pace with new technologies (71%)
Employee morale (70%)
Figure 29 – What, in your opinion, is the most important issue currently facing customer service? (very important to unimportant scale) (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals,
September 2016)
The factors reported as most important by the contact centre professionals surveyed to get right
in their customer service strategy and operations, in the drive to digital, included:
Seamless customer experience across channels (82%)
Flexible access channel strategy (64%)
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Kee
pin
g p
ace
wit
h n
ew t
ech
no
logi
es
Inte
grat
ion
of
chan
nel
s to
pro
vid
eo
mn
i-ch
ann
el/d
igit
al e
xper
ien
ce
Incr
eas
e in
dem
and
fo
r n
on
-vo
ice
chan
nel
s
Fore
cast
ing
dem
and
fo
r n
on
-vo
ice
chan
nel
s
The
use
of
dat
a to
cap
ture
vo
ice
of
cust
om
er
Pre
ssu
re t
o r
edu
ce c
ost
to
se
rve
Emp
loye
e m
ora
le
Emp
loye
e at
trit
ion
Rec
ruit
men
t o
f sk
illed
wo
rker
s
Reg
ula
tory
ch
ange
s
Glo
bal
so
urc
ing
Dri
ve t
o d
igit
al
Very important Quite Important Important Quite unimportant Very unimportant
28
Integrated technology platform (61%)
Skilled and confident workforce (61%)
Access to insight and real time analytics (52%)
Realistic channel shift plan and savings targets (55%)
Figure 30 – In the drive to digital, what are the most important features to get right in your customer service strategy and operations (please select all that apply): (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
From the end customer’s perspective, the factors that respondents thought they find most
frustrating when contacting organisation included:
Their enquiry not being dealt with first time round (100%)
Being given inconsistent information across different channels (eg email, phone, website)
(100%)
Having to explain the enquiry more than once (97%)
82%
64%61% 61%
55%52%
49%
30%
18%
3%
29
Not having a company get back to them when they said they would (91%)
Being kept waiting for an unreasonable length of time (88%)
Figure 31 – From the end customer’s perspective, what do you think they find most frustrating when contacting organisations? (please select an option for each statement) (very frustrating to not at all frustrating scale) (Based on a CCA member survey of 71 Contact Centre Professionals, September 2016)
0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
100%
Cal
ling
a co
mp
any
and
them
no
t kn
ow
ing
wh
oth
ey a
re
Thei
r en
qu
iry
no
t b
ein
gd
eal
t w
ith
fir
st t
ime
ro
un
d
Hav
ing
to e
xpla
in t
he
enq
uir
y m
ore
th
an o
nce
No
t h
avin
g a
com
pan
y ge
tb
ack
to t
he
m w
hen
th
eysa
id t
he
y w
ou
ld
Bei
ng
kep
t w
aiti
ng
for
anu
nre
aso
nab
le le
ngt
h o
fti
me
Bei
ng
give
n in
con
sist
en
tin
form
atio
n a
cro
ssd
iffe
ren
t ch
ann
els
(eg
emai
l, p
ho
ne,
web
site
)
Po
or
dig
ital
-led
ser
vice
s e
go
nlin
e, w
eb
chat
Too
man
y se
curi
ty o
r ID
&V
qu
esti
on
s
Very frustrating Quite frustrating Frustrating Not that frustrating Not at all frustrating
30
Conclusions and recommendations
This research has shown the diversity of experiences and aspirations of those engaged in BPO
and outsourcing more generally. It has demonstrated how outsourcing can offer cost reduction
opportunities, flexibility, access to skilled workers and the ability to access current and new
technology. This agility is a critical advantage in the contemporary contact centre landscape
which in recent years has been shaped by the challenges of the global economic recession and is
now to be transformed by further political and economic uncertainty. As noted in the report
engaging in such activities is not without challenge, however, and issues such as high agent
turnover, concerns over the quality of agents were raised as well as the pressure to base outputs
of cost reduction rather than improvements to customer experience, a perennial problem which
can result in a race to the bottom.
A number of key recommendations can be made:
Be clear about objectives and communicate these to all stakeholders during negotiations
of terms of outsourcing and throughout
Put the best team in place with a diversity of skills and experiences to help drive holistic
change
Develop useful and comprehensive measures for change which are not solely focused on
cost
Make sure that new strategies reflect the complexity of the outsourcing arrangement and
the ability to realise the benefits
Identify and setup benchmarks so that SLAs can be drafted to correspond with the
provisions that generate a competitive edge
31
About CCA
CCA is the leading independent authority on contact centre strategies and operations. Over 900
organisations currently subscribe to CCA services. This equates to a network of over 5,000 senior
practitioners, employing between 35%-45% of the contact centre population in the UK. Around
20%-25% of people working in a contact centre in the UK are working in a centre accredited with
CCA Global Standard©. For further information visit www.cca-global.com
For more information visit www.cca-global.com
SILVER PARTNER - Agilisys
Agilisys, the digital transformation specialist for the public sector, has been helping to improve
public services for millions of citizens for over 15 years and is one of the largest employee
owned businesses in the UK.
Our strong reputation and deep domain expertise, particularly within local government, has
been gained by delivering transformational services through a suite of citizen-centric technology
products and transformation consultancy.
www.agilisys.co.uk
The research, data and views in this white paper are not necessarily those of CCA Global Ltd or Agilisys. The report has been
prepared in good faith but neither the partners nor the authors of the reports can be held responsible for any actions or otherwise
taken by those reading the paper.
