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UTILITY WEEK | 24TH - 30TH APRIL 2015 | 19 Sponsored Report: contact centres greater savings can be achieved: the aver- age total remuneration for a outsourced call agent employee in the Philippines is around $7,000 per year. Local specialities According to data from business advisers AT Kearney, seven of the world's top ten coun- tries to outsource to, ranked by comparative cost advantage, are in Asia. Countries such as China and Malaysia are seeing strong growth, and even the much smaller econo- mies of Sri Lanka and Vietnam are putting up a good showing. However, Asia does not have the market to itself. South Africa is another possibility, with customer contact centre agent costs that are about 50 per cent of those incurred in the UK, but with the advantages of strong Eng- lish language skills. Eastern Europe is yet another option, with Poland, Romania, and the Czech Republic all very much open for business and offering a variety of tax perks to increase their attrac- tiveness as an outsourcing destination. "We continue to see strong growth in developing countries like Turkey, Poland, the Philippines and more broadly across North Africa, Latin America, and India," says Jer- emy Payne, international group marketing director at Enghouse Interactive, a developer of customer contact centre call-handling and optimisation technology. "In general terms, organisations will look to develop outsourced capability where they can cost-effectively deploy agents with excel- lent language skills, strong IT knowledge and a good understanding of the business issues in play in that specific market." With so many options available, which country is best? This question is especially pertinent for utilities, with their complex mix of inbound and outbound customer interac- tions, and their broad range of call-handling tasks stretching from billing queries to debt collection, and account switching to com- plaint handling? This, it transpires, is a question with no simple answer. Instead, say experts, utilities must think through what they are trying to achieve, and be prepared to construct a bal- ance of cost and country characteristics that best meets their own requirements. "There certainly isn't a 'one size fits all' country that's right for every utility," says Mike Hughes, managing director of Peop- leTECH, a customer management consul- tancy that advises organisations – including Npower – on customer contact centre strat- egy in order to deliver an optimised customer experience. "That said, certain countries bring cer- tain advantages when choosing location: eastern Europe offers a good skill set with cost advantages; South Africa is in virtually the same time zone and also is competitively costed; and the Philippines has US accented agents with a high level of skills – all three are currently popular choices." Put another way, a decision that in a UK-only context might be predicated solely on "hard" factors such as labour rates and property costs instead turns out, in an inter- national context, to revolve just as much around "so" factors: language skills, gen- eral education levels, and perhaps above all, "cultural fit". "The utility's 'service personality' and the profile of its average customer are very important parameters," says Hughes. "Subservience can be an issue with Indian customer contact centres, abruptness occa- sionally in eastern Europe. And as 'voice only' gives way to 'voice plus web chat', the gaming and keyboard skills of a good 'chat agent' in any geography are probably more relevant. "Key to this is ensuring that agents have access to the right customer, tariff, and ser- vices information and that the commercial policies are consumer friendly. The best agent in the world can't deliver high net pro- moter scores against complex tariffs with 'gotcha' clauses and commercial policies that are misaligned." A strategic approach WNS's Lloyd insists it's possible for utilities to use a blend of offshore customer contact centre outsourcing options in order to intel- ligently exploit these so cultural issues. Take a three-way split between UK, Indian and South African operations, for example. India offers a lower cost than either the UK or South Africa, but agents there have a lower cultural "fit" with UK-based consum- ers, and calls might need to be more carefully scripted. Meanwhile, South African agents are more expensive than Indian agents, though their all-in cost is still only half that of the UK, and their greater level of cultural fit means that calls do not require the same level of scripting. They can be much more "free format" in nature. Roll it all together, says Lloyd, and it is possible to play some interesting – and potentially very profitable – tunes. "There's obvious merit in using India to deal with routine e-mails, billing queries, general correspondence, or basic customer service issues," he points out. "South Africa, though, is a more logical place to put rather more of the customer con- tact centre voice activity, both inbound and Produced in association with: "Our research sug- gests that outsourcing continues to be seen as a viable strategy for the sector to deliver flexibility and enable transformation." Bryan Mouat, UK and Ireland chief executive, Arvato Financial Solutions "We continue to see strong growth in developing countries like Turkey, Poland, the Philippines and more broadly across North Africa, Latin America, and India." Jeremy Payne, international group marketing director, Enghouse Interactive "Certain countries bring certain advan- tages when choos- ing location: eastern Europe offers a good skill set with cost advan- tages; South Africa is in virtu- ally the same time zone and also is competitively costed; and the Philippines has US accented agents with a high level of skills" Mike Hughes, managing director, PeopleTECH "We're not just selling time and agents sit- ting at desks: we're committing ourselves – and our people – to delivering on hard, meas- urable targets." Chris Lloyd, senior vice-president, WNS Global Services You can quote me…