Global Customer Service Outsourcing Project

At an earlier stage of the project potential BPO vendors were narrowed down to a short-list of just two. As we became involved the scope of the project was re-framed to encompass three primarily English-language markets – US, UK and Australia (with some Spanish language requirements for US).

The Philippines was identified as the best location, based on a combination of retail sector experience, market alignment and cost. We acted as the contact centre / BPO subject matter expert and led the definition of customer service processes, data flows, technologies and anticipated volumes which were a basis for the final Request for Proposal (RFP). This included reflecting significant differences in channel usage, business processes, seasonality and technology platforms and / or instances of platforms between the markets. In addition, as one market already outsourced to a Philippines BPO location, another was predominantly outsourced, but in-country, and the third market had a solely in-house, domestic operation, there were varying degrees of experience and comfort in outsourcing. This required management team coaching, best practice and contract governance definition in anticipation of the outsourcing.

We managed the RFP process, documentation, stakeholder management and, as required, acted as a ‘back channel’ source of guidance to the vendors as they developed their solutions and proposals. Ultimately, this led to a final vendor selection which was driven by the client team, based on objective agreed data and assessments.