American Ingenuity At Work: IP CONTACT CENTERS + ADVANCED HOME AGENTS = COST PARITY WITH OFFSHORE

Customer Inter@ction Solutions, Jun 2004 by Tehrani, Nadji

The Integration of IP Contact Centers and Advanced Home Agents Plus American Innovation and Experience Means Keeping More Contact Center Jobs at Home

IP Contact Center And Home Agent Technology And Management

Background And A Review Of Offshore Outsourcing

In recent years, offshore outsourcing gained popularity for two reasons, as follows:

a. Extremely low labor costs,

b. High level of education of the available labor.

The combination of the above has created significant offshoring of teleservices to several countries such as India, the Philippines, Indonesia, South America, Europe, Canada and elsewhere.

On the other hand, the American economy, which is best described as a "jobless recovery," was heavily blamed by many for jobs going offshore to the above countries. Indeed, a significant portion of all offshore teleservices is done by U.S.-owned companies. In fact, the following are the statistics:

U.S.-Owned Companies Lead The Way In Offshoring

At the recently held "Global Call Center Outsourcing Summit(TM)" (GCCOS) conference, which featured "National Offshore Outsourcing Debate," considerable information on the subject was presented to the attendees. The following represents excerpts from my presentation at the well attended GCCOS conference. These numbers are derived from analysis of the companies ranked in the 19th-Annual Top 50 Teleservices Agencies Ranking.

* 35 percent of international offshore OUTBOUND is generated by U.S.-based companies,

* 65 percent of international INBOUND is generated by U.S.-based companies,

* International call centers are located in 22 countries worldwide,

* 9 percent of teleservices agencies currently use home agents,

* 34 percent of U.S.-based agencies have both domestic and international operations,

* Average number of call centers per company: 12.76,

* The U.S. interactive inbound growth rate from 2003 to 2004 is 4.8 percent.

At the same time, offshore outsourcing has been growing in the vicinity of 25 percent growth per year. Not too long ago, i.e., the year 2000 and prior, outsourcing in this country was also growing at an average of 27 percent per year.

All of the above developments have really created major national debate on offshore outsourcing. In the Online Exclusive sidebar (www.cismag.com/0704/posidebar.htm), we have gathered complete information about the views of many leading politicians as well as dozens of proposals for anti-offshore outsourcing legislation that have been proposed.

The West Solution To Offshoring And Making Domestic Teleservices Competitive With Offshore Teleservices

West Corporation has recently developed a complete and revolutionary solution to take teleservices outsourcing to the next level.

About West Corporation's Leadership And Industry Reputation

Those of you who know West Corporation's impeccable reputation for integrity, quality and leadership know that West Corporation literally does not need an introduction.

However, for those of you who may not be familiar with West Corporation, I would like to share with you the following:

Back in 1982, shortly after we launched this publication, which laid the foundation for the current multibillion dollar contact center, CRM, teleservices outsourcing business, I visited a number of call centers, telemarketing and teleservices companies, including the pioneering team that would later found West Corporation in 1986. I had the great pleasure and honor of meeting with two of the elite pioneers of teleservices in America; namely, Gary West and Mary West, I spent several days with these industry leaders, and they were gracious enough to train me and teach me practically everything about telemarketing, call centers, teleservices and contact centers. The above persons are indeed among the legendary leaders of our industry. They used their valuable time and trained me for several days. To this day, I have nothing but respect and admiration for the integrity and commitment to excellence, quality and the great Midwestern work ethic that they all exemplified and that is instilled in the company they founded 18 years ago.

Having had my hand on the pulse of the industry since 1982, I have heard nothing but the greatest possible testimonials about West's reputation and to use the words of Jack Nicholson, West is "as good as it gets"!

Having said that, I was honored to learn of West's new leadership solution dealing with home agents as far back as last October, and was surprised to learn that West has been routing calls to home agents for the past eight years. I am also pleased to share with you some of the highlights of what West has done to take our industry to the next level. I have spent considerable time discussing with West's senior management and reading about their new home agent solution. Here are some of the highlights and the benefits of their home agent program:

* Exceptional Scalability

* Agent Flexibility

* West's Industry Experience West has been a leader in the outsourced customer care business since 1986.

* Higher quality agents: 75 percent of West's home agents have some college education. Ninety-two percent have some post-high school education.