Ways to Integrate Contact Centers

[vincentpong]

My company, originally an life insurance company, has become a financial holding company recently. And so we have several call centers including life insurance , properties insurance , sercurities house, a bank and an asset management company. Therefore , our team are facing one major problem:Should we integrate these call centers(and how to do)? Or keep them run independently?

[JIM WYATT]

Vincent,

Your position is becoming more and more prevelant. The best way for you to answer your question is to establish a comprehensive picture of the current operational landscape. what operational elements exist for each of the functional Centres reperesented in each of the subsiduary businesses.

You will need to map our the current relationship structures that exist between each operational Centre and any other functional business units within their respoective organisations (like marketing, sales, customer service, technical support, back office processing and executive managment).

Once you have achieved this you will be able to identify areas of duplication and commonality across the various operational Centres.

These are the elements you will be able to integrate in a simple and effective manner. If you wish to move deeper into each operation by:

Sharing staff
Sharing Technology
Sharing facilities
Sharing managment
Sharing applications
Sharing processes & practices

You will need to conduct a similar process to the one I described above for each area. The key is to ensure you can demonstrate achieveable efficiency and increased productivity without impacting on the quality and standards of delivery achieved by each operation.

The best place to start is by setting out an Operational managment & planning guide for each business operation and then overlaying these to identify areas of commonality which could be supported through a central approach.

We have undertaken this type of work for a number of our clients with successful results. As the previous poster has indicated you need to consider all options including

Outsourcing
Cosourcing
Common access (sharing)

If you require any additional details please drop me a note at WYATTJM@bigpond.com

Thanks

Jim Wyatt
Optimi Direct
Contact Centre solutions

[Cindy Szpanelewski]

It would be a good idea to integrate your contact centers. I was part of a team that integrated over 100 help desks into a central one. You will gain efficiencies and overall become much more effective. Outsourcing is an option, but remember if you outsource you lose a certain amount of control over the operations. You need to decide how important your contact center is to your business and go from there.

[rokima]

Hi Vincent,

It sounds like you have some duplication, across (and perhaps within each) functional areas, due to the very nature of your acquisition's industries.

On the bright side, there are are (as you know it already) numerous opportunities or clients upselling/crosselling/etc. company-wide.

The choice of the type of call center you want (people, technology, processes) will depend tremendously on the newly developped/reengineered processes put in place, that will allow you to be most efficient and be able to have a 360 degres view of your business (and your customers).

Take the time to define what your ultimate, desired objectives are. Redesigning your processes around your (most valuable) customers will be critical.

As to whether you want to use outsourcing or do everything in house, it really depend on the above findings.


Best Regards,


Rokima
Internet Marketing & Telecom Consultant
Reston, VA