Onshore / Offshore
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IN-HOUSE and OUTSOURCING
In-house contact centres are offshoots of specific departments within a wider company and are responsible for day-to-day communications with customers. They usually fulfil administrative functions; provide advice to callers; and/or process payments. Some of the companies with the largest in-house call centres include Direct Line, Lloyds TSB and Barclaycard. A number of companies have also developed into outsourcing contact centre businesses after starting off as in-house operations; for example Vertex Data Science, which used to be part of United Utilities, and Ventura, the third-party customer services management division of Next PLC. In July 2011, business process outsourcing (BPO) giant Capita Group — which currently holds a number of contracts with Central and Local Government and across the private sector — revealed that it had acquired Ventura, before going on to purchase Vertex’s private-sector business in September 2011.
The UK contact centres market is dominated by in-house specialists, with around 65% of the industry thought to be accounted for by in-house call and contact centres. Since the beginning of the 21st Century, however, this sector of the market has been affected by the increasing number of companies opting to use BPO firms or outsourced contact centre businesses based overseas, which are often cheaper and provide ready-made contact centre solutions and basic training for call centre operatives.
Outsourcing customer communications to out-of-house contact centre specialists can be extremely beneficial to certain companies, as outsourcers often provide a high level of customer service and already have significant experience in operating a successful contact centre business. Outsourcing call centres also helps to reduce staff, facility and infrastructure costs; increases service levels and response times; improves customer service; and drives profit. Despite this, many customers have a negative opinion of outsourcers and some businesses can be reluctant to outsource their customer service operations for fear that knowledge, particularly pertaining to specific in-house operations, would be lost in doing so.
In October 2012, Deloitte and callcentre.co.uk undertook a survey of 150 industry specialists, including outsourcers and client organisations, in order to investigate specific concerns regarding outsourcing within the contact centres industry. The survey found that over 90% of client organisations described their relationship with their outsourcer as a partnership or strong relationship. One of the main drivers for outsourcing was the increased flexibility and scalability that it provides, with 70.9% of client organisations agreeing that this was the case. Cost reduction (55.5%) and improvements to customer service (48%) were also rated as important reasons for outsourcing.
The majority of contact centres were found to be comfortable in outsourcing traditional contact channels, such as telephony services. However, despite most client organisations stating that they would consider outsourcing responses provided via social media, only a few companies had actually done so. This could be because companies prefer to retain a social media presence in-house, where it can be better controlled and managed — something that can be particularly important in the case of a possible public relations (PR) disaster. Nevertheless, increasingly more outsourcers are including social media communications as part of their provision nowadays, which suggests that demand for such services could increase in the near future. Client organisations were also found to be protective over their sales-related activities, including telesales, marketing and online sales, with many companies opting to keep such activities in-house instead.
The survey undertaken by Deloitte and callcentre.co.uk revealed that multi-sourcing — that is using a variety of outsourcers — was also popular among client organisations, with 75% of respondents using more than one supplier. It is thought that this figure could decrease over the next few years as larger companies look to save costs by consolidating their outsourcing contracts.
The majority of client organisations rated data security as the most important factor taken into consideration when choosing an outsourcer, with all respondents agreeing that this was the case. Experience in the field (90.5%), ability to recruit (90%) and the quality of contact centre environment (85%) were also rated highly by client organisations. In contrast, the location of an organisation (45%), corporate social responsibility (CSR [45%]) and the size of an organisation (30%) were less likely to be taken into consideration by companies when choosing an outsourcer.
In-house contact centres are offshoots of specific departments within a wider company and are responsible for day-to-day communications with customers. They usually fulfil administrative functions; provide advice to callers; and/or process payments. Some of the companies with the largest in-house call centres include Direct Line, Lloyds TSB and Barclaycard. A number of companies have also developed into outsourcing contact centre businesses after starting off as in-house operations; for example Vertex Data Science, which used to be part of United Utilities, and Ventura, the third-party customer services management division of Next PLC. In July 2011, business process outsourcing (BPO) giant Capita Group — which currently holds a number of contracts with Central and Local Government and across the private sector — revealed that it had acquired Ventura, before going on to purchase Vertex’s private-sector business in September 2011.
The UK contact centres market is dominated by in-house specialists, with around 65% of the industry thought to be accounted for by in-house call and contact centres. Since the beginning of the 21st Century, however, this sector of the market has been affected by the increasing number of companies opting to use BPO firms or outsourced contact centre businesses based overseas, which are often cheaper and provide ready-made contact centre solutions and basic training for call centre operatives.
Outsourcing customer communications to out-of-house contact centre specialists can be extremely beneficial to certain companies, as outsourcers often provide a high level of customer service and already have significant experience in operating a successful contact centre business. Outsourcing call centres also helps to reduce staff, facility and infrastructure costs; increases service levels and response times; improves customer service; and drives profit. Despite this, many customers have a negative opinion of outsourcers and some businesses can be reluctant to outsource their customer service operations for fear that knowledge, particularly pertaining to specific in-house operations, would be lost in doing so.
In October 2012, Deloitte and callcentre.co.uk undertook a survey of 150 industry specialists, including outsourcers and client organisations, in order to investigate specific concerns regarding outsourcing within the contact centres industry. The survey found that over 90% of client organisations described their relationship with their outsourcer as a partnership or strong relationship. One of the main drivers for outsourcing was the increased flexibility and scalability that it provides, with 70.9% of client organisations agreeing that this was the case. Cost reduction (55.5%) and improvements to customer service (48%) were also rated as important reasons for outsourcing.
The majority of contact centres were found to be comfortable in outsourcing traditional contact channels, such as telephony services. However, despite most client organisations stating that they would consider outsourcing responses provided via social media, only a few companies had actually done so. This could be because companies prefer to retain a social media presence in-house, where it can be better controlled and managed — something that can be particularly important in the case of a possible public relations (PR) disaster. Nevertheless, increasingly more outsourcers are including social media communications as part of their provision nowadays, which suggests that demand for such services could increase in the near future. Client organisations were also found to be protective over their sales-related activities, including telesales, marketing and online sales, with many companies opting to keep such activities in-house instead.
The survey undertaken by Deloitte and callcentre.co.uk revealed that multi-sourcing — that is using a variety of outsourcers — was also popular among client organisations, with 75% of respondents using more than one supplier. It is thought that this figure could decrease over the next few years as larger companies look to save costs by consolidating their outsourcing contracts.
The majority of client organisations rated data security as the most important factor taken into consideration when choosing an outsourcer, with all respondents agreeing that this was the case. Experience in the field (90.5%), ability to recruit (90%) and the quality of contact centre environment (85%) were also rated highly by client organisations. In contrast, the location of an organisation (45%), corporate social responsibility (CSR [45%]) and the size of an organisation (30%) were less likely to be taken into consideration by companies when choosing an outsourcer.