Optimizing Contact Center Operations Through Increased Outsourcing and Reduced Cost Base

Executive Summary

A large, multi-national corporation engaged Everest Group to analyze its current contact center footprint and recommend an optimum future state sourcing model and framework it could leverage across the enterprise. The initiative required analysis of more than 20 million annual calls categorized into 158 call types in four languages across multiple lines of business. Everest Group assisted the client by developing a comprehensive mapping of its existing service portfolio – internal, outsourced, onshore and offshore – and evaluating and prioritizing additional cost saving opportunities. Everest Group identified an opportunity for the client to expand its outsourcing scope and built an 18-month implementation roadmap with detailed recommendations on bundling and sequencing of initiatives. Cost savings projections are 20 to 30 percent of the client’s current cost base.

The Client’s Challenge

The client had already outsourced – to multiple service providers – more than 50 percent of its customer facing calls not handled by interactive voice response (IVR). The majority of these calls were simple, routine, and easily scripted. It wanted to expand its existing outsourcing scope and the complexity of the calls handled by a third-party provider by adding incentives for cross-selling, in part because it had an internal space constraint that warranted near-term headcount reduction.

While the incumbent service provider that supported most of the calls was able to deliver adequate levels of customer satisfaction, it did not meet the client’s resource level requirements, and had only one year left on the contract. The client needed to identify a service provider that had a global delivery footprint, could meet its resource requirements, possessed the flexibility to handle call volume peaks and valleys, and had the expertise to provide seamless support for both simple, routine calls as well as more advanced, complex calls without exposing the client to additional risks.

Insight to Action

Everest Group began by developing a comprehensive baseline that included multiple components including the sourcing model (i.e., internal, outsourced), delivery location, call types, volume, metrics, supporting full time equivalents (FTEs), and costs.

Next, Everest Group built a detailed decision framework that analyzed call types, level of risk, and service provider capability to determine the best sourcing alternative. It structured this framework based on a distinct set of future state design tenets and consistent logic to ensure it could be leveraged across business units as the outsourcing scope continued to expand.

Based on the outputs from these initiatives, Everest Group recommended the optimal sourcing alternatives for each of the client’s lines of business, and identified a set of service providers that could meet or exceed its requirements. Finally, Everest Group prepared an 18-month roadmap that specified, by business line, the sequencing of outsourcing initiatives to align with the client’s internal infrastructure projects and other critical dependencies.  

Impact

Everest Group enabled the client to achieve a projected 20 to 30 percent net savings from the expanded outsourcing scope, optimize its service portfolio with enhanced flexibility and scalability without additional investment, lower its delivery cost via outsourcing of more complex call types, and grow its sales revenue by leveraging the providers’  robust cross-selling capabilities and highly trained resource pools. In addition, by moving additional FTEs to the provider organizations, the client created much-needed space other personnel.