Convoso CMO Featured in Destination CRM on Call Center Onshoring

In a recent destinationCRM article by technology writer Phillip Britt, "Contact Centers See a New Focus on Onshoring," we learn that as the global economy slows and the talent market tightens, some companies are rethinking their strategies and bringing contact centers back from distant locations to closer regions, including the U.S., to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Cost has traditionally driven offshoring decisions, but now, factors like turnover, agent success, and regulatory compliance are influencing the trend toward onshoring.

Convoso CMO Lisa Leight shared some insights on the topic and below is an excerpt from the article featuring her remarks.

Addressing turnover is critical, especially with higher onshore pay rates, says Lisa Leight, chief marketing officer of Convoso, a contact center software provider.

“There are numerous drivers behind turnover, including higher stress levels for frontline customer agents. We hear from our contact center customers that the biggest factor driving improved morale and lower turnover is ensuring that agents succeed,” she says. Ensuring success means, in part, that agents have the right tools for success, Leight adds. “The integral driver here is connection rate or contact rate—how often your agents are on the phone connecting with live consumers. Ensuring you have the technologies and processes to maximize contact rates goes a long way to driving agent success and, in turn, greater retention.”

Beyond those technologies and processes, Leight recommends the following:

• Ensure access to real-time analytics and robust, customizable reporting to monitor agent performance.

• Minimize nonproductive agent time. A big killer of agent productivity is the time spent by outbound agents listening to voicemail messages. Ensuring that your platform can detect answering machines will significantly reduce the time spent listening to and dispositioning answering machine pickups.

• Optimize onboarding of agents. Getting agents up to speed as quickly as possible is essential, especially with higher rates for domestic agents. Contact centers can leverage tools like dynamic scripting to guide agents, helping new hires gain proficiency faster. Dynamic scripting also helps with quality control and ensuring compliance with required disclosures.

Another issue with reshoring of contact centers is the regulatory environment, Leight cautions. “If companies are bringing back contact center operations that an offshore outsourcer was handling, they must be vigilant to ensure that they are up to date on all compliance requirements, which may include recent Telephone Consumer Protection Act regulations as well as state laws that have been increasingly popping up over the past several years. This may include calling day and time restrictions, maximum number of call attempts, etc.”

Phillip Britt, "Contact Centers See a New Focus on Onshoring"

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From the editors of CRM magazine, destinationCRM is dedicated to providing Customer Relationship Management product and service information in a timely manner to connect decision makers and CRM industry providers now and into the future.

Phillip Britt is a freelance writer based in the Chicago area. He can be reached at spenterprises1@comcast.net.