KellyConnect improves contact center performance and exceeds sales forecasts

KellyConnect Implements BPO Solution to Improve Contact Center Performance and Exceed Sales Forecasts

The Challenge

In December of 2005, KellyConnect began to work on-site in the contact center of a leading producer of advanced surgical instruments and medical devices. We were originally engaged to implement a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) solution for three scopes of work in their customer care environment, encompassing 11 contract employees.

The customer’s challenges included bandwidth issues, which restricted the internal resources available to provide direct oversight to their contact center team. Also, a recent change in corporate policy had limited the time that contingent staff could stay on assignment to just 12 months. Although the existing group performed well, the client was convinced that their performance could improve with more hands-on direction—and could not add supervisory support.

Almost 80% of contact center personnel were contingent staff, with a typical training cycle of 10–12 weeks, and at least 100% turnover on an annual basis. Facing the new 12-month term limit, the customer was concerned that they would not be able to attract the best and brightest talent moving forward. They also anticipated an increase in turnover, which would increase their training costs in turn, and present further issues regarding business continuity.

The Solution

KellyConnect leveraged the strength of our BPO business model and experience in customer care environments to develop new initiatives that effectively addressed the customer’s concerns. Our solution:

• Elevated the performance of a well-performing team by implementing personalized performance management plans for each employee.
• Instituted a comprehensive growth and development program to provide a career roadmap for employees, enhancing their retention.
• Maintained the integrity of our outsourced solution while delivering services within the client’s brick-and-mortar operation, and enhancing their existing interdependencies across all contact center functions.

We have subsequently expanded the scope of our solution since 2005—from managing 11 to managing 30 full-time contract employees, and from 3 to 10 scopes of work.

Scope encompassed: Inbound Complaint Management, Customer Relations Complaint Management, Inbound and Outbound Sales Management, Master Data Management, Technical Web-based Support Management, Professional Education Management, Telecommunications Management, Risk Management, and International Invoicing Management.

The Results

Since implementing our KellyConnect BPO solution, we have exceeded sales forecast by double-digit growth every year since 2005. The customer has concurrently increased our sales responsibility to the organization, from $2.5 million in December of 2005 to $6.5 million by December of 2007.

Over this same period, we received the prestigious Sales Excellence Award in Recognition of Achievement for Call Monitoring, as well as Recognition of Achievement for SCP Call Center Certification, a world-class customer service certification. Every operation has remained successful and stable to date—consistently exceeding the expectations of our customer.