Four Steps to Infuse Your Culture and Brand into Outsourced Call Centers

In nearly every industry, companies rely on strong brand identity to promote customer loyalty. For catalogers, brand identity is especially critical because the products and services they offer tend to targeted at specific niche audiences. As a result, they’re constantly trying to identify opportunities to create an affinity with customers and build their brand. One channel that can be particularly effective in this capacity is the customer service contact center.

The contact center represents an essential communications link between an organization and its customers. Contact center reps continuously interact with customers, amassing tons of information that can be used by catalogers to gauge brand awareness, customer satisfaction and ultimately, customer loyalty. Ideally, the contact center and the catalogers who contract with it will work together to analyze the customer data and optimize the customer experience.

When catalogers elect to outsource customer service, technical support or other processes, they must choose one to which they’ll be comfortable with infusing their culture. In turn, outsourcing providers have to adopt catalogers’ culture so both can attain a shared vision and objective for growing the cataloger’s brand. Catalogers’ culture that third-party providers are privy to represents a multilayered, ongoing process that involves site selection, recruiting, training and providing brand exposure to associates.

Below is a four-step way to ensure that your company’s culture winds up in the right hands with the third-party contact center you choose.

1. Select the right site. Associates familiar with a brand or product have an advantage in terms of embracing a catalog’s culture. Ideally, the allure of a brand or product will serve as a recruiting tool for an eager talent pool. Some providers establish “centers of excellence” that are positioned for specific types of clients or services. In certain geographies where a brand or product is unavailable, the essence of a client’s culture might be completely foreign and the outsourcer should seek alternative locations where the brand is more prevalent.

2. Recruit and hire the right people. Catalogers should create contact center rep profiles to supply the third-party provider with a description of the qualifications and characteristics it should seek in job candidates. Generally, the qualifications are tangible, but the characteristics are intangible.

A cataloger that sells outdoor apparel and equipment, for example, should create a hiring profile that includes those interested in hiking, fishing, hunting and other outdoor activities. Similarly, a cataloger that offers specialized electronics can help build its brand by hiring contact center associates with experience in music and electronics.

3. Develop dynamic training programs. Training represents the first opportunity to mold impressionable trainees into the type of high-performing, respectful and loyal associates catalogers want. Training entails teaching the fundamentals, setting expectations and thrusting trainees into their new role. Some companies benefit greatly by taking creative approaches to training, such as incorporating games or having trainees create faux commercials that reflect the brand.

When done well, training engages and stimulates associates and prepares them to meet the challenges of the position. When done poorly, however, it can confound and frustrate associates and set the stage for unsatisfactory performance and attrition.

4. Everyday brand exposure. To successfully adopt a culture and identify with a brand, an agent must believe in a cataloger and its products. Make the brand part of an associate’s everyday life and/or work experience. This first-hand approach can have a positive impact on a program’s results.

For a cataloger that sells audio systems, for instance, equipping every workstation in the contact center with an audio system enables associates to listen to music throughout the day, promoting their passion for sound quality.

Accomplishing the above requires a substantial commitment from both the catalog company and the outsourcing provider. Failing to integrate a cataloger’s culture and brand into the contact center, however, can create a disconnect that will inevitably reflect poorly on consumers’ perceptions of the brand. When both commit to this adoption, the relationship flourishes, enabling each party to meet and exceed their objectives.

Sandy Ellis is relationship management director at Sitel, a global business process outsourcing provider formed by the January 2007 merger between ClientLogic and SITEL Corp. She can be reached at SandyEll@clientlogic.com.