Rob Crutchington shares his 3-point methodology to maximise the UK’s outsourced contact centre opportunity.
According to the Call Centre Management Association (CCMA), contact centre outsourcing in the UK has been steadily increasing over the past decade and the Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) sector now employs around 175,000 people. It is the largest employer of contact centre staff in the UK and is growing at the fastest rate, as in-house operations move work to BPO suppliers. Statistics also indicate that UK decision-makers lead the way in their willingness to entrust third-parties with much higher levels of agent positions to manage end-user relationships.
Businesses across the nation cite simple economics as one of the top reasons for outsourcing their contact centre operation – enabling them to benefit from economies of scale. Other reasons include reduced upfront capital expenses and the costs associated with the ongoing maintenance and repair of in-house workplace facilities. In fact, statistics indicate that moving from an internal model to an outsourced model can save organisations between 5 and 20%.
Time to face up to the elephant in the room: payment card security
Interestingly, while organisations agree that data security and privacy are major barriers to success when outsourcing their contact centres, they focus primarily on complying with data-led regulations such as GDPR and often dismiss the importance of other security measures such as boosting payment card security. At a time when the majority of organisations take card payments in the contact centre and UK card fraud losses amounted to £196.5 million in the first half of 2023 alone, UK companies are effectively ignoring the elephant in the room!
Winning strategies to enhance customer experience (CX) and consumer trust
Encoded’s new white paper explores the top reasons for moving to contact centre outsourcing, the most common pitfalls along with several proven strategies to enhance customer experience and customer trust. Here is our 3-point methodology to maximise today’s significant outsourced contact centre opportunity:
1. Choose the right partner
2. Choose the right technology
Blend people and processes with innovative secure payment solutions that are specially designed to help customer service organisations – whether in-house or outsourced – comply with important data regulations such as PCI DSS, GDPR and the Payment Services Directive (PSD2). For a winning customer confidence strategy, consider the latest tech superheroes including tokenisation, Gateway and Payment Orchestration and modern Agent Assisted Payment solutions with an added Fraud Prevention Platform.
3. Follow in the footsteps of real-life successes
Business process outsourcing (BPO) specialist Sigma Connected is a perfect example. Founded in 2011 with just 20 full-time employees, today the company employs over 5,000 people and offers innovative and bespoke customer contact solutions for some of the world’s largest and best-known brands. Moreover, hundreds of agents rely on automated technology from Encoded to handle thousands of calls a month from blue-chip clients while streamlining payment processes, boosting security and enhancing both agent and customer satisfaction at the same time.
To discover how your organisation can transform CX and customer loyalty to maximise the UK outsourced contact centre opportunity, download Encoded’s new white paper for more ideas and inspiration.
Rob Crutchington is CEO of Encoded
