Alteram: Expert Guidance Helps South African BPO Firm Mature & Improve Operations
CUSTOMER PROFILE
BACKGROUND
The Battle For Efficiency in a Competitive Landscape
One of the company’s key lines of business is conducting telesales on behalf of one of the nation’s leading cable TV service providers. These operations fall into two key categories. Firstly, upselling active subscribers to superior TV packages. Secondly, convincing recently lapsed or canceled subscribers to renew their subscriptions.This BPO faces crowded competition from other vendors. TV companies used to invest heavily in telesales and have a stable of vendors at their disposal, but now focus on efficiency and cost reduction. The vendor with the lowest cost-persale wins the business and loyalty.As a result, the pressure is on to maintain a lean and effective outbound dialing operation within their contact center. Their ability to secure sales at minimal costs is vital for the success and continuity of their business.THE CHALLENGE
The Burden of Legacy Technology:
A Look at Operational Roadblocks
Before adding LiveVox SmartReach, the company relied on a DOS-based, on-premise system to drive its outbound sales operations. Though once adequate, the system was severely outdated and unable to meet their evolving needs. It hampered them with myriad problems:System Downtime & Lack of Stability
The outdated system had frequent issues, causing significant downtime that directly affected the company’s ability to connect with customers, impacted productivity, and resulted in significant revenue loss.Poor Agent Experience
The lack of necessary tools and frequent technical difficulties demoralized agents. Agents were restricted from being able to carry out even the most foundational elements of their roles - connecting with and talking to customers.Poor Customer Experience
Even when calls were able to connect, they frequently failed or were of such poor audio quality that customers struggled to understand agents, and vice versa.High Complexity with Limited Functionality
The complexity of the system and the time required to resolve even basic technical issues, combined with a very limited range of features, severely limited the company’s ability to execute dynamic sales strategies.
“Persistent downtime was affecting our efficiency, meaning we had a high costper- sale. We simply were not the most cost-effective partner for our clients..”
03 THE SOLUTION
Embracing the Cloud: The Leap to Enhanced Stability and Efficiency
The BPO made the strategic decision to transition to a proven cloud-based platform, a transformative shift for their outbound sales operations. They recognized the opportunity to consolidate their operations into a single, more efficient platform that could address the many challenges they faced with their legacy system.They opted to start simple but start fast- choosing a technology package that was tailored to address their core business need - a stable, efficient, and effective outbound sales operation. Training was implemented across the organization, and a smooth transition to LiveVox SmartReach was successful.The difference in operations following the transition has been described by the company’s Senior Client Services Manager as ‘night and day’.Enhanced Stability, Efficiency, and Call Quality- They experienced a significant upgrade in system stability. Frequent downtimes, a major drawback of the previous system, were drastically reduced.
- Quick, clean connections with customers and calls with excellent audio quality resulted in a better experience for customers and allowed for more effective outreach.
- A simpler agent desktop with improved functionality, combined with a stable system that actually allowed agents to consistently connect with and talk to customers, greatly increased their team’s ability to meet and exceed performance expectations.
- The ability for supervisors to listen in on calls and provide live assistance to agents allowed for better performance management - especially for remote teams.
- With all of their customer and operational data unified in a platform that was far more intuitive than their legacy solution, the BPO has been able to more intelligently segment their outbound campaigns.
- The ability to manage the platform is now shared among business users, empowering decision-makers to make tactical changes and direct operations without the need for timeconsuming engagement with technical support.
- Round-the-clock support ensured that any system issue was addressed promptly, minimizing potential downtimes. This level of support contributed to operational stability and helped maintain the momentum of outbound sales activities.