With 28,000 team members across North and Central America, Europe and Asia, TELUS International is a global business process outsourcing (BPO) provider that delivers contact center, information technology and advisory solutions across fast-growing technology, financial services and FinTech, travel and hospitality and healthcare industries.
Michael Ringman is TELUS International’s Chief Information Officer, where he is responsible for supporting omnichannel solutions that enable the rapid growth and evolution of the company’s clients’ brands. Here, Mike discusses the rise of omnichannel to deliver a personalised and connected customer experience that is critical for brands in our increasingly digitized world.
Omnichannel is still considered a relatively new strategy when discussing customer service delivery. What is omnichannel and why is it becoming the new norm for brands wanting to deliver exceptional customer experiences?
Nowadays, consumers are using an average of five connected devices to access voice, email, chat, social media and self-service when conducting product research and completing purchases. In response to this changing dynamic between consumer and brand, companies must keep pace by offering multiple touchpoints in order to provide seamless connections and instant gratification as customers switch between an e-commerce site, to a smartphone, to a physical store.
An omnichannel strategy involves these cohesive channels, working together to create a unified brand experience, ensuring the customer gets the same service, support, and information, regardless of how they interact with the brand. Unfortunately, in many companies, these channels still often exist in silos, or at best, a multichannel environment where multiple support channel are offered but not necessarily integrated with one another
With customer service outpacing the product as a deciding factor in many instances, brands must evolve to an omnichannel strategy to keep their customers. In fact, according to a study by the Aberdeen Group, companies with an omnichannel strategy retain on average 89% of their customers, compared to 33% for companies with weak omnichannel customer engagement.
Are there particular industries that should be incorporating omnichannel strategies?
Beyond retail, where omnichannel had its start, today’s booming online sales and customer growth across all industries, including banking, healthcare and travel, have made keeping up with consumer behaviour a universal objective. Consumer goods and customer-facing brands, both big and small, need to meet service and efficiency challenges across multiple channels. The new kids on the block – the industry disruptors like Airbnb and Uber – have been focused on delivering a connected, convenient and personalized omnichannel experience right from the start of their business. It’s part of their mentality and company DNA in order to differentiate themselves from established brands. The pressure is now on traditional businesses to make the shift to omnichannel.
How can a company assess their readiness to transition to omnichannel?
When contemplating a shift to omnichannel, it’s important to recognize that it’s not simply about technology. A successful omnichannel strategy will be a blend of people, processes and technology. In order to create and implement a clear strategy, it’s important to understand both the key challenges and requirements needed for effective enablement, which can be split across two categories – human capital and technology. It may sound odd coming from someone in the IT sector, but I would argue that people take precedence over technology. It’s not just the physical setup that needs to change, but how an organisation thinks about—and manages—its business.
You need the support of the entire organisation to foster a culture that is ready to embrace a customer's first paradigm shift, including C-level executives who can remove any silos that may exist, as well as knowledgeable and inspired contact center agents who are able to engage with customers across different channels. To help companies assess their readiness to transition to omnichannel, Everest Group in partnership with TELUS International released an assessment checklist that covers all aspects of making the jump.
The move to omnichannel can be a daunting proposition for some. How can companies plan ahead to make the shift less intimidating while also increasing their likelihood of success?
The initial focus should be to understand where your company stands today in its omnichannel readiness – and where it wants to go. Once established, companies need to ensure they build the following critical success factors into their planning: ensure a customer-centric approach, secure the direct involvement and support of senior leadership, ready the organisation for change on both the people and technology fronts, and align corporate culture with omnichannel imperatives by fostering the right mindset and behaviours among the entire team. By bringing into line people, processes and technology requirements before making the transition, you can expect to drive an enhanced customer experience, see a top-line impact and experience a reduced cost of operations.
Once a company has made or has started to make the transition to omnichannel, how can they measure their success and ensure that they are on the right track to meeting their targets and goals?
When implementing and measuring the success of an omnichannel strategy, you must be aware of the need to adjust key performance indicators (KPIs). This should include adding in, or in some instances, swapping out ‘unfriendly’ customer service metrics for more meaningful and ‘human’ metrics.
Average Handle Time (AHT) is a great example of a metric that only offers a two-dimensional perspective of a three-dimensional world. For example, an agent’s handle time may be high; but what if the customer’s experience was improved because the agent took the extra time to assist him with an issue?
In the age of omnichannel, brands should focus on metrics like First Call Resolution (FCR), which will be a much better indicator of great customer service and will give agents ‘permission’ to take the necessary time to fully address a customer’s issues and own the customer experience from start to finish. Other KPIs, such as Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Likelihood to Recommend (L2R), are great for getting customers to self-report how they view their relationship with the brand, which provides another layer of data that will help brands better understand their customers and further personalise their experience in the future.
How can brands get the most out of their omnichannel data once implemented?
In order to capitalise on an omnichannel strategy post-implementation, the type of data you collect as well as how you store and analyse it should be a key consideration. It’s important to capture both big data (e.g.: tracking searches on your website) and small data (e.g.: one-on-one conversations between an agent and a customer) from each of your different channels, and to store it in a central data repository. This enables you to analyze it by channel to quickly identify channel-specific challenges, but also affords you the opportunity to view it as a whole in order to help highlight your customers’ likes, dislikes and habits. Leveraged in a thoughtful and timely fashion, this data will reduce reaction times to problems and help to proactively address them in some instances; identify trends in what your customers want and how, when and where they want it; and inform the evolution of your product(s) so that you continue to meet the wants and needs of consumers.
What do you see as the future of omnichannel?
In the near future, an omnichannel customer experience won’t be a ‘nice to have’; it will be a matter of survival for brands in competitive industries as customer service becomes increasingly prioritized by consumers. Customer service will no longer be about voice, chat, digital and email support in isolation. Instead a blend of channels, supporting integrated customer interactions will become an established consumer expectation. Complemented by the rise in artificial intelligence as well as more skilled and knowledgeable agents, omnichannel will foster an increasingly personalised and consistent customer experience to further differentiate brands to an ever wider set of customers.
Website: https://www.telusinternational.com/
Next up we reached out to a professional that we have had the privilege of interviewing before - Jeffrey Puritt from TELUS International, the global arm of the multibillion dollar Canadian telecommunications company, TELUS Corporation. TELUS International is a global contact center and IT outsourcing company with more than 25,000 inspired employees serving clients in over 35 languages from delivery centers across North America, Central America, Europe and Asia. Here Jeffrey shares with us his insights on outsourcing, while also providing valuable advice for industry stakeholders.
Since joining TELUS International in 2005, Jeffrey and his team have delivered remarkable results, earning the company a more than US$1 billion valuation, adding more than 5,000 team members in each of the past two years, and engaging some of the world’s most iconic brands as clients, supporting over 200 million customer interactions annually via voice, email, chat and social media across high-tech, gaming, retail, e-commerce, travel and hospitality, health care, finance, and telecom.
Jeffrey was recently named “Executive of the Year”, receiving an esteemed International Stevie Award for his vision and leadership in redefining the global outsourcing industry. He is especially proud of TELUS International’s global philanthropy and volunteer efforts, which are making a meaningful difference in the communities where they operate.
Beyond cost-savings, how is outsourcing driving value for companies?
Outsourcing has traditionally been an industry predicated upon leveraging wage arbitrage to deliver services more cheaply; essentially, ‘Your mess for less.’ While the relentless push to operate more efficiently remains the main driving force, outsourcing has now also become a strategic marketplace tool, and is recognized as one of a handful of business approaches that can fundamentally transform a company and increase its competitiveness exponentially. Truly successful outsourcing begins with an understanding of your business’s identity and core competencies. If you understand your unique competitive advantage, you’re better positioned to consider what work you’re doing that could be outsourced. The next step is establishing a strategic outsourcing relationship to undertake this work in order to create the white space and free up your in-house resources to do things they previously could not, such as drive improved response times, speed up product development and foster innovation.
How has TELUS International maintained their status year-over-year as a global leader in employee engagement (81%) with attrition scores 50% below the industry average?
In an ever-increasing competitive market for talent, companies must go above and beyond to first of all attract the right people and then to retain and engage them. In addition to the more traditional employee benefits, such as state-of-the-art facilities and onsite daycares that we provide, TELUS International is a company with heart; as we say, #ItsDifferentHere. Our unique and differentiated culture is the enabler of our DNA, and I liken our approach to leadership to a quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of Le Petit Prince: “If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” This quote speaks to how we share our vision for growth and success and inspire our team members to join the collective journey to be part of something bigger than their individual roles.
What’s your golden nugget of advice for other BPO providers?
Very simply, focus on who sits in the seat in your contact centers because the customer experience will never exceed the employee experience. At TELUS International, we call our frontline agents ‘heroes’: they are the face of our company with our clients’ customers, and they are truly the hearts and hands behind our commitment to giving back in our communities. An engaged team member is an inspired one – so our focus is to surround ours with what’s important to them, such as inspiring workplaces where they can unwind, exercise and connect with their colleagues, learning and development opportunities to advance their careers and family-friendly initiatives that include healthcare benefits for our team members’ parents and siblings, on-site daycares and flexible schedules.
As a thought leader in this segment, what does the future hold for outsourcing?
Today’s digitally-savvy consumers want the most advanced technology delivered with a human touch and not surprisingly, it’s also influencing how consumers expect to interact with their favorite brands and how customer service must evolve. Whether through their own channels or by investing in contact centers with skilled agents that have embraced this trend, it will be critical for companies to effectively leverage and combine the best of both the high-tech and ‘high-touch’ worlds in order to delight and keep their customers. We have found success by partnering closely with our clients to develop omnichannel experiences, using more “friendly” customer service metrics, making text and speech analytics actionable and incorporating a focus on both small and big data. At the end of the day, consumers want to feel understood, acknowledged and connected to the brands and companies they choose. Whether you can achieve this through human interaction or technology with a human touch, the strongest affiliations always come when you can create a strong culture that drives truly meaningful connections.
What are your thoughts on the recent anti-outsourcing sentiment in the US leading up to the election?
At TELUS International we’re committed to and are very proud of creating meaningful employment opportunities in emerging economies, however, we recognize that sensitivity regarding domestic job displacement still exists. I believe this entire view is predicated on the hypothesis that a job created in another country equals a job lost here - a zero sum game. While I’m cognizant of this concern, I challenge that paradigm based on our experience with TELUS, our parent company and client in Canada, where legacy jobs (particularly those in contact centers), that have moved offshore to the Philippines, El Salvador and Romania have been replaced with higher-value employment opportunities onshore. These are jobs that TELUS was able to create and underwrite by leveraging the significant savings and value created by outsourcing. I believe the re-investment of this type of savings being used to grow operations, create training and learning and development opportunities to transition employees to higher-skilled roles, is in fact a potential primary driver of the global economy.
‘Food for Thought’
What inspires you to press further into your work?
I’m inspired knowing that the work we are doing is making a positive impact in the regions where we operate. By providing meaningful employment opportunities, we are helping to end cycles of poverty by contributing to the creation of a middle class where our team members live, work and raise their families. I am also inspired by my fellow TELUS International team members’ excitement about upcoming opportunities for our company and their commitment to achieve even greater success in the months and years ahead.
What have you learned from your mistakes?
I’ve learned that mistakes and failures are inevitable in life and in business, but how you leverage the tuition from these experiences, to not repeat the same mistakes and to be innovative and agile in finding an alternate way forward, is a key indicator of future success. I also believe that as humans, we are inherently programmed to learn more from our own mistakes than the experiences of others. For example, touching a hot stove is a better teacher than simply being told it’s hot. So, over the years I’ve learned I may have to ‘touch some stoves’ – but also how to only get ‘burned’ once!
What do you feel you couldn’t live without?
First and foremost, I couldn’t live without my family. I consider it a true privilege to love and care for them, to celebrate their achievements and to be there to comfort them when they fall. On the flip side, I might say that I couldn’t live without my smartphone because of all the time I spend traveling internationally to meet with our team and clients. I may also add a bottle of white Burgundy or red Super Tuscan wine and a couple of my favorite movies such as A Streetcar Named Desire and Monty Python and the Holy Grail to my list of must-haves.
For more information, go to https://telusinternational.com
Outsourcing spend by UK financial services firms reached £769 million in 2016, an 11% rise year-on-year, as businesses boosted investments in back-office transformation, according to the latest Arvato Outsourcing Index.
The research, compiled by business process outsourcing (BPO) provider Arvato and industry analyst NelsonHall, revealed that spending on BPO contracts rose sharply across the sector last year with companies procuring outsourced services in policy services, HR and property and casualty claims processing.
The Index found that BPO agreements worth £621 million were signed across the sector in 2016, up 87% on the previous 12 months.
The research revealed that the boost in back-office spending contributed to the rise in deal value agreed in the industry last year. Contracts signed by financial services firms accounted for 12% of the overall UK outsourcing market in 2016, according to the findings. Only government (42%) and telecoms and media (19%) accounted for more spending.
Patrick Quinn, CEO of Arvato Financial Solutions UK & Ireland, said: “The financial services industry remains under pressure to transform, both in terms of improving services for customers and finding new cost savings.”
“It’s clear from the research that a growing number of companies across the industry see outsourcing as a viable strategy to address these challenges through introducing new innovations and ways of working. There are some very positive signs for the sector’s health looking forward, with a high proportion of first-time outsourcing deals (57%) procured last year.”
The Arvato UK Outsourcing Index is compiled by leading BPO and IT outsourcing research and analysis firm Nelson Hall, in partnership with Arvato UK. The research is based on an analysis of all outsourcing contracts procured in the UK market during 2016.
Outsourcing deals worth a total of £6.2 billion were agreed in the UK last year.
(Source: Arvato UK)
Tim Orme is the Managing Director at BRT SA, running the UK arm of a Swiss BPO and Wealth Management technology business. The company provides outsourced middle and back office services to investment managers, as well as the bespoke technology platforms. Tim joined the company at a nascent stage and has dedicated the past 4 and a half years to leading the strategic and operational development of the firm, alongside his three colleagues on the executive team. As the UK business expands and continues to roll out BRT SA’s award winning solutions to more clients across the globe, a combination of high customer satisfaction and the firm’s healthy pipeline gives Tim and his colleagues continued confidence.
BRT came to life as a spin-off from Swiss asset managers Bedrock in 2007. Drawing on over 60 years of experience in private banking, the company has been growing profitably from the very beginning. Today, BRT has a staff of around 50 and serves 35 major clients who oversee more than 45 billion USD in AUM. We operate out of two offices, one in Geneva and a second in central London. Here Tim tells us more about the company, trends within wealth and asset management and his views on the future.
What is driving the current outsourcing trend within wealth and asset management? Subsequently, what are the key considerations for COOs considering BPO?
As the wealth and asset management industry becomes increasingly client orientated, the issue of which functions remain part of the core internal operation are being reassessed. Once coupled with downward pressure on operating margins and the increasing burdens of regulatory and compliance requirements, firms wanting to grow must consider innovative ways to manage operational expenditure, while maximising their efficiency and scalability.
Importantly the scope and interconnection of a BPO service needs to be closely tailored to each company’s unique procedural, investment and management philosophies. Non-differentiating generic activates such as reconciliation, price sourcing, report generation and data management can be easily transferred to specialist service providers, who can enrich them with best practices and scalable security of service, for example via an SLA. In the case where a service provider can combine established working methods with client specific customisation, firms can achieve a safe and reliable handover of these tasks without compromising on client experience & operational efficiency or undertaking cumbersome business transformation projects.
What are the key benefits for investment managers utilizing BPO service providers such as BRT?
When selecting an operational service provider that will play such a vital role within the business, it is absolutely key the solutions they provide are scalable, secure, capable and cost effective. All four of these aspects are mastered once the provider has gathered working methods from collaborating closely with its client base, as well as the additional positive externalities of critical insight and specialist process engineering. By working with an expert, investment managers can be sure they are staying up to date with technology and operations, while also freeing up time and resources to focus on their core activities of client relationships, research and generating alpha.
What is unique about the BRT approach to the market?
We work with our clients in two different modes, depending on their requirements. Firstly, we offer mature and dependable outsourcing services. This means our clients relinquish the burden of their back and middle office processes, as well as their IT and technology needs if necessary. As we cover the whole operational side, our clients don’t need to employ multiple service partners for this. Secondly, we offer the state of the art technology we developed for our own use, on a licensed basis. This allows those organisations who prefer to keep operational staff and processes in house the option to improve their overall operational functionality through customised software implementations. Over the years, BRT has established operational solutions boasting a well-established fleet of tools and services, and regardless of the role we play with each client, the core values of service, skill, discretion & integrity are ubiquitous.
What do you hope to achieve in the next few years?
Our shared goals for the company will continue to focus on the development of our product and service offering, essential to solidifying our position as the preferred partner to the wealth management industry. There is evidently strongly growing appetite for outsourced operational services, and as we build on 10 years of experience in this area we are confident of staying ahead of the curve and offering best in class solutions to wealth mangers, family offices, hedge funds and more. Our mobile solution, Fortress is also set to feature as a revolutionary private banking product, offering a simple, secure and totally white-labelled online portal, anywhere, anytime and on any device.
BPO headquarters
Banque Internationale à Luxembourg Suisse SA (BIL Suisse) has entered into a contract with B-Source, Avaloq’s Swiss BPO centre, to outsource its banking processes. The bank chose B-Source’s comprehensive and pre-configured business process outsourcing (BPO) solution based on the Avaloq Banking Suite.
B-Source and BIL Suisse have signed a contract for the provision of BPO services. Following an in-depth evaluation process, the bank elected a BPO solution based on the Avaloq Banking Suite, which enables a fast time-to-market. The migration is scheduled to be completed within six months from the start of the project.
BIL is Luxembourg’s oldest private bank and has been offering its services in Switzerland since 1984, mainly in the private and corporate banking sectors. With the migration from its current system Apsys to the B-Source solution the bank will further enhance its efficiency and implement a crucial element in order to support and strengthen its long-term growth strategy.
“In this rapidly changing banking environment it is key to stay ahead of the curve. We always aim to meet or exceed our clients’ expectations by providing them with state-of-the-art services and products. With B-Source we found excellent support – their solution is highly scalable, supports us in providing our clients with the best possible service and helps us realise our growth strategy. We are delighted to be working with such a competent partner moving forward”, said Thierry de Loriol, CEO of BIL Suisse.
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“With our BPO solution we can make a crucial contribution to BIL Suisse’s growth strategy”, commented Francisco Fernandez, CEO of Avaloq. “By fully industrialising their back office processes, more emphasis can be placed on the core business of providing clients at all times with the best possible service. I am greatly looking forward to the partnership with Luxembourg’s oldest private bank and supporting its Swiss subsidiary.”
Business process and IT outsourcing solutions are offered from Avaloq’s BPO centres in Switzerland, Germany and Singapore. The company employs more than 1,800 banking and IT specialists and has a global customer base of more than 140 financial institutions in over 20 countries worldwide, including tier one banks in leading financial centres.
The B-Source Master, an Avaloq based banking application landscape, forms the core of its market offering. Clients predominantly comprise private banks, retail banks and other institutes in the finance industry.
