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Transparent BPO |
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January 19, 2015 Issue |
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The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information |
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Business Process Outsourcing Services |
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CEO
Transparent BPO
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – January 19, 2015
CEOCFO: Mr. Newman, what is the idea behind Transparent BPO? Mr. Newman: Transparent was established to provide a different level of service in business process outsourcing. Our call center operations are based in Belize with our headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland. We opened in 2009 with the idea that we would provide a high-level service for our US clientele while helping them realize cost savings by being in the near shore market.
CEOCFO: Can you describe what your company offers? Mr. Newman: First and foremost, we offer a full suite of services to our clients, from the typical inbound, outbound sales to customer service voice type offerings. We also do back office services such as data entry and quality assurance programs. We do web chat and email support as well as some technical solutions such as IVR options for our clients. Besides our service offerings, which are extensive, we focus on the call center contact world, brand reputation and delivery for our clients’ customer base. Many times when companies outsource their customer service or sales division, they see a real hit in their brand reputation because the outsourcer does not represent the brand as if it were their own. Customers frequently have preconceived notions about outsourcing offshore to destinations such as India, the Philippines. In Belize, English is the primary language, so we are able to offer a service with our labor pool where they sound like they are Americans.
CEOCFO: How do you get around the idiomatic words and phrases? How do you train your people so they can recognize some of those? Mr. Newman: It is a valid question and something you have to tackle in the customer service field constantly. We tackled it in two ways: first our destination of choice in Belize and second our training procedure. The advantage of Belize is that English is the primary language. They learn English in schools, they grow up speaking it and it truly is their first language. We avoid many of the cultural issues because the US and Belize are tied so closely together. They have a fixed exchange rate to the US dollar. They watch nothing but American TV. Belize used to be a British colony, so many of those English principles in their court systems and educational fields link strongly to the US. Second, in any good contact center, training is important. In our typical on-boarding process, agents will go through a number of training courses from active listening skills, which we work on aggressively, to the American accent and mastering it, which is a different language all by itself. Then, they will go through customer service, sales and communication training before we bring new employees into the business.
CEOCFO: Are you able to go down to the regional level? Mr. Newman: Absolutely. One of the unique things about Belizeans in general is they are very adaptive and are able to pace and mimic customers. They grasp certain tones, pitch and pace quickly. It is impossible for any contact center to train down to an extremely granular level for regional accents around the country. We are able to tackle many of the higher-level communication issues and then the agents themselves will pick up on many of the differences based on the regions in the United States.
CEOCFO: Do your customers care that it is Belize or do they care that it is done correctly? Mr. Newman: They care about both. For the most part, we have been successful working with clients who had not entertained the idea of outsourcing, particularly offshore, because of preconceived notions. It is a scary process because they are losing an element of control. It’s a nice transition for them because, in Belize, they can at least check off the concerns with communication and language. But that is only part of the concern. The other part is making sure that their processes, core values and customer base are valued. So to answer your question, it is a combination of the two, you cannot have one without the other. They care about being close to the US where they can visit and spend time working with the staff, making sure they are communicating well with our customer base. But they also care that the program is run properly with the right oversight to make sure that their customer base is valued.
CEOCFO: What types of companies tend to use your service? Is there a common thread? Mr. Newman: There is not really a common thread. We are diverse, split between inbound and outbound services with sales and customer service in a variety of verticals. There is not one particular vertical where we see a higher occupancy rate than another.
CEOCFO: Do many of your customers take advantage of your full variety of services? Mr. Newman: Most come in with one particular service they need but many of them will actually branch off, sample and allow us to help them construct some best practices for their customer base. For example, we began doing customer service for one client and it quickly grew into email and chat support and then some technical support to help them in IVR in their customer service line. Once clients realize the quality we provide and are happy working with us, they will branch off and test some our other services as well.
CEOCFO: Are there many companies in your industry in places like Belize that seems to provide the best of both worlds, not too costly and English speaking language? Mr. Newman: There are many call centers in some great regions outside of the US. Belize is the only country in Latin America where English is the primary language. The Dominican Republic and Costa Rica are popular destinations for outsourcing, but their natural language is not English – they learn it. That is one of the key differences. There is only one country in South America where English is the primary language as well. For a true destination where English is the culture driver, there are only a few options, but from a contact center outsourcing perspective, there are hundreds of options, many thousands in the same sort of region that we are in.
CEOCFO: How do you reach potential customers? Mr. Newman: We do a great deal of partnering, both with marketing partners in the US as well as internal sales. We established ourselves in 2009 and over the past five years, most of our growth has been organic from referrals and growing current clients within our facility. In the beginning of 2014, we started ramping up our outside sales strategy. Although almost all of the call centers say they believe in true “partnerships,” we have the track record to prove it.
CEOCFO: What have you learned over time that allows you to have a better offering today? Mr. Newman: What is unique about our company is we are dynamic, young and learning. We are not afraid of change -- changing our procedures or organizational structure. Not only do we share our expertise with our clients, we learn from our clients as well. Then we redefine our business on an ongoing basis to help grow. We have learned many things -- from labor best practices in Belize, how to work and relate better with our labor pool, to better practices in the customer service and sales fields from working with our clients.
CEOCFO: How do you understand what level of customer service your customers want and how do you train your people to be responsive but not yet outside the bounds that a company wants to go? Mr. Newman: The key is we align ourselves as a high quality provider and look for good partnerships with clients that share our same values and seek a high level of service.
The Zappos customer service model is extraordinary when it comes to customer service – it’s something we strive for with all of our clients. It is a value of our company that our clients are important. That being said, looking at metrics and cost for our clients and call handle times are things that are very important as part of the general practice in the call center industry. There is a fine line between keeping a customer on the phone for thirty minutes to handle a simple concern and not engaging the customer, just to solve their issue and get them off the phone. It comes down to training and understanding our client’s brand thoroughly. We are an extension of their brand and we have to understand that before we can start working with them. We reinforce it on the call floor on a regular basis to make sure that we do not lose sight of that during the day to day practices.
CEOCFO: Transparent BPO is on the Inc. 5000 list, so clearly business is good. How do you continue this trajectory? What is next for you? Mr. Newman: We have some additional expansion to do Belize, both inside our facility as well as expansion to a new facility in the next couple of years. In three to five years, we would look to grow our brand into other destinations and open another implementation of Transparent BPO.
CEOCFO: Put it all together, why choose Transparent BPO? Mr. Newman: We’re a smaller call center that works closely with our clients. We care about their brands, their company culture. We value our client relationships. We care about our people and team in Belize. They are well compensated and challenged on a daily basis. Our core offering at the end of the day is unique. We are a full service BPO. English is the primary language. With Transparent BPO, you can achieve the same quality that you would get by keeping your business in the United States while also realizing a significant cost savings by pushing it to the near shore. |
“With Transparent BPO, you can achieve the same quality that you would get by keeping your business in the United States while also realizing a significant cost savings by pushing it to the near shore.” - Scott Newman
Transparent BPO
Scott Newman 800-276-5140
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Scott
Newman