The ‘traditional’ outsourcing of customer contacts focuses on proper care and the completion of this process. In other words, ensuring that telephone communications, e-mails, web interactions or traditional post are answered and processed properly. These types of outsourcing processes are driven primarily by KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) such as service level (x% of the communications handled during a ‘y’ period of time), first-contact fix (processing the customer’s question the first time to prevent repeat communications), sales conversion and so forth. Traditional payment models between outsourcer and outsourcee involve a price for each hour worked, price for each activity performed, or a price for each conversion.
With the ‘modern’ form of outsourcing, the goal of the project is formulated in intrinsic topics, such as customer value. This subtle change in perspective leads to newer types of payment models, such as costs per customer or total cost of ownership (TCO). An important benefit of this is that a better balance is created between the outsourcing partners’ interests. The outsourcer is in search of predictability and flexibility in costs per customer, the outsourcee agrees to invoice a fixed amount per customer, and has the opportunity to take the total customer process to task in order to streamline it, thereby reducing the number of unwanted customer contacts. The effect: a higher degree of customer satisfaction and a lower TCO. The service provider is ultimately judged on (and paid for) the success of the total project, not just for handling the customer contact.
