Outsourcing: Rick Ferry, COO of C3 (Part 2)

SM: What kind of outsourcing work do you do?

RF: It’s primarily complex customer service interactions and primarily voice.

SM: So, it’s a voice contact center?

RF: Correct.

SM: And the entire workforce of about 7,000 people, spanning some locations in the US, Philippines, Latin America, Bulgaria, etc. are all voice call centers?

RF: That’s correct.

SM: Let’s get some context on the business. In the US, what kinds of customers do you work with?

RF: In the verticals that we are involved in in the US include health care and the licensed and general customer service support in the health care industry. We also are involved in the telecommunications and financial services industries, and transportation and hospitality primarily.

SM: Fortune 500? Mid-market? What’s the size of the customers?

RF: Primarily Fortune 500.

SM: And outside of the US, what kinds of customers are you catering to?

RF: A similar footprint outside the US in terms of customers. In fact, most of our client base are with us here in the US and abroad.

SM: Does the Philippine call center cater to the US?

RF: The call center in the Philippines is supporting both US customers and local Philippine customers as well as customers from Australia.

SM: And what about Latin America? Is that a Latin American customer base or Latin America catering to the US?

RF: It’s Latin America catering to the US primarily.

SM: And Bulgaria?

RF: Bulgaria is actually supporting European activity.

SM: And what percentage of your business is European customers?

RF: The percentage of business in the Europe theater is about 10% of the overall book of business.

SM: So, the bulk of the business is still catering the United States, yes?

RF: It is. That’s correct.

SM: So, talk to me about how the call center industry, from a talent point of view, has evolved. And what are you doing to keep up with that evolution, lead the evolution, whatever way you look at it?

RF: Excellent question. The unemployment rate in the US, in point of fact around the world, probably in all geographies other than the Philippines, in which we operate, has escalated dramatically over the last several years. What happens in that period of escalation is the supply grows but also the level of sophistication of the workforce increases. What we found in our history, as we go through these cycles, particularly here in the US, is that many companies miss that significant point: the elevation of the sophistication of the workforce.

So, the workforce comes in, and there’s a higher level of education. And in return, their expectation is a higher level of training and development to be offered so that the training and development is actually more meaningful and therefore, more effective. Additionally, in our European operation, both Glasgow and Sofia, the workforce is highly educated. The unemployment rate in both of those geographies has led to many college graduates looking for work outside of their fields. But they are still excited and eager to get into an opportunity in the contact center and, by extension, the marketing disciplines that the contact center can provide background for. So, we’ve significantly upgraded our training and development staff in order to cater to and take maximum advantage of that resource that’s out there.

Our performance optimization group, for example, is a group that presents us with an opportunity not only to satisfy the needs I just described of that sophisticated workforce that we’re taking advantage of, but it also offers us the opportunity to provide a standalone product for prospective clients and current clients. So, we’re able to offer our training and development staff to that client base. It’s worked out well for us. We think it to be a unique approach to training in and of itself, just setting aside the unique attributes it provides for the overall call center business. The way we approach to training and development is unique.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Outsourcing: Rick Ferry, COO of C3
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