Outsourcing: Rick Ferry, COO of C3 (Part 1)

Customer service can make or break some businesses. Yet customer service is something that businesses often outsource to companies like C3. C3 handles customer communications for corporations that see customer service as one of the most important aspects of their businesses. C3’s leadership team has about 30 years of customer management experience between them. C3 has locations spread throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia, but the company’s corporate office is in Plantation, Florida.

Sramana Mitra: Hi Rick. Let’s start with an overview of C3, your background and just some general context. >>>

Outsourcing: Ross Kimbarovsky, Co-Founder of CrowdSPRING (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Today, you’re about a $10 million a year company, right?

Ross Kimbarovsky: Roughly in that range. We’re a private company, so we don’t disclose.

SM: A range is fine. Now, you said 109,000 designers and freelancers from various nationalities. Talk a little bit about which nationalities are represented. >>>

Outsourcing: Ross Kimbarovsky, Co-Founder of CrowdSPRING (Part 1)

We’ve covered outsourcing sites before, like Elance and Freelancer.com, which are open to all kinds of freelancers, from telemarketers to virtual assistants to graphic designers to bookkeepers. But some, like Chicago-based CrowdSPRING, specialize. CrowdSPRING dedicates itself to serving the needs of creative individuals, like graphic designers and writers, and those who need their services. Founders Ross Kimbarovsky and Mike Samson wanted to create an outsourcing environment, using a crowd sourcing model, that would safely open the world to new possibilities rather than limiting small business owners, or whoever needed creative services, to people in their own countries or communities. >>>

Outsourcing: Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance (Part 7)

SM: I find this model incredibly compelling. I actually am a huge believer of the growth rates. I think it’s going to go very well. I think it’s going to be a $10 billion, $15 billion, $20 billion economy.

FR: I think it’s going to be bigger than that. We’re at the beginning of this e-work phase. Work is huge. Employment is huge. A portion of it will go online, and whatever small portion goes online is a huge number.

SM: And I think flexibility, from an employer’s perspective, is an interesting value proposition. I think more and more companies not hiring people and putting people on payroll but doing these kinds of models. >>>

Outsourcing: Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance (Part 6)

SM: What percentage is that?

FR: It’s less than 10% of the total community of Elance that’s on the premium model. The membership that we’ve designed – it’s funny because we really designed it to be fair to our community. It’s a month-to-month. We don’t try to lock people into membership for as long as possible. They can actually upgrade and downgrade every month. When they need it, it goes up. If they decide the next month they want to go on vacation, or they don’t need to work, or they don’t need to submit any proposals, if they like to, they can go down to free. >>>

Outsourcing: Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance (Part 5)

SM: And you have the provisions on your system to allow for both.

FR: To allow for both, yes. In fact, you can, as a business, submit a proposal as a company or you can submit candidates. You can choose either one, and then when you staff a project, every time you win a job, we set up a work room for you, and you can give access to as many people as you want. Some businesses do not allow their staffs to have access to the work room and simply have an intermediary. Others assign all of their staff and say, you, you, you are working on this project with the client. Go ahead and work together. In my opinion, it’s a better model. >>>

Outsourcing: Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: That’s what I do, always. I don’t even bother too much with the interview. I give them a trial project and see how they feel about it.

Fabio Rosati: Some people like to interview because they get to understand, for example, in customer support, if the communication is very good. Communication is really important, availability in time zones. That kind of stuff matters to some folks. So, [it] depends on the job. The trial … what system do you have around the world that allows you to do that? Not many. So, trial is great. And then, once you’re on, there are best practices on how to build a team successfully. Most people have to recognize that for somebody to become dedicated, loyal and committed to your business, they need the same kinds of things that you would expect: good communication and empathy. I’m part of a team, and I’m going to make my online team be part of a team. Visibility – if you want me to be available for you next week, let me know that you intend to work with me every week. Don’t expect me to be available each time on short notice because I may have other work. I may have other clients, other commitments. So, visibility’s really important. >>>

Outsourcing: Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance (Part 3)

SM: Talk about the 20 metrics around which you measure behavior.

FR: They’re broken into three big categories. The first one is marketing, how you market your services. We felt that was instrumental to the perception of professionalism and the perception of quality. The community on Elance bought into the idea that when they see a potential client, when they see a proposal, a job being posted, it was important to only respond and only apply to the job if they felt qualified, if they felt that they had a compelling reason as to why they would be hired, as opposed to the typical behavior of exchanges where you have hundreds of applicants. >>>