The Global Association for Contact Center Best Practices & Networking

May 06, 2011 -- When staff come in the door at HEROtsc, they see a corridor lined with inspirational quotes from iconic sporting personalities and movie stars.

On the ceiling, a disco ball reflects light while straight ahead is a full-length mirror. Upbeat music is piped in through discreet speakers.

It's all done to put employees in a positive frame of mind before they start their shift.

This set-up, at the Larbert contact centre, is just one of the changes David Turner has made since he took over running the company in August 2008.

The former Marks & Spencer executive could see all call centres were being squeezed on price from rivals at home and abroad. So he started trying to reshape HEROtsc, moving them away from simply answering calls.

Instead Turner, 50, wanted to offer clients more info about customers and why they were getting in touch.

He said: "We did a decent job for the customer but weren't doing anything different from the marketplace or anything which would drive somebody to bring their business to us.

"I thought we needed to move from a sale generated by price to one where we were hitting outcomes for clients.

"We have this whole raft of data we get from speaking to customers.

"So we wanted to go back to clients and talk to them about what their customers really think and are really saying about them.

"When I came here, we were the fourth-largest contact centre business in the UK.

"While 90 per cent of what we do is on the end of the telephone, we are moving away from that.

"I don't see us as a contact centre business any more. We are a customer service solutions provider.

"What we must do is provide solutions for our clients that help improve customer service and sell outcomes to our clients. If we can do that, we can change the model of how we get paid."

Having added 1500 jobs in the past 18 months to take total staff numbers to 3500, the strategy seems to be working.

Major clients such as Vodafone, HSBC, Sky and E.On all appear to be happy. Turner admits it has taken time to convince people about the shift in focus. He said: "The model we have changed to is a tougher sell.

It takes longer to bring in new business.
"We have good growth in telecoms.

Two years ago, we didn't have anything in media and now we have about 1000 people working for Sky.

"We have increased our footprint in the retail market through Office Depot and that account has doubled in size since we took it.

"Utilities have been slow adopters so to get a client like E.ON has been music to our ears."

Turner believes outsourcing contact centre activities abroad only works for certain types of businesses.

He said: "The cost savings became negligible and businesses have become much more clever about looking where the savings are.

"But my main competition is not India or the Philippines. It is the large potential customers who retain in-house customer services.

"We have to convince them they would benefit from outsourcing to us and we perhaps haven't been very good at that in the past.

"That gives me the opportunity to grow our business in the UK."

Turner was only a few months into the job when he had to tell hundreds of people their jobs were at risk when T-Mobile ended their contract.

In the end, 200 were made redundant and it is an experience he has no wish to repeat. He said: "I have 3500 people working for me and by the end of the year I hope that is closer to 4500. There is a moral piece to being CEO that I have to make sure thesepeople have sustainable careers in the UK."

Although his week is usually split between homes in Buckinghamshire and Edinburgh, he often sits in and listens to how calls are being handled.

He said: "Nobody wants the boss to sit next to them but I reassure them it is not about me trying to worry them.

"I just want to find out what we do.

Sometimes you hear fantastic ones and other times they are not so good.

"That doesn't mean they are bad people. Sometimes you get difficult calls. I've probably spent more time than anyone else in the senior team putting on a headset to listen to what is happening on the phones. Then I come back to the managers to flag upthings."

Encouraging people to look at careers in the business rather than just jobs is another of Turner's passions.

HEROtsc have set up their own academy with qualifications and training programmes. Turner said: "I presented some certificates before Christmas and seeing the joy people get from that piece of paper is fantastic.

"A lot of youngsters come to us straight from school. I don't want it to be just a job for them so in a year's time they go somewhere else.

"We need to find a way of retaining them and creating real careers. I hope we can find our next managers, directors and chief executive from within the business."

Posted by Veronica Silva Cusi, news correspondent
Source: http://www.istockanalyst.com