Spring 2007

Better management of outsourced contact centre providers would save UK companies £55 million a year in improved performance and enhanced customer service.

This is among findings of research by Exony, a leading provider of interaction management software for 'virtualised' customer contact operations. Key areas for improvement, it says, include resource administration, forecasting and use of management information to ensure that service level agreements are met.

Exony cites statistics showing that 14 per cent of the UK's 5,935 contact centres and 581,000 agent positions are outsourced. It says that managing these resources better would alone save £54.9 million in the UK - offering the potential to employ an extra 3,660 customer service agents.

Exony says that advances in IP (internet telephone) technology mean that the outsourcing and virtual contact centre markets are expanding rapidly. It points out that according to MBD, the number of outsourced agents will increase by 31 per cent between 2006 and 2011.

But it adds: 'The complexity of managing outsourcing relationships and gaining an accurate picture of operations spread across multiple sites and providers is dramatically reducing the benefits organisations are able to achieve.'