This week on Ep #104 I'm Curious About...On-Shoring to Blended Shoring & Everything in Between: Contact Center Operations Set-up Options w/Michael Ferrari, Chief Client Officer - Avantive Solutions
🌍 Explore new horizons: Discover the benefits of various operations set up - onshore, offshore, nearshore and blend shoring - to enhance customer support and efficiency.
💡 Think outside the box: Learn how innovative strategies like blend-sourcing can revolutionize your approach to outsourcing and drive success.
📈 Elevate your business: Hear real-life examples of how companies are achieving remarkable results by embracing flexible outsourcing models.
TRANSCRIPT LINK: https://dashboard.transistor.fm/shows/my-curious-colleague-cpg-cx/episodes/104-curious-about-on-shoring-to-blended-shoring-in-between-contact-center-operations-set-up-options-w-michael-ferrazi-chief-customer-officer-avantive-solutions-inc/transcripts
#outsourcing #blendsourcing #customerexperience #cpgcx #cx
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Denise V (00:01):
Welcome to the My Curious Colleague podcast with
your host, me, Denise Venneri.We'll be talking all things
consumer relations with a focuson consumer product goods
organizations and the brandspecialist and analyst roles and
responsibilities. So if you likeCPGs, like I like CPGs,
(00:22):
marketing, insights, and caringdeeply for your consumers, Well,
take a listen.
Hello, my curious colleagues.This week, I'm curious about
setting up contact centersupport with your BPO.
And I'm not just talking onshoreor offshore. We're gonna go
(00:43):
beyond those 2 and talk aboutsome other things. And with us
today to help me do just that isMike Ferrari. He is the chief
customer officer over at AvantivSolutions. So welcome to the
podcast, Mike.
Mike Ferrari (00:58):
Thank you so much, Denise. It's, it's a pleasure to
be here. Thank you for havingme.
Denise V (01:01):
Oh my gosh. My my honor. My honor. This is a topic
that I know nearly nothingabout. I I know, like, this much
to be dangerous, so I'mpersonally excited to to learn.
But I think the first thing thatwe should do is just level set
everybody on a little bit aboutyour career journey and how you
got to this point.
Mike Ferrari (01:23):
Absolutely. It's interesting. I guess after a
certain period of time, you youdon't think back about how did I
get here. It's more just in themoment, but kinda thinking back,
right, my experience primarilyhas been a long time sales and
customer service professional inretail. So my life all began in
(01:43):
retail, followed that journeyfor quite some time.
But it becomes something that isfairly repetitive, pretty
predictable as far as how thebusiness operates at least on
the operational level that I wasin. So I I found an opportunity
to kind of start looking around.And my wife actually at the time
(02:04):
was in a contact center. So sheworked as, head of training and
operations at a contact center,within Wisconsin because that's
where we live. So I began mytransition over to the contact
center space back in 2009 now.
So 15 years or so later, movedon from being an operations
(02:25):
person, stepped a little bitinto the client services or
account management piece of it,and then, broadened that a
little bit more to become thechief customer officer over
here. And we as part of my roleand the people that work with
me, we oversee the clientrelationship and then business
development as well. So that'swhere we get into trying to find
(02:46):
the right solution for ourcustomers, our partners, and
that hence the topic that we'rehere today.
Denise V (02:53):
Wow. Okay. So did you how long have you been with
Avanta Solutions now?
Mike Ferrari (02:59):
So Avanta Solutions was a company I came
over with, so 15 years.
Denise V (03:03):
That's a long time.
Mike Ferrari (03:04):
Yes.
Denise V (03:05):
If you had mentioned that, I missed that, but that
that's a long time. Good foryou.
Mike Ferrari (03:09):
Thank you.
Denise V (03:10):
And I think in in general, I would know Avanti
Solutions as what we would call,on the brand side, a BPO, if
that's correct, a business whatdoes that stand for? Business
Process Organization?Outsourcing. Outsourcing.
Mike Ferrari (03:24):
Yep.
Denise V (03:25):
Yeah. Which brings us into today's topic. So let let's
just sort of level set me. Maybewe can start with and and and
kinda mix it up any way that youfeel comfortable. Like, what are
the differences between thewe'll we'll just go with the 4,
types of of setup that that youand I have talked about.
(03:47):
Like, what are the differencesbetween all of those? And I
wanna get to, like, what are theconsideration like, what's the
consideration set one would gothrough? I'm assuming with
partnership with with your BPOas to what makes sense.
Mike Ferrari (04:02):
And Absolutely.
Denise V (04:04):
You know, let let's let's start there.
Mike Ferrari (04:07):
Okay. Absolutely. So I think it's it's
interesting. You know, you hadme thinking a little bit about
this topic. Right?
And I think the topic ofnearshore or offshore as you had
mentioned previously, onshore issomething that inherently nobody
really thinks about, but that issomething that is a kind of a
central conversation pointwithin the contact center space
(04:29):
or a business processoutsourcers. So, a lot of
companies do it, Do theequivalent of near shore
offshoring. But ultimately, itis the location that you're
setting up the business. Mosttypically, a lot of people when
it comes to contact centers orthe BPO space, think of that as
(04:50):
offshore. Right?
Work in India. I'm receiving aphone call, making a phone call.
I'm talking to somebody who's inIndia. Right? That's what a lot
of the predisposition is.
So, we look at India as anoffshore because there when when
you're in relation to the US. Soall of this conversation is
thinking about the US customerbase, US partners that we work
(05:11):
with. So that's consideredoffshore because it's a far
enough change in demographic,distance, all of that stuff.
Same with work in, like, SouthAfrica or even if you did work
in there's contact centers inItaly, France, all over the
place in Europe. All of that isconsidered offshore for the US
(05:33):
consumer.
And then you have nearshore. Sonearshore is for us are places
like, believe it or not, Canada,even though they're attached to
the US. Canada is considered anear shore company. There's
Mexico, a lot of the LatinAmerica Mhmm. Locations and then
the Caribbean as well.
So, contact centers are startingto grow. They've been around for
(05:55):
quite some time, but there'smore and more desire to grow in
the, in the Caribbean and thoseislands and some of the spaces
there. So the the reason it'stermed nearshore is typically,
excuse me, because obviouslytheir proximity, but that
proximity also brings some levelof cultural similarities,
(06:17):
language assimilation,understanding of products,
understanding of what theconsumer or the customer is
going through or experiences. Sothose are the main ones. And
then the the 4th one that youmentioned is blend shoring.
Right? So that's not necessarilya location on its own, but it is
(06:37):
the concept that we use it hereat Avanti to look at what is the
best mix of the partnership tooutsource that work. That work
can be anything from actuallytaking calls or making calls.
Could be chat, could be email,social media support, all of
(06:58):
those aspects that support theconsumer brands or or a lot of
the US businesses. Andconsidering where does that fit
best?
Does it fit best in just onecountry, or does it fit best in
some in the US and some inMexico? Or maybe we take a
little bit of that work and weput it in India because it's a
better fit there. So the theconcept of one shoring is really
(07:21):
how do you maximize thegeographies to best suit what
the client, the partner, theconsumer is looking for?
Denise V (07:32):
That is perfect. Is is BlendSharing a new concept?
Mike Ferrari (07:38):
It's becoming more and more prevalent because I
think the general concept was ifI'm I'm gonna do my work in the
US or I'm gonna do it in thiscountry. Right? There was never
really the thought of how do Ido it in both countries. What's
the best mix? How do I segmentthat work?
So it is it is a much newerconcept. Again, in the industry,
(08:02):
Avantive is one of the ones thatwe coined that a lot. We have a
lot of conversations aroundblend shoring to help broaden
the idea and kinda get thatlittle plug in people's ears
that it's not all or nothing.Right? It doesn't have to be 1
or the other.
It can be a combination thatbest suits whatever the client
or customer may need or want.
Denise V (08:20):
Yeah. I mean, I like that customization piece. Adds a
little creativity to the mix.And, again, I think I might have
mentioned you offline. Myunderstanding is one thing, and
that is ABG organizations, andit would be onshore.
In fact, you know, at one point,it was onshore in my career, one
(08:43):
one location. And then Ithought, oh, well, we're really
doing it different now. And nowwe have 2 locations, you know,
for a variety of reasons. Sothis episode is sponsored by the
launch of my very first website,aptly named my curious colleague
dot com. There, you'll findlinks to episodes of all my
(09:03):
podcasts, YouTube videos,downloadables, and links to the
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There's even a store feature forfuture products. Right now, my
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(09:25):
show your pride in our functionand share your support of my
little podcast. That'swww.mycuriouscolleague, all one
word, dot com. You touched onsome of the factors that you
might consider, but I wanna pullthose out for folks like myself.
(09:46):
So I'm gonna let's take us backto, you know, your boss taps you
on the shoulder, wants to talkto you about, you know, doing an
RFP, and you start, which is arequest for proposals or even
for information, and you'restarting to think about, your
requirements for your care foryour consumers. So would you
(10:10):
start thinking about location upfront? Like, when you write your
requirements down and you're,you know, you're you're waiting
for the proposals to come back.Is this a conversation you would
have after you select a BPO? Orwhere do you how do you see that
working, like, prettygranularly?
Mike Ferrari (10:31):
Yeah. It's it's it's a great question because I
think a lot of the naturalthought when someone's looking
to outsource work and who arethey gonna partner with is where
are they located. Right? That'sthe first thought. Where am I
gonna put this work?
And what we do is we try to takethat conversation to your point,
(10:52):
kinda bring it back a little bitand say, let's let's just talk
and figure out some of the basicthings. Right? Like, what is the
customer demographic? What isthe customer expectation? And a
lot of companies have that data,have that information through
surveys, through, you know,market studies that are done.
So they know what their customerexpectations are. So that's
(11:14):
always a step one. Because whenyou're outsourcing specifically
customer interaction, be itthrough primarily through voice
because that's the big one thattranslates, no pun intended,
that translates to people is thethe language and how strong it
is and do they understand thethe technical terms. Like in the
(11:35):
US, right, we think about energyis a perfect example. Right?
We think about a kilowatt.Right? But in other countries,
it's not measured that way. It'snot the same setup of how they
pay for utilities. So it alwaysstarts with who is your who are
the who is the person you'reserving.
Right? What what's the consumeror the customer looking for? And
then you have to weigh that withthere's a myriad of things, but
(11:58):
then you need to weigh that withcultural similarities. And a lot
of the cultural similarities arethings I talked about as far as
do they understand what energyis? Do they understand what
property taxes or how thosethings work?
Do they use your service in asimilar way if it's nearshore or
(12:19):
offshore? Do they use it in asimilar similar way that they do
in the US? And if they do,that's gonna help make your
decision. So a lot of it isaround the culture and the
consumer. But then the otherpiece you have to look at is
budget.
Right? Because budget plays abig role in how you get the job
done. And the reason mostcompanies outsource is because
(12:40):
it's an opportunity to save anoverhead. It's usually a little
bit quicker to get thingsmoving. So you gotta look at the
budget.
And that's a lot of times,right, people jump to the
conclusion and say, oh, I gottaput this offshore because of my
budget. Right? Or I need to putit near shore because I can't do
it in the US. And that's notalways the case. So to evaluate
(13:02):
your consumer, the goals, thehistorical performance, what
challenges you've had in thepast, and then you kinda start
marrying that up with differentgeographies to figure out.
Well, these people are actuallyvery proficient at something
technical. So if I'm gonna havethem do offline work, I want
someone who's got a high levelexperience, high discipline,
(13:24):
capable of multitasking. But ifthis is someone that I need to
touch a little softer and havemore of a intimate relationship
kind of a back and forth, thenyou're gonna look in different
geographies. And that doesn'tnecessarily sit US, onshore as
far as that piece of it. It'sit's a in many different areas.
But that's why a lot of peopleor a lot of companies, I think,
(13:47):
look at it and say, they juststart to start start to provide
the answers themselves withouttaking a step back and just
kinda pulling all the data andthen having that conversation or
that kind of checkbox of, youknow, this works there, that
works there, hence, blendshoring. Right? Because a lot of
these business processes are notjust one single siloed item.
(14:09):
There's so many components to itthat why not give the component
that fits a technical team orsomebody who's managing very
compliant strict processes, thatpiece of work, and let somebody
else have the softer side or themore customer centric piece of
it. So I think culture is thebig one.
That's that's the big one. Theculture of your organization,
(14:30):
what your brand values are, andwhat your consumer or customer
is what we're really lookingfor.
Denise V (14:35):
Perfect. It's a very thoughtful approach, not just
sort of jumping to the solution.Love that. You know, 15 years
ago, people would be not lookingmaybe offshoring as easily
because they're worried thatthey're consumer. There may be
more of a language barrier, and,you know, they reviewed their
(14:56):
values or their customerexpectations, and that wouldn't
fit.
So now how is that how is thatchanged, would you say, for some
of these offshore I'm talkingoffshore now. Mhmm. And how how
do we meet how does the offshoresort of setup meet the
company's, you know, goalsAbsolutely. At this stage?
Mike Ferrari (15:19):
Being sensitive to, obviously, you know, the
different cultures and and andthe fit and what they can
provide. If you flash back 15,20 years ago, a lot of the
outsourcing efforts were quickkind of back to your previous
question or your earlierquestion, were quick decisions
of I need to save cost. So wherecan I go to save the largest
(15:42):
cost? And it wasn't thatthoughtful. Does this business
model fit what my consumers orwhat my brand really wants to
represent.
So there's a big shift, and thatshift happened very quickly. And
as a result of that, there werea lot of contact centers that
stood up in India, SouthPacific, Asia area. That that
(16:05):
whole they stood up quicklybecause it was an opportunity to
grow the business, but itdidn't. And that's what the the
the US companies wanted. Theywanted something quick, and they
wanted something that was gonnahelp drive costs down.
So they made that move, and itwasn't only until, I'd say
probably 4 or 5 years later,we're all used to it. Right?
We've all gotten those phonecalls or made those phone calls
(16:27):
where there's not a culturalalignment with that consumer,
which therefore reflects on thebrand. So as we moved over the
years, what's happened isthere's been a lot of very
conscientious, very savvycontact center organizations who
have taken a step backthemselves and looked more
(16:51):
strategically of where do theyalign their businesses. So they
moved their businesses to placeslike Mexico, some in the
Dominican.
Belize is a good example. Andthen currently emerging in the
last 4 or 5 years has been SouthAfrica because it matches so
much of the US based consumerbrands or expectations. So that,
(17:15):
I think, has helped people torealize that I'm talking to
someone in a different countrywith an accent, that still
understands what I need. Sothat's just been a consumer
adoption that has happened overthe last probably 5 or 6 years
more heavily, but it's been aresult of the responsibility of
a lot of contact centers.There's also a lot of regulation
(17:37):
that's going on around, contactcenters and how they call, what
they do with the information,how they protect your
information, stopping badpractices.
And that legislation has takenaway all those contact centers
that kinda make a bad name forsome of the good folks that are
out here. So I think theconsumer change or the consumer
(17:58):
shift has been a result of justkind of us as a, I guess, as a
as a country, as a worldbecoming a little more open, a
little more understanding of ofwhat's going on and not jumping
to conclusions. But it's alsobeen a result of a lot of the
really strong, solid contactcenters out there doing the
(18:19):
right thing, putting up theright product, addressing those
issues, and just just mirroringwhat is needed. And and that's
been backed by a lot of thelegislation that's been out
there from the government toprotect us.
Denise V (18:33):
Does that have an does that have a name, that
government thing? Is that the
Mike Ferrari (18:38):
Yep. TCPA and then the FCC. Those are the 2 big
organizations that they do a lotof good. They they make
mistakes, but we all makemistakes. Right?
But they do a lot of good toprotect consumers. And as a
result of that, maybe it's alittle bit of a plug. Right? But
it's helped companies likeAvantiv kinda stand out a little
bit because people have had badexperiences from the partnership
(19:01):
perspective because they've gonewith a purely low price partner
contact center that they haven'tnecessarily done their due
diligence to understand who theyare. So Mhmm.
There's a lot of really upstanding, you know, and I like
to think of us as one of them.Right? We've we've had no
issues, no compliance relatedissues. We serve our partners
(19:22):
very well, but that's beenhugely advantageous. So there's
a lot of back and forth in ourindustry around the TCPA and the
FCC because it's kind of like,well, they're stopping us.
So they're trying to you know,they're not thinking about it
holistically. They're justmaking snap decisions. But if
you take a look back, there'sbeen more good than there has
(19:42):
been bad, in my opinion.
Denise V (19:44):
Okay. Alright. We're getting close to the end, Mike.
But what I'd love for you to dois share if you have maybe any
any specifics around an instancewhere you've, you know, changed
the mindset of an organizationto maybe be a little bit more
open to something beyond justonshoring?
Mike Ferrari (20:07):
So that I mean, we we do. There's actually a very
recent example of this scenariowhere we had a a relationship.
It wasn't a partnership yet, butit's a relationship. We started
a small partnership with them ona small segment of their
business. It's a it's apharmaceutical, at at at its
core, but they have manydifferent divisions.
(20:27):
So, we did a little bit of workin a couple different divisions,
and they had a scenario. Sothrough our relationship, we
were kinda talking about otherchallenges, business needs,
what's going on. And they had abusiness that had always been
historically managed within theUS. They outsourced it to, a
contact center partner, and theyhad done that for the reason
(20:51):
that they believe their consumerwould only accept a US based
employee with preferably aneutral accent or Midwest or
possibly East Coast typepersona. So in conversations
with them, we tried tounderstand really who their
customer was.
(21:12):
What are they what are theylike? What are their challenges?
What are their problems? And aswe dug into that, we discovered
that their problem was actuallybudgetary related. So they had a
budget for this division oftheir company, and that budget,
when managed within the US,wasn't able to get them the
service levels they needed.
(21:33):
It wasn't able to drive thehandle time down. It created
more customer cases,escalations. So we went through
the conversation and dove into,well, why does your business
need to be in the US? And wentthrough a myriad of
conversations, and they all kindof ended with, I don't really
know. It's always been whatwe've done.
(21:55):
So this is where we introducethe concept to them to say,
well, you know because they werethey were kind of against taking
the whole business nearshore.They they were not comfortable
with offshore, but they were nota 100% sold on going nearshore
because of this unknowncustomer, persona that they had
built. So in conversations, weexplained to him that the
(22:17):
business doesn't need to be intotality in one location. What's
BlendShort? They had probably asimilar reaction to you.
They're like, what's BlendShort?And we explained to them that
it's a combination of taking thebusiness as a whole and
segmenting pieces and moving itto different locations so that
we can help them achieve theirgoals. At the end, we ended up
(22:37):
splitting it between currently,between 2 locations, 1 in the US
and 1 in our Mexico site. We areable to nearly cut in half. I
guess, is the best I was gonnasay double, but that's the wrong
answer.
They were able we're able to cutin half the handle time. We're
able to take the number of casesand escalations to near 0. And
then on top of that, theirservice levels went from
(22:58):
somewhere around 60% of thecustomers being taken care of to
about 75, 80% now. And in thetop of that, they have now
opened the conversation andsaid, well, we like this idea of
BlendShoring. What other partsof this business can we take and
move to other locations that youmay have, other geographies?
(23:18):
So we saw a huge impact, and Ithink what what it's done for
them is it's helped them realizewithin this division that they
can share this on up throughoutthe rest of their organization
that work doesn't necessarilyneed to be in one location or
another. That blend sure itmakes sense. You find the best
processes, the best fit for theculture, best fit for the brand,
(23:40):
and you segment them out. Andbecause they're outsourcing them
to us, we figured that all outfor them. Right?
So they send everything to us,and then we part and piece it
out where it needs to go. Soit's been a great relationship
with them because it startedkinda small, but it went back to
that collaborative conversationof, well, we can't do it here
because we can't put it allthere. Well, why? And then you
(24:02):
start to discover more abouttheir brand, their culture, what
their goals are, and where dothey wanna take the business in
3, 5, 10 years. And then we areable to help them find that best
mix.
So it's been a great experiencefor them.
Denise V (24:16):
Good work. Let let's sort of end on that high note, I
think. But really appreciate youtaking the time out of this
Saturday afternoon to, chat withme on the podcast.
Mike Ferrari (24:27):
Absolutely. Thank you. It's been wonderful. I, I
enjoy your time. This is great.
Denise V (24:31):
If you've learned even a kernel of an idea or was
inspired by this episode, pleaseconsider rating and reviewing
the podcast on Apple Podcasts.Be sure to share out the hashtag
CPGCX because CPGCX really andtruly rocks.
Doug Venneri (24:49):
You have been listening to the My Curious
Colleague podcast with Deniseand Kim. Thank you for your
time.
Welcome to the My Curious Colleague podcast with
your host, me, Denise Venneri.We'll be talking all things
consumer relations with a focuson consumer product goods
organizations and the brandspecialist and analyst roles and
responsibilities. So if you likeCPGs, like I like CPGs,
(00:22):
marketing, insights, and caringdeeply for your consumers, Well,
take a listen.
Hello, my curious colleagues.This week, I'm curious about
setting up contact centersupport with your BPO.
And I'm not just talking onshoreor offshore. We're gonna go
(00:43):
beyond those 2 and talk aboutsome other things. And with us
today to help me do just that isMike Ferrari. He is the chief
customer officer over at AvantivSolutions. So welcome to the
podcast, Mike.
Mike Ferrari (00:58):
Thank you so much, Denise. It's, it's a pleasure to
be here. Thank you for havingme.
Denise V (01:01):
Oh my gosh. My my honor. My honor. This is a topic
that I know nearly nothingabout. I I know, like, this much
to be dangerous, so I'mpersonally excited to to learn.
But I think the first thing thatwe should do is just level set
everybody on a little bit aboutyour career journey and how you
got to this point.
Mike Ferrari (01:23):
Absolutely. It's interesting. I guess after a
certain period of time, you youdon't think back about how did I
get here. It's more just in themoment, but kinda thinking back,
right, my experience primarilyhas been a long time sales and
customer service professional inretail. So my life all began in
(01:43):
retail, followed that journeyfor quite some time.
But it becomes something that isfairly repetitive, pretty
predictable as far as how thebusiness operates at least on
the operational level that I wasin. So I I found an opportunity
to kind of start looking around.And my wife actually at the time
(02:04):
was in a contact center. So sheworked as, head of training and
operations at a contact center,within Wisconsin because that's
where we live. So I began mytransition over to the contact
center space back in 2009 now.
So 15 years or so later, movedon from being an operations
(02:25):
person, stepped a little bitinto the client services or
account management piece of it,and then, broadened that a
little bit more to become thechief customer officer over
here. And we as part of my roleand the people that work with
me, we oversee the clientrelationship and then business
development as well. So that'swhere we get into trying to find
(02:46):
the right solution for ourcustomers, our partners, and
that hence the topic that we'rehere today.
Denise V (02:53):
Wow. Okay. So did you how long have you been with
Avanta Solutions now?
Mike Ferrari (02:59):
So Avanta Solutions was a company I came
over with, so 15 years.
Denise V (03:03):
That's a long time.
Mike Ferrari (03:04):
Yes.
Denise V (03:05):
If you had mentioned that, I missed that, but that
that's a long time. Good foryou.
Mike Ferrari (03:09):
Thank you.
Denise V (03:10):
And I think in in general, I would know Avanti
Solutions as what we would call,on the brand side, a BPO, if
that's correct, a business whatdoes that stand for? Business
Process Organization?Outsourcing. Outsourcing.
Mike Ferrari (03:24):
Yep.
Denise V (03:25):
Yeah. Which brings us into today's topic. So let let's
just sort of level set me. Maybewe can start with and and and
kinda mix it up any way that youfeel comfortable. Like, what are
the differences between thewe'll we'll just go with the 4,
types of of setup that that youand I have talked about.
(03:47):
Like, what are the differencesbetween all of those? And I
wanna get to, like, what are theconsideration like, what's the
consideration set one would gothrough? I'm assuming with
partnership with with your BPOas to what makes sense.
Mike Ferrari (04:02):
And Absolutely.
Denise V (04:04):
You know, let let's let's start there.
Mike Ferrari (04:07):
Okay. Absolutely. So I think it's it's
interesting. You know, you hadme thinking a little bit about
this topic. Right?
And I think the topic ofnearshore or offshore as you had
mentioned previously, onshore issomething that inherently nobody
really thinks about, but that issomething that is a kind of a
central conversation pointwithin the contact center space
(04:29):
or a business processoutsourcers. So, a lot of
companies do it, Do theequivalent of near shore
offshoring. But ultimately, itis the location that you're
setting up the business. Mosttypically, a lot of people when
it comes to contact centers orthe BPO space, think of that as
(04:50):
offshore. Right?
Work in India. I'm receiving aphone call, making a phone call.
I'm talking to somebody who's inIndia. Right? That's what a lot
of the predisposition is.
So, we look at India as anoffshore because there when when
you're in relation to the US. Soall of this conversation is
thinking about the US customerbase, US partners that we work
(05:11):
with. So that's consideredoffshore because it's a far
enough change in demographic,distance, all of that stuff.
Same with work in, like, SouthAfrica or even if you did work
in there's contact centers inItaly, France, all over the
place in Europe. All of that isconsidered offshore for the US
(05:33):
consumer.
And then you have nearshore. Sonearshore is for us are places
like, believe it or not, Canada,even though they're attached to
the US. Canada is considered anear shore company. There's
Mexico, a lot of the LatinAmerica Mhmm. Locations and then
the Caribbean as well.
So, contact centers are startingto grow. They've been around for
(05:55):
quite some time, but there'smore and more desire to grow in
the, in the Caribbean and thoseislands and some of the spaces
there. So the the reason it'stermed nearshore is typically,
excuse me, because obviouslytheir proximity, but that
proximity also brings some levelof cultural similarities,
(06:17):
language assimilation,understanding of products,
understanding of what theconsumer or the customer is
going through or experiences. Sothose are the main ones. And
then the the 4th one that youmentioned is blend shoring.
Right? So that's not necessarilya location on its own, but it is
(06:37):
the concept that we use it hereat Avanti to look at what is the
best mix of the partnership tooutsource that work. That work
can be anything from actuallytaking calls or making calls.
Could be chat, could be email,social media support, all of
(06:58):
those aspects that support theconsumer brands or or a lot of
the US businesses. Andconsidering where does that fit
best?
Does it fit best in just onecountry, or does it fit best in
some in the US and some inMexico? Or maybe we take a
little bit of that work and weput it in India because it's a
better fit there. So the theconcept of one shoring is really
(07:21):
how do you maximize thegeographies to best suit what
the client, the partner, theconsumer is looking for?
Denise V (07:32):
That is perfect. Is is BlendSharing a new concept?
Mike Ferrari (07:38):
It's becoming more and more prevalent because I
think the general concept was ifI'm I'm gonna do my work in the
US or I'm gonna do it in thiscountry. Right? There was never
really the thought of how do Ido it in both countries. What's
the best mix? How do I segmentthat work?
So it is it is a much newerconcept. Again, in the industry,
(08:02):
Avantive is one of the ones thatwe coined that a lot. We have a
lot of conversations aroundblend shoring to help broaden
the idea and kinda get thatlittle plug in people's ears
that it's not all or nothing.Right? It doesn't have to be 1
or the other.
It can be a combination thatbest suits whatever the client
or customer may need or want.
Denise V (08:20):
Yeah. I mean, I like that customization piece. Adds a
little creativity to the mix.And, again, I think I might have
mentioned you offline. Myunderstanding is one thing, and
that is ABG organizations, andit would be onshore.
In fact, you know, at one point,it was onshore in my career, one
(08:43):
one location. And then Ithought, oh, well, we're really
doing it different now. And nowwe have 2 locations, you know,
for a variety of reasons. Sothis episode is sponsored by the
launch of my very first website,aptly named my curious colleague
dot com. There, you'll findlinks to episodes of all my
(09:03):
podcasts, YouTube videos,downloadables, and links to the
podcast accolades and rankings.
There's even a store feature forfuture products. Right now, my
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and it is available for free. Sogo now to order a sticker and
(09:25):
show your pride in our functionand share your support of my
little podcast. That'swww.mycuriouscolleague, all one
word, dot com. You touched onsome of the factors that you
might consider, but I wanna pullthose out for folks like myself.
(09:46):
So I'm gonna let's take us backto, you know, your boss taps you
on the shoulder, wants to talkto you about, you know, doing an
RFP, and you start, which is arequest for proposals or even
for information, and you'restarting to think about, your
requirements for your care foryour consumers. So would you
(10:10):
start thinking about location upfront? Like, when you write your
requirements down and you're,you know, you're you're waiting
for the proposals to come back.Is this a conversation you would
have after you select a BPO? Orwhere do you how do you see that
working, like, prettygranularly?
Mike Ferrari (10:31):
Yeah. It's it's it's a great question because I
think a lot of the naturalthought when someone's looking
to outsource work and who arethey gonna partner with is where
are they located. Right? That'sthe first thought. Where am I
gonna put this work?
And what we do is we try to takethat conversation to your point,
(10:52):
kinda bring it back a little bitand say, let's let's just talk
and figure out some of the basicthings. Right? Like, what is the
customer demographic? What isthe customer expectation? And a
lot of companies have that data,have that information through
surveys, through, you know,market studies that are done.
So they know what their customerexpectations are. So that's
(11:14):
always a step one. Because whenyou're outsourcing specifically
customer interaction, be itthrough primarily through voice
because that's the big one thattranslates, no pun intended,
that translates to people is thethe language and how strong it
is and do they understand thethe technical terms. Like in the
(11:35):
US, right, we think about energyis a perfect example. Right?
We think about a kilowatt.Right? But in other countries,
it's not measured that way. It'snot the same setup of how they
pay for utilities. So it alwaysstarts with who is your who are
the who is the person you'reserving.
Right? What what's the consumeror the customer looking for? And
then you have to weigh that withthere's a myriad of things, but
(11:58):
then you need to weigh that withcultural similarities. And a lot
of the cultural similarities arethings I talked about as far as
do they understand what energyis? Do they understand what
property taxes or how thosethings work?
Do they use your service in asimilar way if it's nearshore or
(12:19):
offshore? Do they use it in asimilar similar way that they do
in the US? And if they do,that's gonna help make your
decision. So a lot of it isaround the culture and the
consumer. But then the otherpiece you have to look at is
budget.
Right? Because budget plays abig role in how you get the job
done. And the reason mostcompanies outsource is because
(12:40):
it's an opportunity to save anoverhead. It's usually a little
bit quicker to get thingsmoving. So you gotta look at the
budget.
And that's a lot of times,right, people jump to the
conclusion and say, oh, I gottaput this offshore because of my
budget. Right? Or I need to putit near shore because I can't do
it in the US. And that's notalways the case. So to evaluate
(13:02):
your consumer, the goals, thehistorical performance, what
challenges you've had in thepast, and then you kinda start
marrying that up with differentgeographies to figure out.
Well, these people are actuallyvery proficient at something
technical. So if I'm gonna havethem do offline work, I want
someone who's got a high levelexperience, high discipline,
(13:24):
capable of multitasking. But ifthis is someone that I need to
touch a little softer and havemore of a intimate relationship
kind of a back and forth, thenyou're gonna look in different
geographies. And that doesn'tnecessarily sit US, onshore as
far as that piece of it. It'sit's a in many different areas.
But that's why a lot of peopleor a lot of companies, I think,
(13:47):
look at it and say, they juststart to start start to provide
the answers themselves withouttaking a step back and just
kinda pulling all the data andthen having that conversation or
that kind of checkbox of, youknow, this works there, that
works there, hence, blendshoring. Right? Because a lot of
these business processes are notjust one single siloed item.
(14:09):
There's so many components to itthat why not give the component
that fits a technical team orsomebody who's managing very
compliant strict processes, thatpiece of work, and let somebody
else have the softer side or themore customer centric piece of
it. So I think culture is thebig one.
That's that's the big one. Theculture of your organization,
(14:30):
what your brand values are, andwhat your consumer or customer
is what we're really lookingfor.
Denise V (14:35):
Perfect. It's a very thoughtful approach, not just
sort of jumping to the solution.Love that. You know, 15 years
ago, people would be not lookingmaybe offshoring as easily
because they're worried thatthey're consumer. There may be
more of a language barrier, and,you know, they reviewed their
(14:56):
values or their customerexpectations, and that wouldn't
fit.
So now how is that how is thatchanged, would you say, for some
of these offshore I'm talkingoffshore now. Mhmm. And how how
do we meet how does the offshoresort of setup meet the
company's, you know, goalsAbsolutely. At this stage?
Mike Ferrari (15:19):
Being sensitive to, obviously, you know, the
different cultures and and andthe fit and what they can
provide. If you flash back 15,20 years ago, a lot of the
outsourcing efforts were quickkind of back to your previous
question or your earlierquestion, were quick decisions
of I need to save cost. So wherecan I go to save the largest
(15:42):
cost? And it wasn't thatthoughtful. Does this business
model fit what my consumers orwhat my brand really wants to
represent.
So there's a big shift, and thatshift happened very quickly. And
as a result of that, there werea lot of contact centers that
stood up in India, SouthPacific, Asia area. That that
(16:05):
whole they stood up quicklybecause it was an opportunity to
grow the business, but itdidn't. And that's what the the
the US companies wanted. Theywanted something quick, and they
wanted something that was gonnahelp drive costs down.
So they made that move, and itwasn't only until, I'd say
probably 4 or 5 years later,we're all used to it. Right?
We've all gotten those phonecalls or made those phone calls
(16:27):
where there's not a culturalalignment with that consumer,
which therefore reflects on thebrand. So as we moved over the
years, what's happened isthere's been a lot of very
conscientious, very savvycontact center organizations who
have taken a step backthemselves and looked more
(16:51):
strategically of where do theyalign their businesses. So they
moved their businesses to placeslike Mexico, some in the
Dominican.
Belize is a good example. Andthen currently emerging in the
last 4 or 5 years has been SouthAfrica because it matches so
much of the US based consumerbrands or expectations. So that,
(17:15):
I think, has helped people torealize that I'm talking to
someone in a different countrywith an accent, that still
understands what I need. Sothat's just been a consumer
adoption that has happened overthe last probably 5 or 6 years
more heavily, but it's been aresult of the responsibility of
a lot of contact centers.There's also a lot of regulation
(17:37):
that's going on around, contactcenters and how they call, what
they do with the information,how they protect your
information, stopping badpractices.
And that legislation has takenaway all those contact centers
that kinda make a bad name forsome of the good folks that are
out here. So I think theconsumer change or the consumer
(17:58):
shift has been a result of justkind of us as a, I guess, as a
as a country, as a worldbecoming a little more open, a
little more understanding of ofwhat's going on and not jumping
to conclusions. But it's alsobeen a result of a lot of the
really strong, solid contactcenters out there doing the
(18:19):
right thing, putting up theright product, addressing those
issues, and just just mirroringwhat is needed. And and that's
been backed by a lot of thelegislation that's been out
there from the government toprotect us.
Denise V (18:33):
Does that have an does that have a name, that
government thing? Is that the
Mike Ferrari (18:38):
Yep. TCPA and then the FCC. Those are the 2 big
organizations that they do a lotof good. They they make
mistakes, but we all makemistakes. Right?
But they do a lot of good toprotect consumers. And as a
result of that, maybe it's alittle bit of a plug. Right? But
it's helped companies likeAvantiv kinda stand out a little
bit because people have had badexperiences from the partnership
(19:01):
perspective because they've gonewith a purely low price partner
contact center that they haven'tnecessarily done their due
diligence to understand who theyare. So Mhmm.
There's a lot of really upstanding, you know, and I like
to think of us as one of them.Right? We've we've had no
issues, no compliance relatedissues. We serve our partners
(19:22):
very well, but that's beenhugely advantageous. So there's
a lot of back and forth in ourindustry around the TCPA and the
FCC because it's kind of like,well, they're stopping us.
So they're trying to you know,they're not thinking about it
holistically. They're justmaking snap decisions. But if
you take a look back, there'sbeen more good than there has
(19:42):
been bad, in my opinion.
Denise V (19:44):
Okay. Alright. We're getting close to the end, Mike.
But what I'd love for you to dois share if you have maybe any
any specifics around an instancewhere you've, you know, changed
the mindset of an organizationto maybe be a little bit more
open to something beyond justonshoring?
Mike Ferrari (20:07):
So that I mean, we we do. There's actually a very
recent example of this scenariowhere we had a a relationship.
It wasn't a partnership yet, butit's a relationship. We started
a small partnership with them ona small segment of their
business. It's a it's apharmaceutical, at at at its
core, but they have manydifferent divisions.
(20:27):
So, we did a little bit of workin a couple different divisions,
and they had a scenario. Sothrough our relationship, we
were kinda talking about otherchallenges, business needs,
what's going on. And they had abusiness that had always been
historically managed within theUS. They outsourced it to, a
contact center partner, and theyhad done that for the reason
(20:51):
that they believe their consumerwould only accept a US based
employee with preferably aneutral accent or Midwest or
possibly East Coast typepersona. So in conversations
with them, we tried tounderstand really who their
customer was.
(21:12):
What are they what are theylike? What are their challenges?
What are their problems? And aswe dug into that, we discovered
that their problem was actuallybudgetary related. So they had a
budget for this division oftheir company, and that budget,
when managed within the US,wasn't able to get them the
service levels they needed.
(21:33):
It wasn't able to drive thehandle time down. It created
more customer cases,escalations. So we went through
the conversation and dove into,well, why does your business
need to be in the US? And wentthrough a myriad of
conversations, and they all kindof ended with, I don't really
know. It's always been whatwe've done.
(21:55):
So this is where we introducethe concept to them to say,
well, you know because they werethey were kind of against taking
the whole business nearshore.They they were not comfortable
with offshore, but they were nota 100% sold on going nearshore
because of this unknowncustomer, persona that they had
built. So in conversations, weexplained to him that the
(22:17):
business doesn't need to be intotality in one location. What's
BlendShort? They had probably asimilar reaction to you.
They're like, what's BlendShort?And we explained to them that
it's a combination of taking thebusiness as a whole and
segmenting pieces and moving itto different locations so that
we can help them achieve theirgoals. At the end, we ended up
(22:37):
splitting it between currently,between 2 locations, 1 in the US
and 1 in our Mexico site. We areable to nearly cut in half. I
guess, is the best I was gonnasay double, but that's the wrong
answer.
They were able we're able to cutin half the handle time. We're
able to take the number of casesand escalations to near 0. And
then on top of that, theirservice levels went from
(22:58):
somewhere around 60% of thecustomers being taken care of to
about 75, 80% now. And in thetop of that, they have now
opened the conversation andsaid, well, we like this idea of
BlendShoring. What other partsof this business can we take and
move to other locations that youmay have, other geographies?
(23:18):
So we saw a huge impact, and Ithink what what it's done for
them is it's helped them realizewithin this division that they
can share this on up throughoutthe rest of their organization
that work doesn't necessarilyneed to be in one location or
another. That blend sure itmakes sense. You find the best
processes, the best fit for theculture, best fit for the brand,
(23:40):
and you segment them out. Andbecause they're outsourcing them
to us, we figured that all outfor them. Right?
So they send everything to us,and then we part and piece it
out where it needs to go. Soit's been a great relationship
with them because it startedkinda small, but it went back to
that collaborative conversationof, well, we can't do it here
because we can't put it allthere. Well, why? And then you
(24:02):
start to discover more abouttheir brand, their culture, what
their goals are, and where dothey wanna take the business in
3, 5, 10 years. And then we areable to help them find that best
mix.
So it's been a great experiencefor them.
Denise V (24:16):
Good work. Let let's sort of end on that high note, I
think. But really appreciate youtaking the time out of this
Saturday afternoon to, chat withme on the podcast.
Mike Ferrari (24:27):
Absolutely. Thank you. It's been wonderful. I, I
enjoy your time. This is great.
Denise V (24:31):
If you've learned even a kernel of an idea or was
inspired by this episode, pleaseconsider rating and reviewing
the podcast on Apple Podcasts.Be sure to share out the hashtag
CPGCX because CPGCX really andtruly rocks.
Doug Venneri (24:49):
You have been listening to the My Curious
Colleague podcast with Deniseand Kim. Thank you for your
time.
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