A leading Cable Television operator.

At the time the project started, cable operators engaged in a fierce battle for market share. Not so much with other cable operators – each one having a monopolistic license in a designated geographical area – but all the more with competing TV platforms : broadcast TV and satellite TV.

As content offerings were converging between the three platforms, one of the most important distinguishing elements was the quality and efficacy of customer service. At the same time, the fierce competition forced the different broadcast platforms to closely watch expenditures in this domain in order to protect thin margins. Our client launched a multitude of sales campaigns and marketing efforts both through resellers and by direct selling.

Our client was successful in its marketing campaigns and managed to generate many valuable leads. However, the internal customer contact center was not able to cope with the increased workload.
Budget restrictions prevented an extension of the existing call center and its location in a large metropolitan center caused high staff turnover rates with the assorted rise in the costs of recruitment and training, without mentioning the upward pressure on salary costs. Customer services quality began to deteriorate and the company had to act in order to protect its marketing investments.

In the first instance we developed a functional outsourcing solution : Nest Call Center put in place two dedicated teams for the treatment of all reseller contacts and all outbound telesales. We put in place a contactcenter away from the metropolitan area but close enough for frequent exchanges. This stabilised the workforce we attracted in our center (turnover less than 5% !) and established an acceptable cost level. Moreover, it provided the client with the necessary flexibility and created a real center of expertise. Nest Call Center developed a highly effective telesales tool and very quickly achieved substantially higher closing rates than the client’s internal center had ever known.

The growth of the clients’ business made its restrictions in terms of internal contact center capacity painfully clear and Nest Call Center started to accomodate more and more service teams in the outsourced contact center: direct sales, technical helpdesk, customer care. Adding all these functional area’s, our team had now tripled in size.

A next challenge presented itself when our client enlarged its product offering with cable internet access. Time for a new phase in the partnership with the challenge of reducing the overall contact cost per customer.
Nest Call Center proposed a plan to create multi skill profiles among the agents so that more calls could be handled through the same number of positions. This plan accepted, Nest Call Center training experts developed the training methodology, created the training content and delivered the training. Most agents were now able to handle everything from sales enquiry to helpdesk response.

Over the many years that our client is now engaged in a partnership with Nest Call Center, the collaboration has resulted in increased sales, much higher customer service quality and the availabilty of expert training and telesales tools. Our knowledge of the client’s existing customer database interface (Vantive) is now such that we are frequently consulted on issues around this system. A long term partnership with tangible financial results and e real reciprocal knowledge development.