In July 2008, a number of executives from high profile organisations including National Blood Service, Eurostar, Deloitte MCS, Homeserve, Specsavers, and Nortel came together to form a round table debate, sponsored by NIIT SmartServe.
The goal of the forum was to establish the way in which providers of outsourced services could positively contribute to managing key elements of the customer life cycle; from acquisition, through retention, to growing wallet share.
With a good mix of people at the event; those who use outsourcing, some burned by poor experiences, and others curious about the concept, the scene was set for some hard-hitting debate.
The day proved extremely productive, with many illuminating issues discussed, including:
Getting It Right
Delegates came together and agreed that to make any outsourcing project a success, it is essential that the right people should be involved early on in any project. It is important to have experienced people from various roles involved in the knowledge acquisition phase.
A True Partnership
What was also discussed was the need for the outsourcing relationship to be a genuine partnership. Any fear factor associated with outsourcing customer lifecycle activity should be allayed.
The Use of Technology
Jeeshu Ganguly, Senior Business Manager at NIIT talked about the use of technology which tracks customer activity on a website, and sends an alert when a customer drops out of the buying process. “60 per cent of those we re-contact using this system make a purchase that otherwise would have been lost”.
Overall, this debate covered a lot of ground. Most encouraging was the fact that the initial fervour surrounding the massive cost savings promised by outsourcing have been replaced with a more sober approach, with outsourcing seen as a potentially useful tool for improving the management of the customer lifecycle.
For further information on how NIIT SmartServe can help you reduce customer drop outs please contact marketing@niit-tech.co.uk
Extracts reproduced from Outsoutcing, Managing the Customer Lifecycle for mutual benefit, Customer Strategy Magazine, Issue 5, Sept/Oct 08, with special thanks to CMP Information Limited - CMPi ©