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Open AccessResearch Article
Journal of Accounting &
Marketing
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ISSN: 2168-9601
Govender and Essop, J Account Mark 2016, 5:3
DOI: 10.4172/2168-9601.1000187
J Account Mark
ISSN: 2168-9601 JAMK, an open access journal
Volume 5 • Issue 3 • 1000187
Keywords: C all center; Outsourcing; Telecommunications; Customer
service experience
Introduction
Call Centers have been regarded as an enabling resource for
enhanced customer service and experience, and this is even more so in
the dynamic mobile telecommunications industry, where technology
evolution is rapid and customer loyalty extends only as far as their last
‘bad’ experience [1]. Since Call Centers are the customer’s rst point of
contact with an organization, their experience with the Call Center sta
contributes to their perception of the quality of service provided. Some
researchers, for example, Dean [2] argue that service-based competition
and the opportunity for high-volume, low-cost service delivery via
telephone-based technology have resulted in the massive growth of
Call Centers. Customers’ expectations are increasingly growing and
Call Center sta needs to meet or exceed these expectations in order
to ensure that the organisations they represent have a competitive
advantage. us, managing the customer experience resulting from Call
Center encounters is likely to have major impact on an organization’s
success. Afrika [3] highlighted that Call Centers failed to “personalise
their service, resulting in customers going back to the stores to get
assistance,” and this leads to a negative customer experience.
ere is a wealth of research on Call Centers, and most focus on the
reasons for outsourcing, as well as the benets
and risks associated with this strategy. However, there is limited
research on what impact the outsourcing of the Call Center would
have on the customers’ experience in the mobile telecommunications
industry in South Africa. It is against the aforementioned background,
that this study was undertaken.
Literature review
Reynolds denes a Call Center as “a place where contact is made
and received” and a single point of contact for customers to get help and
solve queries, complaints and concerns. Furthermore, Call Centers do
not only deal with customers’ complaints, but with the sales aspects of
the organisation [4]. Since it is oen the face of the business and a ‘place’
where customer interactions take place, the Call Center’s eective and
ecient operation is a key element for the success of any organisation.
Generally, a Call Center’s functions could be either in- or out-
sourced, and there are advantages of both strategies. Mclvor [5] argues
that outsourcing a function should be carried out from a strategic
perspective and integrated into the overall strategy of the organization.
Several researchers [6,7] postulate that the main reasons why companies
outsource, is because they can focus their resources on core activities
and competencies, convert xed costs into variable, and benet from
the supplier’s investment and innovation [4]. us, it is very important
to understand the objectives that the company wants to achieve, which
will inform the direction the company should follow, as this will in turn
inform whether outsourcing will benet it.
Service is an activity process which involves the treatment of a
customer or something belonging to them [8] while experience is
a customer’s personal interpretation of the service process and the
customer’s interaction and involvement or ow through a series of
touch points [9]. Some researchers, inter-alia, Meyer and Schwager
[10] have stressed that customer experience will provide a new
means of competition, and a good experience is important because
it aects customer satisfaction, delivers customer loyalty, inuences
expectations, and also creates emotional bonds with customers.
Customer experience can be dened from two perspectives
namely, operational service quality and customer perceived quality
[11]. Operational service quality is the operations’ assessment of how
well the service was delivered, for example speed of answer, rst call
resolution (FCR), and abandonment rate. is includes input resources
such as labour, technology, processes, people and information which
directly impact customer experience [9], which means that all the
customer service performance measurements contribute directly to the
customer experience.
While a service is the activity or process, the customer experience is
their personal interpretation of the service and quality provided by the
*Corresponding author: Krishna Govender, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South
Africa, Tel: +27 31 260 1111; E-mail: govenderkrishna@gmail.com
Received June 23, 2016; Accepted July 14, 2016; Published July 21, 2016
Citation: Govender K, Essop F (2016) Outsourcing In-bound Call Centers: Impact
on Customers’ Service Experience. J Account Mark 5: 187. doi:10.4172/2168-
9601.1000187
Copyright: © 2016 Govender K, et al. This is an open-access article distributed
under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original author and source are credited.
Outsourcing In-bound Call Centers: Impact on Customers’ Service
Experience
Krishna Govender*1, Essop F2
1University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
2Regenesys Business School, South Africa
Abstract
The paper explores the impact that the outsourcing of In-bound Call Centers have on customer service experience
at a major mobile telecommunications company in South Africa. A quantitative approach was used to obtain data
from a convenience sample of customers, using a special on-line questionnaire, namely, Net Promoter Score (NPS)
which was distributed to all customers who contacted the In- and Out-bound Call Centers over a 5-month period, by
providing participants with them with a link via SMS. The data was analysed using “in Quba Voice of the Customer
(VoC),” which is a customer experience software that allows for capturing of every layer of the customer’s journey,
including experiences, transactions and touch points across all customer dimensions and media types. The ndings
reveal that customers responded favourably to the outsourced Call Center with regard to their overall experience,
the quality of the agents and loyalty towards the company.
Citation: Govender K, Essop F (2016) Outsourcing In-bound Call Centers: Impact on Customers’ Service Experience. J Account Mark 5: 187.
doi:10.4172/2168-9601.1000187
Page 2 of 10
J Account Mark
ISSN: 2168-9601 JAMK, an open access journal
Volume 5 • Issue 3 • 1000187
organisation and the knowledge of agents, professionalism, friendliness
and First Call Resolution (FCR), were ranked as the top factors that
inuenced customer experience in contact centers.
e literature inter-alia, Bain [12] indicates that the operating
(outsourced or in-sourced) model of a company within the Call Center
is closely linked to customer service and customer experience. e
aforementioned researcher describes the benets and challenges which
creates the optimum operating model within the Call Center which will
contribute to improved customer service and experience.
In light of the brief literature review, this study was conducted
among customers of a major mobile telecommunications company in
South Africa, using the methodology described below.
Research Methodology
An exploratory research design was deemed relevant, since this
type of research is conducted to investigate a problem that has not been
clearly dened, and the mobile telecommunications company does not
have much information on what their customers’ experience levels are.
A quantitative approach was selected, as it provides statistical data which
can be represented graphically for easier snap-shot understanding, as
well as interpretation.
All elements of the population were surveyed since it was possible
to communicate with all customers who contacted the Call Center
during the research period. e participants were customers of a major
mobile telecommunications company in South Africa, who received
services from the in-bound Call Center from November 2014 to May
2015, the period during which an outsourced in-bound Call Center was
established by the telecommunications provider.
Research instrument
Bain [12] argues that customer experience can be linked directly
to the Net Promoter Score (NPS) method of measuring customer
experience, loyalty and satisfaction. Bain [12] asserts that the NPS
method is ideal to measure customers’ perception and experience
of the service and quality of an organization, such as a Call Center.
Although traditionally a brand/company level measurement
methodology, the NPS is commonly adapted to provide a ‘satisfaction-
geared measurement’ based on a transactional survey. is allows for
alignment to the NPS methodology, whilst still providing a satisfaction
metric for gauging respondent’s experience and satisfaction. e NPS
is measured on a 10-point Likert scale, and an example to illustrate
the aforementioned would be: on a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are
you to recommend this organisation (or this product) to friends and
colleagues? Ratings of 9 or 10 indicate Promoters; 7 and 8=Passives;
and 0 through 6=Detractors, and the NPS is basically the percentage
of promoters minus the percentage of detractors. Hayes [13] reported
that the NPS “recommend” is likely to be the best predictor of business
growth and success.
e on-line questionnaire was divided into three sections; Section
A consisted of two questions based on the Net Promoter Score (NPS)
methodology which provided a single measure for businesses to assess
and manage their customer relationships. An example of a question is
reected below.
“Good day, according to our records you recently phoned the
Company XYZ Call Center. Based on this interaction, how likely are
you to recommend Company XYZ to a friend or family member? Please
respond with a number from 0 (Denitely won’t) to 10 (Denitely will).
SMS responses are free.”
e respondent would type the appropriate rating and reply to
the SMS, and if any response fell outside of the predened response
format parameters, then the respondent would be presented with the
same question again, to ensure that only valid responses were analysed.
As a follow-up to the response to question 1, question 2 required an
explanation. “ank you for your response. What is the reason for the
rating of 8?”
Section B consisted of a measurement question that assessed the
Call Center’s performance based on its most important performance
metric, and the primary driver for having a Call Center, namely, the
First Call Resolution (FCR). By measuring the FCR rate, the Call
Center’s performance could be evaluated, thereby adopting the most
objective measure to judge and manage service delivery. e FCR
measures whether the customer’s need was addressed the rst time they
called, which by denition eliminates the need to follow up with the
customer, or whether the customer had to make contact with the Call
Center again on the same matter. e FCR question was presented as
follows: “anks, we appreciate your feedback. Was your issue resolved?
Please reply with a 1 (Yes), 2 (No) or 3 (Too early to tell).”
Section C comprised of ‘Quality Dimension’ questions which are
attributes that describe how well a service is delivered and the various
distinguishable aspects related to that service [13]. e ‘Quality
Dimension’ describes the characteristics of the service and is oen
translated from the behavioral outcome a customer would expect whilst
receiving a service or product [14]. For example, when contacting a Call
Center, a customer would want it to be easy, and eective, and expect
that the agent assisting listens carefully, is knowledgeable, and makes
the customer feel valued throughout the entire experience/encounter.
Customers would use the aforementioned to base their opinions on
how the service was delivered. Each quality dimension is measured
using a Likert scale and the question wording alludes to the dimension
that is being measured, an on which the respondent (customer) should
base his/her opinion [15,16]. e Quality Dimension questions that
were presented to the respondents were based on listening, condence,
product knowledge, feeling valued, and convenience. An example of the
‘listening’ attribute question follows: “How well did the agent listen to
you (Rate with a number 1 to 5)? 5=Very Good; 4=Good; 3=Acceptable;
2=Poor; 5=Very Poor” (Figure 1).
Data analysis
e response attribution and pass-through to a data repository
were completely automated through soware known as “inQuba
Voice of the Customer (VoC),” which is one of the most advanced
customer experience soware. e aforementioned soware helps
companies achieve engagement, loyalty, and retention through one
simple principle: ‘Listen to the voice of your customer and engage in
their story’. By providing a powerful set of CX orchestration tools, the
soware ensures proactive customer-facing initiatives and processes
across all industries, sectors, and operating environments. is allows
for the capturing of every layer of the customer’s journey, including
experiences, transactions and touchpoints across all customer
dimensions and media types.
e Call Center and the agent were touch points through which
a customer ‘touches’ the organisation, which ultimately impacts their
customer experience and satisfaction. ese touch points have the
greatest impact on the customer’s perception of a company, and come
into play across many dierent experiences. e inQuba CX model
(Figure 2) reects the customer journey or customer lifecycle within an
organisation, beginning with Enquiry and Sales, through to Account/
Citation: Govender K, Essop F (2016) Outsourcing In-bound Call Centers: Impact on Customers’ Service Experience. J Account Mark 5: 187.
doi:10.4172/2168-9601.1000187
Page 3 of 10
J Account Mark
ISSN: 2168-9601 JAMK, an open access journal
Volume 5 • Issue 3 • 1000187
Relationship and Termination. ese experiences are further broken
down into their underlying transactions, and each node in the CX map
is associated with a specic event, quality and customer dimension.
Findings
Response rate
Notication of the survey was sent out via text (SMS) messages
containing a series of sequential questions, and response rates were
calculated as a percentage of completed surveys, as a function of
delivered text messages (SMS). Of the 530 108 records submitted, 401
501 texts were delivered. e dierence between these two (submitted
and delivered) is the delivery rate, and is based on a customer that had
interacted with the Call Center and who had been directed to the inQuba
VoC tool to complete the survey. Some respondents (customers) did not
have updated mobile numbers, and this resulted in an ‘undeliverable’
survey. Of the surveys ‘delivered’, 46 463 questionnaires were completed.
Net promoter scores
e outsourced Call Center was introduced in January 2015, and
the performance measure using the NPS scores reects an improvement
from January 2015 until May 2015 (Tables 1 and 2).
e divisions within the external and internal Call Centers were
dierent, and the external Call Center expanded over a greater number
of lines of business than the internal Call Center. e external Call
Center operated across ve divisions, namely,
• Assurance – deals with customer issues with regards to services,
where issues are resolved or escalated
• Billing – deals with customer billing and invoice related queries
• Fulllment - deals with telephonic sales
• SMBS – Small and Medium Business Services (SMBS) with
business issues with regard to services
• Call Center SMBS Retentions – deals with retaining possible
SMBS customers who would like to cancel their current services
or are approaching the end of their contract term.
e internal Call Centre only operated across three divisions,
namely,
• Assurance – deals with customer issues with regards to services;
the issues are resolved or escalated
• Billing – deals with customer billing and invoice related queries
• Fulllment - deals with telephonic sales.
e NPS for all lines of business was measured to understand the
performance across the dierent departments within and between
the in-house and external Call Centers. As refelected in Figure 3,
the SMBS department within the external Call Center proved to be
the best performing department, followed by the Assurance and
Billing, Fullment and SMBS Retentions divisions, respectively. e
Billing department within the in-house Call Center performed the
Figure 1: Quality dimension. This Figure illustrates how the questions in
Section C were presented to the respondents.
Loyalty
Experience 1
Experience 2
Experience n
Transaction 1
Transaction 2
Transaction n
Touchpoin 1
Touchpoin 1
Touchpoin n
Figure 2: CEM Model within inQuba VoC.
Month NPS Score N
November 2015 -11 3146
December 2015 -25 3739
January 2015 -47 4010
February 2015 -40 7361
March 2015 -40 13036
April 2015 -15 8426
May 2015 17 6686
Table 1: NPS with various sample size. It became evident that the external Call
Center’s performance over the research period in terms of NPS was 14 points
better than that of the in-house Call Center.
Call Center Score N Period
Internal -28 29689 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
External -12 16774 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
Table 2: NPS the Internal and External Call Centers. Table summarises the NPS
scores for the internal Call Center and the External Call Center for the period
between November 2014 and May 2015.
Citation: Govender K, Essop F (2016) Outsourcing In-bound Call Centers: Impact on Customers’ Service Experience. J Account Mark 5: 187.
doi:10.4172/2168-9601.1000187
Page 4 of 10
J Account Mark
ISSN: 2168-9601 JAMK, an open access journal
Volume 5 • Issue 3 • 1000187
best, followed by the Fullment and Assurance divisions.e Billing
department of the external Call Center performed better than the in-
house Call Center by seven points (7) on the NPS scoring system. e
same trend of performance is visible for the Fulllment and Assurance
departments. e dierence in performance between the Fullment
and Assurance divisions is six (6) and 23 points respectively.
e SMBS division only operates in the external Call Center and
Figure 4 shows that since February, when the external Call Center was
established, the NPS scores for this division shows a positive trend
from -24 points in February 2015 to 29 points in May 2015 (Figures
3-9, Tables 3 and 4).
e FCR score between the internal and external Call Centres
weren’t very dierent, however, the external Call Center showed a ve
percentage point dierence on FCR, compared to the internal Call
Center, and this wasca 13 percent improvement on the performance of
the internal Call Center.
Table 5 summarises the FCR measures of the internal and the
external Call Centers, per division. e “Billing” department within
the external Call center proved to be the best performing department,
followed by SMBS, SMBS Retentions, Assurance and Fullment
respectively. e ‘Billing’ department within the in-house Call Center
performed the best, followed by the Fullment and Assurance divisions.
e “Billing” department of the external Call Center performed the
same as the in-house Center in terms of the FCR scores. e same
trend of performance is visible for the “Fulllment” division. ere was
a signicant dierence between the external and internal Call Centers
on “Assurance,” and the external Call Center performed 9% better than
the internal Call Center, which is a 28% performance improvement
(Figures 10-15, Tables 6 and 7).
Discussion and Conclusion
e purpose of this study was to explore whether outsourcing
the inbound Call Center provides a better customer experience, and
determine the dierence in customers experience between the in-
house and outsourced Call Center. e following quality attributes were
measured through the survey:
• e agent’s listening skills to determine whether the Call
NPS by Division - SMBS
100
80
60
40
20
0
-20
-40
-60
-80
-100
-24
-31
29
-18
Feb Mar Apr May
2015
Figure 3: Net promoter scores of the SMBS division.
NPS by Division - Billing
100
80
60
40
20
0
-20
-40
-60
-80
-100
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
2014 2015
010
-50
-37
-22
-10
12
Figure 4: Net promoter scores for the billing division. This gure summarises the NPS measures for the Billing division from November 2014 until May 2015,
reveals that since the implementation of the external Call Center, the NPS moved from 0 to 12 points in May 2015. There has also been a positive trend on
a month on month basis since February 2015.
Citation: Govender K, Essop F (2016) Outsourcing In-bound Call Centers: Impact on Customers’ Service Experience. J Account Mark 5: 187.
doi:10.4172/2168-9601.1000187
Page 5 of 10
J Account Mark
ISSN: 2168-9601 JAMK, an open access journal
Volume 5 • Issue 3 • 1000187
Division Internal External Period
Score N Score n
SMBS - - -9 397 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
SMBS Retentions - - -20 111 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
Billing -18 16487 -11 4726 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
Fullment -24 5463 -18 1126 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
Assurance -34 7739 - 11 10414 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
Table 3: NPS by division absolute numbers and sample size.
Month Score n
November 2015 42% 1806
December 2015 35% 2230
January 2015 28% 2477
February 2015 35% 4470
March 2015 39% 7645
April 2015 43% 4509
May 2015 54% 2976
Table 4: FCR over Time Absolute Numbers. Table summarises the FCR score and
sample size from November 2014 until May 2015.
Call Center Score N Period
Internal 38% 16916 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
External 43% 9197 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
Table 5: FCR by internal and external call center.
NPS by Division - Fulfilment
100
80
60
40
20
0
-20
-40
-60
-80
-100
Feb Mar Apr May
2015
-33
-36
-17
13
Figure 5: Net promoter scores of the fullment division. This gure summarises the NPS for the ‘Fulllment’ division indicates that the performance of the
“Fulllment” department increased between February 2015 and May 2015.There was a decline between February and March 2015, but since March 2015 the
trend has been positive, showing a 49 point improvement from March to May 2015.
Center agent was able to attentively listen to the customer and
understand the requirements of the customer.
• e agent’s condence in liaising with the customer, since
condence will place the customer at ease that the Call Center
agent fully understands the customer’s requirement and will be
able to resolve it or assist with the query.
• e agent’s knowledge and competence with regards to the
product being queried, since if the agent has sound knowledge
of the product and understands its working, the agent will be
able to guide the customer in the correct manner.
• e agent’s ability to make the customer feel valued, since this
important in a service delivery experience as well as an aer
sales function.
• e convenience for the customer to call the Call Center, since
the eort of the customer to call the Call Center should be
minimal for the customer experience to improve.
It became evident that the external Call Center performed
signicantly better than the Internal Call Centre, and the biggest
improvement was with regard to Convenience,’ which showed an 18%
improvement. With the External Call Center still being relatively new, it
is understandable that customer condence in the External Call Center
will improve over time.
e FCR had increased from 42% in November 2014 to 54% at the
end of May 2015 and, by almost 100% from 28% in January 2015 to
54% in May 2015. For all cities except Pretoria, the FCR scores showed
an improvement, however, Johannesburg, Durban and Bloemfontein
showed a decline in the FCR score, until the implementation of the
external Call Center in January 2015, where aer, considerable steady
increases in the FCR were obeserved.
e NPS was aggregated for the period of 01 November 2014 to 31
October 2015 for each Call Center, which resuted in an overall NPS score
of -12 and -28 for the Internal and External Call Centres respectively. It
became evident that the NPS of the external Call Center had increased
by 16 points. Overall, the NPS across all cities started improving since
the implementation of the external Call Center in January 2015. e
biggest improvement was seen in Cape Town; however, this Call Center
only started operating in February 2015.
e improvement of customer experience is dependedent on
the customer lifecycle, which entails the sales, support, billing and
loyalty aspects of the treanscation. e impact of a positive customer
experience and NPS score is dependent on the operational services
and metrics of the customer lifecycle journey (Spiess, Joens, Dragnea,
Spencer, and Phillipart, 2014). A positive customer experience is a result
of interactions and relations between the customer and their service
provider, and the interactions spread across all departments within an
organisation that ensures a positive customer experience.
While the internal Call Centre only operated across three divisions,
namely, Assurance, Billing and Fulllment, the external Call Center’s
NPS was better than that of the internal Call Centre across the common
divisions. e biggest improvement was by the ‘Assurance’ division
whose NPS scores moved from -34 to -11. e ‘SMBS’ division only
operates in the external Call Centre, and the NPS score had seen a
marked improvement over time, having moved from -24 to a positive
Citation: Govender K, Essop F (2016) Outsourcing In-bound Call Centers: Impact on Customers’ Service Experience. J Account Mark 5: 187.
doi:10.4172/2168-9601.1000187
Page 6 of 10
J Account Mark
ISSN: 2168-9601 JAMK, an open access journal
Volume 5 • Issue 3 • 1000187
NPS by Division - SMBS Retentions
100
80
60
40
20
0
-20
-40
-60
-80
-100
-19
-62
-29
17
Feb Mar Apr May
2015
Figure 6: NPS of the retentions division. The SMBS ‘Retentions’ division is similar to SMBS, in that it only operates within the external Call Center. Figure
indicates that the SMBS “Retention” department showed poor performance in February 2015, and after the launch of the external Call Center, the performance
shows a positive trend to May 2015.
NPS by Division - Assurance
100
80
60
40
20
0
-20
-40
-60
-80
-100
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
2015
2014
-11
-25
-47 -43 -35
-20
22
Figure 7: Net promoter score of the assurance division. Figure indicates that the performance of the ‘Assurance’ depatment improved from -11 points to 22
points over the assesment period, since the external Call Center was introduced, the performance improved by 33 points.
29. Having introduced the external Call Center in January 2015, there
was a positive spike in the NPS within the ‘Billings’ division, although
this returned to a negative NPS score of -37 in Feb, but continued to
increase to a much improved “12” by May. e Fullment division’s
NPS managed to move from a low of -33 in Feb to a positive score of 13
within the research period.
Recommendations
In order to increase and maintain a positive customer experience,
executive management within customer experience departments, must
involve line management when drawing up their customer experience
strategies. Executive management will always need to ensure that any
initiatives decided on are implemented within the allocated budgets
for those departments. However, partnering with the operational
management team will ensure that funds are spent on the right things,
such as analytics to better assess customer behaviour patterns or
smarter tools to ensure a seamless customer experience.
Customer experience is inuenced by certain factors which include
product knowledge, listening skills and feeling valued. us, the
company should look at introducing a so skill courses in the training
curriculum to emphasise the impact that these have on the perception
of the customer.
In addition to the operational metrics within the Call Center,
namely, average speed of answer (ASA) and average handling time
(AHT), FCR and NPS must be incorporated in the contract with
a outsourced company. ese metrics will add a dimension of the
customer experience and perception of the service rendered. Within
the Call Center, a dedicated service management team must be created
to manage service level and contractual agreements with the outsourced
co mpa ny.
Research Limitations and Future Research
e main limitation was that the focus of the study was within a
single company and this limits the ability to generalize across other
companies. Furthermore, not all the surveys sent to the customers that
contacted the internal and external Call Centers were responded to.
Citation: Govender K, Essop F (2016) Outsourcing In-bound Call Centers: Impact on Customers’ Service Experience. J Account Mark 5: 187.
doi:10.4172/2168-9601.1000187
Page 7 of 10
J Account Mark
ISSN: 2168-9601 JAMK, an open access journal
Volume 5 • Issue 3 • 1000187
NPS by Call Centre City - PE NPS by Call Centre City - JHB
NPS by Call Centre City - DBN
NPS by Call Centre City - BFN NPS by Call Centre City - CPT
NPS by Call Centre City - PTA
60
40
20
0
-20
-40
20
50
-20
-28
7
38
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
2014 2015
20
0
-20
-40
-60
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
2014 2015
10
0
-10
-20
-30
-40
-50
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
2014 2015
-33
-14 -20
-50
-9
14
-7
-30
-43 -40
-28
-22
6
30
10
-10
-30
-50
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
2014 2015
2014 2015
2015
-10
-30
-50
-70
-9
-25
-42 -34 -33
-17
20
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
120
80
40
0
-40
Feb Mar Apr May
-18
-35
-64 -63
-37 -39
-67
-26
-33
-10
100
Figure 8: Net promoter score by call center city. Figure summarizes the NPS by Call Center by city reects that since the introduction of the outsourced Call
Centers, there has been an increase in the NPS across all cities, except for Pretoria. Thee most improved performance was for CPT, followed by PE, JHB, DBN
and BFN, and the worst performing city was Pretoria.
FCR Trend
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
2014 2015
42%
35%
28%
35%
39%
43%
54%
Figure 9: First call resolution over time. Figure reects the Frist Call Resolution (FCR) trends over the time period when the outsourced (external Call Centre)
was introduced for inbound customer calls. It is evident that since the introduction of the outsourced Call Center, there has been a 26 point improvement in FCR
from January 2015 to May 2015.
Citation: Govender K, Essop F (2016) Outsourcing In-bound Call Centers: Impact on Customers’ Service Experience. J Account Mark 5: 187.
doi:10.4172/2168-9601.1000187
Page 8 of 10
J Account Mark
ISSN: 2168-9601 JAMK, an open access journal
Volume 5 • Issue 3 • 1000187
FCR by Division - SMBS
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Feb Mar Apr May
2015
25%
39%
53%
64%
Figure 10: First call resolution by division – SMBS. The SMBS FCR was only measured for the external Call Center as the measure did not exist prior to the
outsourcing. This gure summarises the FCR measure for SMBS between February 2015 and May 2015 .Since the introduction of the external Call Center to
this new line of business, a signicant (39%) improvement of FCR was observed.
FCR by Division - Billing
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
2014 2015
60%
100%
60%
41%
46%
50%
59%
Figure 11: First call resolution of the billing division. Figure summarises the FCR measures for the ‘Billing’ division, reects that the “Billing’ department showed
a drop between January 2015 to February 2015, and thereafter a positive trend was observed whereby the performance in May 2015 reached the same level
as January 2015.
Division Internal External Period
Score N Score n
SMBS - - 41% 170 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
SMBS Retentions - - 45% 58 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
Billing 48% 4325 48% 2587 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
Fullment 40% 2798 37% 526 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
Assurance 32% 9793 41% 5856 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
Table 6: FCR by call center division.
Citation: Govender K, Essop F (2016) Outsourcing In-bound Call Centers: Impact on Customers’ Service Experience. J Account Mark 5: 187.
doi:10.4172/2168-9601.1000187
Page 9 of 10
J Account Mark
ISSN: 2168-9601 JAMK, an open access journal
Volume 5 • Issue 3 • 1000187
FCR by Division - Fulfilment
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Feb Mar Apr May
36% 36% 41%
53%
2015
Figure 12: First call resolution of the fullment division. Figure summarises the FCR measures for the ‘Fulllment’ division, reveals that since the introduction
of the external Call Center, a positive FCR trend was observed, with the performance improving from 36% to 53%.
FCR by Division - SMBS Retentions
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Feb Mar Apr May
2015
13%
35%
43%
67%
Figure 13: First call resolution of the retentions division. Figure reveals that the FCR performance for the “Retentions” division improved from 13% to 67% ,
since the introduction of the external Call Center.
FCR by Division - Assurance
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
2014 2015
41%
35%
28% 32% 34% 36%
50%
Figure 14: First call resolution of the assurance division. Figure reects a decline in the overall performance of the ‘assurance” division, although since January
2015, the performance has improved on a monthly basis reaching 50% in the month of May 2015. However, since the introduction of the external Call Center
in January 2015, the performance increased by 22%.
e ndings pointed to further areas of academic research which
would to add to the understanding of outsourcing and its impact
on customer experience. ese are understanding the nancial
implications of outsourcing and performing a full nancial comparison
between outsourcing and an in-house a Call Center; understanding
the implication of consolidation of facilities on the operations of the
Citation: Govender K, Essop F (2016) Outsourcing In-bound Call Centers: Impact on Customers’ Service Experience. J Account Mark 5: 187.
doi:10.4172/2168-9601.1000187
Page 10 of 10
J Account Mark
ISSN: 2168-9601 JAMK, an open access journal
Volume 5 • Issue 3 • 1000187
FCR by Call Centre City - PE
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
100% 100%
67% 56% 65%
76%
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
45%
2014 2015
FCR by Call Centre City - DBN
60
50
40
30
20
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
2014 2015
41%
36%
27%
32%
42% 46%
57%
FCR by Call Centre City - BFN
60
50
40
30
20
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
2014 2015
45%
35%
27%
37%
42% 44%
54%
FCR by Call Centre City - JHB
54
50
46
42
38
34
30
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
2014 2015
42%
36%
32%
36% 36%
40%
52%
FCR by Call Centre City - PTA
40
30
20
10
0%
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
2014 2015
34%
28%
21% 23%
26%
22%
0%
FCR by Call Centre City - CPT
50
46
42
38
34
Feb Mar Apr
2015
38%
35%
47%
Figure 15: First call resolution by call center city. Figure reveals that since the introduction of the outsourced Call Centers, there has been an increase in the
FCR score across all cities, except for Pretoria and PE.
business and the contribution consolidation would have on customer
service and customer experience.
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Quality Dimension Internal External Period
Score N Score n
Condence 67% 28689 69% 16774 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
Convenience 44% 28689 52% 16774 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
Feel valued 68% 28689 71% 16774 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
Listening 76% 28689 77% 16774 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
Product Knowledge 70% 28689 72% 16774 01/11/2014-31/05/2015
Table 7: Quality dimension. Table summarises the ‘Quality’ measures, sample sizes as well as period, based on the various quality dimensions.
Citation: Govender K, Essop F (2016) Outsourcing In-bound Call Centers:
Impact on Customers’ Service Experience. J Account Mark 5: 187.
doi:10.4172/2168-9601.1000187