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www.ASPonline.com
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ASP Forum
Call Center Mergers
"My company has just merged with a major competitor, and I'm supposed to
develop a plan for integrating the call centers (which are a thousand
miles apart). Help!"
—Kevin from Kirkland
Kevin:
After have completed this experience twice, I have learned many
beneficial things that I would do:
1) An assessment of the resources first needs to be completed.
a. Who are the key individuals
that are needed?
b. Who are the individuals that
carry the influence?
c. Who are the leaders, by
position and by level of control?
d. If you are merging into one
location, it will be extremely important to
analyze the salary differences by title.
e. Develop a standard Job
Description between both organizations. It is
easy to fall into the trap of just using your current one and
giving it to all
of employees for the company that is merging. It is important
to come
up with a combination Job description that takes the best of both
sides
and culminates them together.
f. Take into account geographic
cultural differences. For instance,
individuals in the Northeast appear to be talking in a harsh tone.
Individuals from Chicago talk extremely fast. California—very
laid back,
etc. Also do not forget about geographical work ethics and family
values.
g. Analyze the Technology
differences and see how they can be combined.
h. Call Logging
software—complete a comparative analysis between the
two. Again, do not fall into a trap with what you are
accustomed to. Also,
when doing this analysis, be very open to everyone that you are
doing
it...on both sides. You will need to build trust and this is a
good way to
show that you are using a business perspective and analysis, no
one
can come back and fault you for picking a side and going with it.
2) Timing and Planning
a. Communicate as soon
as possible with
both call centers. And communicate as regular as possible. At a
minimum, once per week. To ensure a smooth transition, make sure
that no one feels like they are "being left in the dark." The more
they
hear from you, the less they will fill in their own blanks.
b. If you say you are
going to do something, do it. If you put a date to it,
stick to it.
c. While planning, if
something appears that it will take 12 months to
complete, plan on 18 months. Use the 150% factor.
d. If it can be planned,
write it down.
e. Make a master plan.
f. Review this plan daily.
Share parts of it for your regular
communications—what you have accomplished, what’s next, etc.
There is so much more, but this should help to get you started...
—Rob Druhot rdruhot@advsol.com
Manager of Technical Support, Advanced Solutions
International, Inc.
512/491-0550 x360
I was in a similar situation several years ago, with two (competing)
outsourced level call centers covering levels 1 & 2, and two in-house
third level call centers. All four were in different locations.
The first thing I did was to establish the model going forward.
Luckily, we'd proven the "outsource levels 1 & 2, and keep level 3
in-house" model, so that was easy. After that, it was a matter of
implementing the company's merger priorities.
For the outsource call centers, the company's timeframe for complete
implementation of the merger defined whether I would be able to
consider new outsourcers or simply pit the existing outsourcers
against themselves. The implementation timeframe was short, so I had
them compete for the business. With the additional business heading
their way, each could offer lower costs-per-call but would also need
account-specific tools and procedures in order to handle the new
business (and improve service).
For the in-house staff, I broke the staff into two pieces:
infrastructure and domain experts. The domain experts were the
senior/escalation reps assigned to specific products. They would
remain located at the development center where the technology they
specialized in was based, and all I had to do was to get the phone
system to route product-specific calls directly to the responsible
in-house escalation rep. The infrastructure people were the ones who
ran the delivery/reporting technologies: the online support system
developer, a tech writer, a reporting/business analyst, etc. They
had to be located where their job was best connected-in (i.e. the
online support guy was near the company's web group, the analyst was
where I'd be, etc.).
—Jeff Barto jeff.barto@palmone.com
Product Manager, Palm
408/617-7962
[Any other advice, anyone? Send an email to membership director
Jane Farber at jfarber@asponline.com, and we'll
post your feedback.]
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