Consulting Services:

PROVEN PERFORMANCE—EVERY TIME!

Looking For Help?
EMOTE BPO’s call center consulting services provide you with results-oriented solutions for real-world challenges. Our focus is on presenting our clients with the information and resources necessary to maximize results now and provide future return on your consulting investment.

AREAS OF FOCUS INCLUDE:

Call Center Assessment NEW!!
Service Level Recovery
Coaching Program NEW!!
Workforce Management
Workforce Management Boot Camp NEW!!
Quality Assurance
Process Re-engineering
Strategy Development
Budget Optimization
Small Call Center—Operational Execution and Planning Assessment

YOU DECIDE!
Whether you choose one of our focused call center consulting approaches or need help tackling a specific challenge, we can help you accomplish your goals and achieve tangible results. Your satisfaction is our primary goal.

OUR CALL CENTER CONSULTING SERVICES CAN HELP YOU ACHIEVE PEAK PERFORMANCE BY:
- Optimizing your forecasting, staffing and scheduling processes to ensure consistent service level results and the most effective of staff resources.
- Tuning up quality programs to promote higher and more consistent levels of customer satisfaction.
- Helping you identify and apply call center technologies.
- Improving communication in your organization between high-level goals and day-to-day operations.
- Evaluating your coaching practices to identify opportunities to improve agent performance
- Analyzing workflows to improve the efficiency of your call center and ultimately your entire organization.

Consulting Services—Call Center Assessment Package

What is a Call Center Assessment?
This program helps you pinpoint areas in your organization that require special attention. Often, problems and opportunities are more readily identified by an experienced, independent, external observer, who can then suggest specific action steps to meet your needs.

Who needs this service?
Organizations choosing this program often have a vague sense that something's amiss or a desire to take performance up to the next level. This service also can be extremely valuable when a leadership change occurs and you want to measure performance or verify that you're on the right track.

Who performs the Call Center Assessment?
Assessments are conducted by EMOTE BPO-certified experts, every one of whom has at least five years of call center leadership background and understands what it takes to succeed in this challenging, fast-paced environment. Because we have experience in nearly every industry, you can rest assured your consultant will have the expertise necessary to provide your organization with successful solutions.

What areas does the Call Center Assessment cover?
A standard call center assessment includes the following elements:

Strategy:
Review core values, vision, mission, and strategy statements and determine how well the existing call center structure supports these objectives.

Customer Satisfaction:
Examine customer satisfaction survey forms and methods and track how effectively the data is used to improve the customer experience.

Quality Assurance:
Analyze Quality Assurance forms and reports, and track how quality data is applied in the call center to improve performance.

Coaching:
Spend time with coaches and agents to get an accurate picture of how coaching sessions are conducted and how to make them more effective.

Training:
Analyze the training process and identify opportunities to improve the quality or efficiency of the program

Hiring:
Review hiring practices and determine how well linked they are to call center needs

Workforce Management:
After observing your workforce management processes and analyzing data, provide recommendations on:

Staff Utilization:
Provide a detailed review of staff utilization numbers to help you answer, once and for all, the question, “Where is everybody?"

Process Improvement:
Observe calls side-by-side with agents and note any inefficiencies in call-handling procedures.

Complaint Handling:
Review the processes in place to turn complaints into a positive interaction and leverage the information to improve call center performance.

Call Routing:
Spend time reviewing what happens prior to an agent receiving a call, including:

Disaster Recovery:
Assess the scope of your disaster recovery (or business continuity) plan and its ability to meet objectives during a crisis.   If you lack such a plan, we’ll provide a blueprint to help you get started.

How are recommendations delivered?
The complete call center assessment includes a final presentation made to your leadership team on the last day of our site visit, and a written report delivered within two weeks of visit conclusion. Our reports clearly spell out recommendations and risks, and also provide input on suggested action plans.

Can we design a Call Center Assessment to suit our specific needs and budget?
Many of our clients prefer to customize the program for their particular needs. To receive a price quote for a call center assessment to boost your call center's performance, click here

Consulting Services—Service Level Recovery Program

What is the Service Level Recovery Program?
If your call center is experiencing low service levels and high abandonment, EMOTE BPO’s Service Level Recovery Program will help you make meaningful changes that can substantially improve service level results.

How can our organization benefit from this program?
Nothing causes more disruption in a call center than inadequate service levels. Customers are irate, the staff is burnt out, and executives want answers. EMOTE BPO has a proven track record in turning around call centers with average answer speeds of five minutes and longer. In these cases, our experts have cut delays in half or more without substantial investment in staffing resources. If you’re having problems maintaining adequate levels of service, we can do the same for you.

What does the Service Level Recovery Program include?
The focus during our consulting visit will be on both short-term suggestions to pull performance up quickly, and on recommendations to help maintain positive results over the long term. Your consultant will:

What’s the best way to improve our service levels?
Get help from the experts! EMOTE BPO has been consulting with and educating clients on service level management since 1995. We know what to look for to assess your situation and make changes that lead to lasting results.

Consulting Services—Results-Oriented Performance Coaching Program

What is the Results-Oriented Performance Coaching Program?
If your call center is underperforming, our Results-Oriented Performance Coaching Program can diagnose the problem and prescribe a cure. We’ll provide an accurate performance assessment, communicated in a constructive and results-oriented manner, that agents, coaches, and your entire organization will find invaluable.

How does the Program work?
In two half-day sessions, your coaches receive personalized, one-on-one counseling and training from our team of experts. The first session includes role-plays and performance assessments. During the second session, your coaches receive a customized improvement plan along with counseling designed to enhance your bottom line. Supervisors, managers, and others responsible for improving front-line agent performance come away with easy-to-implement strategies for becoming better leaders.

How can we profit from Results-Oriented Performance Coaching?
Honesty and shared expectations form the foundation for a successful call center coaching program. Your call center will reap these benefits, plus:

How can we optimize returns from our coaching staff investment?
Call centers represent a substantial staff investment–make sure you obtain maximum value by participating in this powerful coaching program. Surprisingly, the cost per coach is less than you typically spend to train an agent.

Consulting Services—Peak Workforce Management Program

What is the Peak Workforce Management Program?
Effective call center workforce management practices—such as forecasting, staffing, scheduling, and real time management—can pay off handsomely through cost reductions, revenue increases, and improved customer loyalty. Yet, while organizations spend billions on the technology and people required to capitalize on a call center’s potential, many fail to invest in one area with potential for maximum returns: strong workforce management processes.

How can EMOTE BPO help us deploy our workforce more effectively?
EMOTE BPO has been consulting with and training organizations on effective forecasting, staffing, scheduling, and real time management practices for more than 12 years. In addition to our expertise, we also have software and spreadsheet tools that can help you understand and optimize these practices in your center.

What does the Peak Workforce Management Program include?
Whether you’re just starting down the workforce management path for the first time, or you want to improve the system you already have in place, our consultants will:

Who will handle our Peak Workforce Management project?
The consultant assigned to your organization will have a strong background in forecasting, staffing, scheduling, and real time management practices and will have passed a two-day test to become "EMOTE BPO certified." That’s your assurance that you are getting the absolute best the industry has to offer.

How can we capitalize on our call center’s potential?
To find out more about our Peak Workforce Management Program, and to get a price quote sent to you, please click here

Workforce Management Boot Camp

Highly functioning WFM teams recognize that the workforce planning process is circular. This means that in order to achieve effective agent schedules, input data like calls, handle time, and off phone time must be good, forecasts must be accurate, staff calculations need to use the proper methods to deal with random call arrival, and schedules must meet employee as well as business needs.

EMOTE BPO offers several solutions that can support you in the development of your WFM team:

WFM Boot Camp:
The WFM Boot Camp is a four day on site training and working session designed to quickly and efficiently train your WFM team as well as get the maximum benefits out of your WFM tools. The program combines classroom style training sessions with hands on analysis of your center's data to bring the concepts to life. The session is custom developed to focus on areas of need and to reinforce best practices in workforce planning.
Work on the boot camp begins prior to our consultant coming on site. Through a series of conference calls, the consultant will meet the team, gather the necessary data, and identify key areas to focus on during the training sessions. This allows for the maximum benefit for the participants.

Once on site a typical agenda looks like this...

Day One—The Basics

WFM process training

Basic statistics training and exercises

Day Two—Forecasting

Day Three—Staffing and Scheduling

Day Four—Proactive Planning and Analysis

Real time reaction:

Proactive planning:

Data analysis:

After the boot camp, your WFM team will be better prepared to forecast and schedule your call center. They will also have a laundry list of improvements and action items to support ongoing improvement efforts.

Provide your team with ongoing mentoring support to assist them in implementing the new workforce planning processes and methods they have learned. In addition to bi-weekly conference calls to facilitate the development of the team, your mentor will return for 2 one day site visits to check on their progress and teach them more advanced concepts.

Accurate long term forecasting and staffing is the most critical element in a call center’s ability to meet its goals. Call centers that fail to effectively explain required payroll expenses and hiring plans to senior management typically find themselves unable to get the staff they need. To support your long term staff planning needs EMOTE BPO will:

• -Develop a multi-year call center forecast model based on your historical information and projected growth plans
• -Develop a customized call center staffing model that:
• -Identifies monthly staffing requirements by function.
• -Demonstrates the requirements effectively for senior managers
• -Allows detailed adjustment of the plan to meet budget needs
• -Instruct your team on the use of the staffing model so the call center will be able use it as a tool in the ongoing management of the operation

An effective long term staffing plan will strengthen the call center management’s ability to operate an efficient call center through effective planning and budgeting. To deliver this plan, EMOTE BPO’s consultant will spend 3 days on site gathering historical data and reviewing future plans to develop a forecast and staffing model identifying the call center headcount requirements. Since payroll expenses typically comprise 60% to 70% of a call center’s budget, this process is critical in developing a budget that will support the call center.

Consulting Services—Quality Assurance Connection Program

What is the Quality Assurance (QA) Connection Program?
Call center leaders who are serious about ensuring the highest possible quality levels develop results-oriented quality assurance programs. EMOTE BPO’s award-winning consulting division can help you devise such a program or rejuvenate your existing quality initiative.

How does the QA Connection Program work?
EMOTE BPO consultants focus not only on your processes, but also on the connection between QA and other key elements in the organization:
This in-depth analysis allows us to identify the most productive ways to create or revitalize your QA program.

How will our call center benefit from the QA Connection Program?
EMOTE BPO consultants spend time on-site, meeting with key members of your team and observing current practices. We listen to your calls and provide unbiased input on call handling quality and performance opportunities, along with:

• -Expert recommendations for changes to your QA processes that can improve customer satisfaction
• -Advice on generating QA reports that encourage appropriate follow-up
• -Clear guidance on integrating QA into critical "people" processes such as coaching, training, and hiring
• -Creative ways to stretch your typical QA activities beyond individual feedback and into group performance enhancement
• -A complete assessment of the effectiveness of your practices and advice on how they can be improved

Consulting Services—The EMOTE BPO Process Re-engineering Program

What is the Process Re-engineering Program?
If recent improvement initiatives aren’t producing the expected results... if technology upgrades aren’t generating gains ... or if customer complaints are on the rise, EMOTE BPO can help you understand the root causes and identify specific improvement opportunities existing within your current workflow structure.

How does the program work?
Our re-engineering approach employs a variety of improvement techniques including process mapping, workflow development, computer simulation and ancillary process reviews. We use proven methods and an in-depth understanding of business activities to identify problem areas, bottlenecks, and potential areas of inefficiency.

What areas does the Process Re-engineering Program cover?
Specific activities during a re-engineering engagement may include all or a combination of the following:

Process mapping:
Includes cross-functional flow charts indicating beginning and end points of the processes and interdependencies across departmental lines. These charts illustrate the manner in which processes are completed and the flow through the organization.

Detail workflow development:
To gain a full understanding of the workloads, we create workflows for all the different types of incoming contacts that affect the functions being evaluated. Visio workflows and system maps are used to illustrate this activity.

Computer simulation:
For more complex environments, simulation software may be used to re-create the inbound workflows. These programs animate the flow of traffic in and out of an organization’s main functional areas, providing key insights on flow paths, queuing time, and bottlenecks in the process.

Ancillary process reviews:
As performance, inputs, and outputs are reviewed, certain problem areas emerge. The solution to these issues sometimes rests with ancillary supporting processes, such as forecasting, scheduling, training, and hiring. As part of these initiatives, we often assess these processes and note opportunities for improvement.

How will we receive your recommendations?
The complete process re-engineering program includes a detailed written report and a final presentation to your leadership team. Our reports clearly spell out recommendations and risks, and also provide input on suggested action plans.

Can we custom-tailor a re-engineering program for our organization?
While the above outline identifies many of the activities included in a typical re-engineering program, each engagement is customized based on a client’s exact needs. To receive information on establishing a program specific to your environment click here

Consulting Services—Call Center Strategy Development Program

What is the Call Center Strategy Development Program?
Call centers provide value to their organizations in numerous ways—reducing costs, increasing customer loyalty, generating revenue, etc. Whether you are starting up a new call center or trying to re-define an existing one, EMOTE BPO can help you define a strategy that supports your vision and values and provides the direction required to meet operational success.

How can EMOTE BPO help us develop our strategy?
Seventeen years spent consulting, training, and writing about contact centers have taught us how to maximize their contribution. We have used this experience to create a seven-step strategic development process that focuses your leadership team on the activities necessary to create a call center that will be viewed as an indispensable asset to the organization.

What does the Call Center Strategy Development Program include?
No two strategy development programs will produce the same results. The processes we employ, though, are consistent regardless of the industry you are in or the size of your center. On completion, you will walk away with a document outlining:

In addition to the written document, EMOTE BPO will meet with your leadership throughout the process and at project conclusion to discuss the findings.

Who will handle our Strategy Development project?
Depending on the scope of the assignment, EMOTE BPO will use from one to four consultants. Be assured that the project leader will be a senior member of our team with a minimum of ten years’ experience in the call center field.

How can we get started with our Strategic Development Process?
To find out more about this program, click here

Consulting Services—Call Center Budget Optimization

What is the Call Center Budget Optimization Program?
If your call center is struggling with rising costs, seemingly obvious solutions rarely pay off. Cut staff and service level drops, leading to customer complaints. Hire lower-cost employees and turnover increases, causing more problems. EMOTE BPO has teamed up with Contact Center Professionals, Inc. (CCPI) to help you find effective solutions by:

How does the Call Center Budget Optimization Program work?
Our consultants work closely with you to uncover all cost reduction opportunities in your organization by focusing on:

How much can we expect to save by using this service?
Your first-year savings from the recommendations that you accept will represent at least 150% of our consulting fee–guaranteed! If no savings opportunities are identified, your consulting fees will be refunded and your organization can rest easy knowing you’re operating at peak efficiency.

What’s the secret to reducing costs without sacrificing quality?
Call EMOTE BPO to learn more about this unique program. The fee (plus expenses) varies based on the size of your center. For details click here

Consulting ServicesSmall Call Center—Operational Execution and Planning Assessment

• 
  -Evaluate the center’s strategic planning process, tools for calculating requirements, and operational performance indicators employed
• -Assess the different processes in place to forecast, schedule, and manage the staff in a real time environment, and provide recommendations and/or tools on how this can be improved
• -Determine the center’s utilization of available resources under their current operating environment and provide input on where improvements can be made
• -Research current results to determine any potential sources of problems and provide recommendations concerning resolution
• -Review the call workflows coming into the center to determine where improvements can be made
• -Evaluate the processes used by the agents while handling calls to identify opportunities for efficiency gains
• -Assess current technology utilization

Key Deliverables: