With more than 140 facilities in 27 countries, Sitel offers its clients a combination of onshore, near shore, and offshore outsourcing.

by Jeff Goldman [November 5, 2008]

Sitel, founded back in June of 1985, merged with competitor ClientLogic in February of 2007. "Under the terms of the agreement, a new entity was formed under the Sitel brand," says Amit Shankardass, the company's senior vice president of global marketing. "The merger created a global leader with the single most diversified client mix, vertical industry expertise and global footprint in the industry."

The company offers its clients a full range of customer care and back office processing services, including both inbound and outbound calling. Clients have access to onshore, near shore and offshore support at more than 140 facilities in 27 countries. "Worldwide coverage is, without a doubt, a key strength for Sitel," Shankardass says. "Availability of onshore and offshore support allows for flexible language and time zone coverage and utilization of a global talent pool while reducing costs."

Ensuring high quality in that global talent pool, Shankardass says, is a key focus for the company. "We create a workplace environment that rewards initiative, ingenuity and passion," he says. "One way we accomplish this is by operating in accordance with a set of company values—values that were determined by our agents to guide how we treat each other, our clients, and their customers and business partners."

Sitel (866) 95-Sitel (866-957-4835)

The company's Global Operating System (GOS) framework, Shankardass says, ensures company-wide consistency as well as continuous improvement. "Each element of the Sitel GOS framework is designed to provide the foundation for consistent, high quality associate-customer interactions," he says. "Processes, roles, responsibilities, and review mechanisms are defined at every level in the Sitel organization to ensure every customer touch results in a positive experience for the customer."

Setup and reporting
Shankardass says Sitel works with clients of all sizes. "Our approach to business partnership is not driven by program size," he says. "Our primary objective is the alignment of our competency, culture and business goals with those of our clients, whether we are supporting 50 or 500 seats of work. Our clients range from Fortune 500 brands to smaller, niche companies, and with that we customize solutions to meet the business needs of each client."

Every new client works with a dedicated Senior Project Manager throughout the setup process. "Following signing of the Master Services Agreement, we will prepare a project plan for our clients and review it with key members of their organization," Shankardass says. "At that time, we also will assign a dedicated implementation team. Your implementation team, assembled of experts from each functional unit of Sitel, will be dedicated to the success of your program."

Sitel provides clients with reports in a number of different formats including Excel documents, ASCII text files, Business Objects reports, and Microsoft Access databases. "Reports are generated at various intervals—daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and campaign/client-to-date," Shankardass says. "These reports can be run based on the regular calendar or on the client's fiscal calendar."

The reports themselves, Shankardass says, are generated using technology from Business Objects. "As part of Sitel's services, Business Objects is provided for installation on the client's desktop. Business Objects provides the means to securely post reports to the web, e-mail reports to users, schedule the frequency to run reports, and allow users to customize the view of each report, as well as the ability to drill up or down into the information," he says.

Pricing and flexibility
To ensure open communication and to build stronger relationships with its clients, Sitel operates a Client Advisory Board focused on customer care issues. "Members come from Sitel's global client base and are made up of 10 to 15 senior level executives, responsible for customer management, business process outsourcing, customer care, strategy/business—typically, VP and above," Shankardass says. "Membership is on a rolling two-year term."

In addition, Shankardass says, Sitel's Relationship Manager (RM) and Director of Account Operations (DAO) are responsible for making sure that Sitel meets each client's unique needs. "The RM takes a proactive approach to issues, and is tasked with leading one major initiative on the client's behalf each quarter," he says. "The DAO complements the strategic nature of the RM by overseeing all tactical delivery and execution of day-to-day operations at an enterprise level."

Pricing for the service can be structured per minute, per agent hour, or per call or transaction. "Regardless of the pricing model used, we recommend a benchmarking of operational results and review of pricing within 90 to 180 days of the program launch," Shankardass says. "Our philosophy is that if both sides do not feel comfortable with all aspects of the partnership, the partnership will not endure."

The point, Shankdardass says, is that every implementation is unique. "After launching hundreds of different programs for the leaders in the digital economy, we recognize there will be issues and circumstances unique to each program that neither side anticipated—the true measurement of the quality of an outsourcing organization is how it reacts and executes based on these changes," he says. "Flexibility is critical."

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