Articles
"ECCA's Regonal Approach"
"ECCA's Regonal Approach Answers the Call"
By Deb Lehman-Stein
Five leading European economic government agencies from England, Germany, France, Scandinavia, and Spain have formed The European Call Center Alliance (ECCA) to help Europe-based call-centers achieve economic success in the new millennium. The ECCA provides solutions to the problems engendered by the "national" and "Pan-European" business approaches popular in the 80s and 90s.
"Centralizing call centers makes it difficult to recruit local talent fluent in the 12 European languages," says Mark Smedley, Vice President of ECCA. "Even when you find qualified people, thanks to the shallow labor pool, they often come at a steep price. No wonder staff turnover at some European call centers has reached 200% a year."
"The ECCA doesn't recommend setting up a call center in every country," Smedley notes. "Instead, we propose coordinated call-center deployment at key regional centers in one, some, or all of these locations: United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and Scandinavia. Our regional approach is a hybrid of the national and Pan European prototypes and blends the best of both. Companies doing business in Europe can stay close to their customer base. Labor costs decrease because you're not fighting for native language speakers and there's less turnover. With ECCA regional call centers, it's easier to find the native-language people needed to run a successful call-center operation."
Hewlett-Packard is just one of many leading call center businesses that has adopted the regional approach. "Quality reasons made us abandon the Pan-European approach," says Lars-Olaf Zetterlund, General Manager, Hewlett-Packard AB. "A few years ago, Hewlett Packard centralized its technical support to a Pan-European call center. The main reasons were to gain large critical mass where we could share expertise easily and also lower overall costs."
"It did not work out entirely as we had expected," Zetterlund continues. "We underestimated the difficulty of recruiting people who could speak Scandinavian languages. Staff turnover was also much higher than expected. This reduced ability to offer the right languages led to many unsatisfied customers because they were unable to communicate in their native language when calling us."
"During the past two years, we have moved most technical support to a Scandinavian call center in Sweden," Zetterlund says. "This change has significantly improved customer satisfaction. The overall cost is also clearly competitive in comparison with the large central operation we have in Amsterdam. The bottom line is that we now have more satisfied customers, and customer loyalty is a key parameter for our future success."
In an effort to regionalize part of its call center operations, Gateway moved its sales operations for the Scandinavian market from Dublin, Ireland to Stockholm, Sweden. Sweden's central location in Scandinavia, and its strong information technology infrastructure have motivated many companies to set up call centers there. The call-center business is now one of the fastest growing businesses in Sweden, currently employing about 40,000 people. Microsoft Nordic, also based in Sweden, reports that "satisfied customers increased by 50%" using a regional approach. Lands' End has a similar success story. "Through our call center in Saarland, Germany, our customers are talking to someone who understands the economy, the environment, the weather, the people, the customs, and everything else," says Stephen Miles, former managing director for Lands' End Germany. Lands' End believes that success comes from its local presence in the market, especially for a customer-service-oriented firm like itself.
Once a company supports a regional solution, what role does the ECCA play? "ECCA uses its vast arsenal of expertise to identify premier call-center locations with supporting language capabilities," Smedley says. "Local partners in each region provide essential labor force data and use their governmental contacts to navigate complicated labor laws and regulatory compliance. Our agency can facilitate every step of the way in successfully expanding a call center operationfrom sourcing employees to locating space to explaining tax implications. We also offer financial incentives. Best of all, our counseling is free!"
By Deb Lehman-Stein
Five leading European economic government agencies from England, Germany, France, Scandinavia, and Spain have formed The European Call Center Alliance (ECCA) to help Europe-based call-centers achieve economic success in the new millennium. The ECCA provides solutions to the problems engendered by the "national" and "Pan-European" business approaches popular in the 80s and 90s.
"Centralizing call centers makes it difficult to recruit local talent fluent in the 12 European languages," says Mark Smedley, Vice President of ECCA. "Even when you find qualified people, thanks to the shallow labor pool, they often come at a steep price. No wonder staff turnover at some European call centers has reached 200% a year."
"The ECCA doesn't recommend setting up a call center in every country," Smedley notes. "Instead, we propose coordinated call-center deployment at key regional centers in one, some, or all of these locations: United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and Scandinavia. Our regional approach is a hybrid of the national and Pan European prototypes and blends the best of both. Companies doing business in Europe can stay close to their customer base. Labor costs decrease because you're not fighting for native language speakers and there's less turnover. With ECCA regional call centers, it's easier to find the native-language people needed to run a successful call-center operation."
Hewlett-Packard is just one of many leading call center businesses that has adopted the regional approach. "Quality reasons made us abandon the Pan-European approach," says Lars-Olaf Zetterlund, General Manager, Hewlett-Packard AB. "A few years ago, Hewlett Packard centralized its technical support to a Pan-European call center. The main reasons were to gain large critical mass where we could share expertise easily and also lower overall costs."
"It did not work out entirely as we had expected," Zetterlund continues. "We underestimated the difficulty of recruiting people who could speak Scandinavian languages. Staff turnover was also much higher than expected. This reduced ability to offer the right languages led to many unsatisfied customers because they were unable to communicate in their native language when calling us."
"During the past two years, we have moved most technical support to a Scandinavian call center in Sweden," Zetterlund says. "This change has significantly improved customer satisfaction. The overall cost is also clearly competitive in comparison with the large central operation we have in Amsterdam. The bottom line is that we now have more satisfied customers, and customer loyalty is a key parameter for our future success."
In an effort to regionalize part of its call center operations, Gateway moved its sales operations for the Scandinavian market from Dublin, Ireland to Stockholm, Sweden. Sweden's central location in Scandinavia, and its strong information technology infrastructure have motivated many companies to set up call centers there. The call-center business is now one of the fastest growing businesses in Sweden, currently employing about 40,000 people. Microsoft Nordic, also based in Sweden, reports that "satisfied customers increased by 50%" using a regional approach. Lands' End has a similar success story. "Through our call center in Saarland, Germany, our customers are talking to someone who understands the economy, the environment, the weather, the people, the customs, and everything else," says Stephen Miles, former managing director for Lands' End Germany. Lands' End believes that success comes from its local presence in the market, especially for a customer-service-oriented firm like itself.
Once a company supports a regional solution, what role does the ECCA play? "ECCA uses its vast arsenal of expertise to identify premier call-center locations with supporting language capabilities," Smedley says. "Local partners in each region provide essential labor force data and use their governmental contacts to navigate complicated labor laws and regulatory compliance. Our agency can facilitate every step of the way in successfully expanding a call center operationfrom sourcing employees to locating space to explaining tax implications. We also offer financial incentives. Best of all, our counseling is free!"
