INSIGHT

Vol. 7, Qtr. I - 2012

QUALITY BY DESIGN: MovING BEYoND PRoCESSES To SUPERIoR ExPERIENCES

In this issue: - Aegis Speak with Peter Bloom, President Global Quality and Customer Experience - Think Tank Expert interview with Francis Frei and Anne Morriss - Case Study - Wyndham Worldwide Quality Process Design and more...

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Aegis Speak
Dear Client, I am pleased to present the seventh edition of our newsletter Insight. This edition of Insight is focused on the theme Quality by Design: Moving beyond Processes to Superior Experiences the vital role of quality in creating the best customer experience. Quality is an organizational imperative at Aegis, and our approach to Quality is strikingly different from other quality programs available in the global customer support industry. We are focused on driving results for your business. Our quality program uses the pioneer approach developed by Customer Operations Performance Center (COPC), which focuses on systemic issues and avoidance of common pitfalls. This approach delivers superior results by linking the process to key customer satisfaction and business drivers. The Case in Point section illustrates Aegis expertise in successfully designing a Quality process to drive better sales results for one of the worlds largest hospitality companies. We now offer the Aegis Quality approach in our client engagements. No other outsourcing company offers such a comprehensive, proven, and success-driven program. Continuing our focus on Quality, we have embarked on a unique global quality program named 1Aegis. The goal of 1Aegis is to ensure a consistent and high quality of service whether the engagement is conducted in Sierra Vista, Cebu, or Sri Lanka. Aegis recently received the silver MVP Quality Award 2011, given to the leading contact center industry standouts, from TMCs Customer Interaction Solutions magazine. Customer Interaction Solutions is the premier publication in the call center, CRM and teleservices industries. Aegis received the silver award for sophistication of quality measures introduced to the contact center. In continuation of this theme, we have Professor Frances Frei, Harvard Business Schools resident expert on service excellence and Anne Morriss, author and MD, Concire Leadership Institute sharing their views in the section Think Tank. We bring you the latest happenings in the industry and Aegis in the Buzz section. As always, we look forward for your suggestions and invite you to write in your feedback.

Regards, Peter Bloom President Global Quality and Customer Experience

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Buzz Factor
AEGIS BUZZ
Gartner positions Aegis in 2011 Magic Quadrant for Customer Management Contact Center BPo Worldwide Leading Industry Analyst firm Gartner has positioned Aegis in the 2011 Magic Quadrant for Customer Management Contact Center BPO, Worldwide. The report evaluates service providers on their customer management contact center BPO capabilities in the Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific and depicts the service provider landscape using a bi-dimensional matrix, evaluating their ability to execute and completeness of vision. According to Gartner, Aegis has reinforced its position in the Magic Quadrant due to its aggressive growth strategy focused on capability, capacity and geographical presence complemented by its focus on customer experience management. Aegis PeopleSupport now to be known as Aegis Aegis PeopleSupport, one of the leading outsourcing services companies in the Philippines, announced the adoption of the corporate identity of its parent organization Aegis. The new identity is designed to reflect a global customer experience-centric company, built on a continuing history of innovative ideas and service offerings to suit the needs of businesses. The adoption of the Aegis brand in the Philippines is aligned with Aegis corporate strategy of One World, One Aegis, and will provide consistent standards of excellence in managing, enabling, extending, and enhancing customer experience. AGC Networks reports strong financials announces results for the quarter ended 31 December 2011 AGC Networks Limited, a leading Solutions Integrator in Unified Communication, Network Infrastructure, Information Security and Business Application and Consulting, and a subsidiary of Aegis Limited has reported stellar numbers in its results for quarter ended 31 December 2011. It clocked in USD 48.28 Million in quarterly revenues, up by 83% for the same period last year. It also witnessed significant growth in revenues at 75% growth over the nine

month period. It achieved revenue of USD 139 Million as against USD 79.2 for the same nine month period last year.

Did you know about Aegis?

Aegis has managed over USD 6 billion of spend in 250 categories under its Spend Management Services AGC Networks, a subsidiary of Aegis has over 60 key Alliance partnerships with leading Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) in the Technology / Telecom and System Integration space.

INDUSTRY BUZZ
Indian IT-BPo Sector Revenue Estimated to Cross USD 100 Billion Mark NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) recently released the key findings of the Indian IT-BPO sector performance for FY2011-12 according to which the year 2011-12 characterizes a landmark year as aggregate revenue for the Indian IT-BPO sector is estimated to cross USD 101 billion. India retains its number one position as the worlds leading sourcing location for IT-BPO services, despite the rise of several alternative sourcing locations, with a share of over 58 percent in 2011. Mr. Som Mittal, President NASSCOM said Verticalisation, operational excellence and an expanding global delivery model were internal priorities for the industry in this year. The IT-BPO sector continues to be one of the largest employers in India directly employing ~2.8 million professionals, with over 230,000 jobs being added in FY2012. Source: NASSCOM NASSCoM Quality, Cloud and Social Media: Among the top outsourcing trends for 2012 A study from Horses for Sources, a leading advisory analyst firm, has stated that 25% of organizations will remedy the looming recession with outsourcing in light of its proven worth to the services industry. Outsourcing will still be seen as a valuable tool as businesses brace for the recurrence of another economic depression and business executives will find ways to cut operational costs without sacrificing the quality of work. Cloud is

being increasingly seen as a viable solution in terms of cutting costs and incurring other ground breaking benefits. Along with voice based services other platforms such as chat, social networking sites, and micro blogs where customer concerns can also be addressed in a timely manner will assume prominence in 2012. Source: www.microsourcing.com ovum: Public-private initiatives worldwide will stimulate BPo growth Leading Industry Analyst firm Ovum has stated that global BPO industry expected to grow at an annual rate of 5.4 percent to USD 93.4 Billion in 2015. The competition between the new and emerging destinations shall fuel the future growth and evolution of the industry. At the low and mid-point of the value chain Philippines, Africa and Latin America are rolling out the welcome mats for outsourced business processes as providers have developed global delivery networks to address requirements centered on language skills, time zone proximity, and cultural sensitivity. Brazil, Mexico and Argentina have also been showing signs of becoming serious contenders as key outsourcing destinations in recent years. Source: The Sauce

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Think Tank
Insight about Quality by Design: Moving beyond processes to superior experiences

Due to the very nature of services it is hard to define and measure quality when compared to products or tangibles. How do you define and measure Quality especially in the context of Contact Centers? In our work, we use a very specific definition of service quality: being great at the things your customers value most. This requires a deep understanding of customer priorities both which service attributes they value, and the order in which they value them. That type of focused learning is part of the process we recommend. In your book Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business, you talk about managing your customers as one of the four service truths. Could you elaborate on this, especially in the context of quality in outsourcing service providers? Customers can help you or hurt you operationally. Your customers can make the service you provide either faster or slower; they can make it either more expensive or less expensive to deliver etc. Simple example: a customer who takes his time ordering at a fast food restaurant makes the food less fast for everyone around him, undermining the restaurants service strategy. Our message is simply that you need an explicit plan for getting your customers to behave. They can be great assets for/of your business -- for example, by serving themselves or helping you to design a better offering -- or hugely disruptive. You also talk of tradeoffs if cost savings are the primary driver for outsourcing, then the focus on quality will invariably suffer. Should quality and cost savings be seen as tradeoffs? on the contrary, does enhanced focus on quality lead to increased cost savings? We see great examples every day where cost and quality dont trade off on each other. Thats the central question we ask: how do you improve service quality in a world of limited resources, which is the world most of us live in? There are a number of ways to do this, but the most important strategy is to be great at the things your customers value most by being bad at the things they value least.

Free up the resources you need to excel by underperforming, but do it rationally, underperform in ways your customers dont mind. For example, if your clients want faster response time, but dont care as much about cutting-edge technology, table that R&D initiative and add slack to your service teams. It turns out customers are more than happy to make these kinds of tradeoffs if they get what they really want in return. It has been said that a culture of quality feeds the adoption of quality. What can outsourcing service providers do to ensure the percolation of a culture of quality in the organization versus a climate (immediate influences) of quality? We recommend focusing on three things when it comes to culture: clarity, signaling and consistency. Clarity is about knowing exactly what kind of culture you need to succeed; signaling is about relentlessly communicating that clarity, particularly in moments where your employees are most receptive (during initial training, for example), and consistency is about rooting out the cultural breaks in your policies and organizational behavior. You cant declare that youre all about service, and then time your employees on how quickly they can get off the phone with customers. What is your advice to companies in the BPo industry trying to leverage quality in ensuring customer delight? Great service is a winning strategy, particularly over time, but the model must take into account what we call the four service truths: you cant be great at everything; someone has to pay for excellence; its not your employees fault (when service goes bad), and you must manage and train your customers. Start there, and then support the model with a strong service culture.

Professor Frances Frei is the UPS Foundation Professor of Service Management at Harvard Business School. She is a leading authority on designing, leading and scaling exceptional service firms and her ideas have shaped the strategies and operations of the worlds most competitive companies. She received her Ph.D. in Operations and Information Management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and holds an M.E. in Industrial Engineering from Pennsylvania State University, and a B.A. in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Frei has received the HBS Student Association Faculty Award for teaching excellence on multiple occasions, as well as teaching awards from the Wharton School of Business and the University of Rochester. She serves on the Board of Directors of Advance Auto Parts and serves on the Board of Advisors of several private companies.

Anne Morriss is the Co-Founder and Chief Knowledge Officer of Concire Leadership Institute which she launched to help organizations compete on service excellence. She has worked with companies and governments throughout the U.S., Latin America and Africa on strategy, leadership and institutional change. Her clients have ranged from Fortune 50 companies repositioning in global markets to public sector leaders working to transform national economies. Prior to founding Concire, Anne worked with the OTF Group to expand its entrepreneurship practice in Latin America and the Caribbean. She led OTFs partnership with the World Bank to advise leaders in forty countries on using business incubation to drive dynamism and innovation in local economies. She holds a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

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Case Study
Wyndham Worldwide
The Client Wyndham Worldwide is one of the worlds largest hospitality companies across six continents with approximately 100,000 properties worldwide. It also offers individual consumers and business customers a broad array of hospitality products and services as well as various accommodation alternatives and price ranges through a premier portfolio of world-renowned brands that includes more than 160 Vacation Ownership Resorts. It was ranked amongst Worlds Greenest Companies by Newsweek (2011) and Fortunes Worlds Most Admired Companies 2012 (#1 Hotels, Casinos, Resorts). Customer Challenges Aegis handles sales reservations for 11 brands under the Wyndham Hotel Group. It provides bi-lingual customer support, in English and Spanish, from its contact center in the Philippines. The engagement started in 2004 with 30 agents, with a 7-hour service window. In 2005, the engagement started with Aegis servicing the Spanish line of business, which then led to addition of English line of business, to help ensure 24x7 operations. The program is seasonal with a maximum of 120 agents during off-peak and can grow to as many as 200 agents during peak periods. Quality is an important metric for a sales program such as Wyndhams. However, the current approach to quality was not delivering the desired sales results there was no direct correlation between the sales quality attributes being measured and monitored by the team versus the sales metric, Gross Room Night Per Call (GRNPC). While there was no major impact on GRNPC as Aegis was able to comfortably hit sales targets, there was an opportunity to deliver better sales results for the client.

Aegis Solution Aegis carefully studied the existing Quality process to identify areas for process improvement. It implemented QPO (Quality Process Outsourcing), an approach pioneered by Contact Operation Performance Center (COPC) to Quality and focused on sales improvement. The following initiatives were implemented: Process-level Evaluations Ensured unbiased call sampling Utilized business intelligence - Identified non-agent controlled opportunities on issue resolution and sales conversion - Determined causes of dropped and/ or disconnected calls through event tracking and analysis with assistance from Aegis IT-Telecommunications team Identified and addressed sales opportunity - Ensured everyone, from the agent level to the management level, is calibrated on required sales behavior that delivers the best sales results - Conducted sales refresher training Agent-level evaluations Helped drive compliance to meet and exceed metrics on the agent-level by having Team Leads conduct their teams quality evaluations Conducted training and calibration of Team Leads Aligned coaching process with agent scorecard

Results Understanding the uniqueness of the client requirements, Aegis set about designing a Quality process to best suit its objectives. Identifying the systemic issues allowed Aegis to design a Quality evaluation process to determine sales behavior that delivers better sales results. Aegis was thus able to significantly reduce defects in the no sales attempt attribute from 2% to 0.4% in January 2012 and agent-related sales error from 9% to 6% in January 2012. GRNPC also improved - achieved 100% of target in January 2011 and increased to 105% of target in January 2012. Aegis approach of designing quality process to suit clients unique requirements ensured customer delight, as they were able to appreciate better quality and sales results. As proof of the clients trust, it awarded new business to Aegis. Recently, Aegis piloted a group of 22 English agents for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, the upscale full-servicing brand for the Wyndham Hotel Group. Aegis is slated to add foreign language contact center support in Italian, German, Cantonese, and Mandarin, and chat support from March 2012.

our Aegis team has spent countless hours refining the call monitoring process and reviewing the call quality of our agents. The team is linking agent behavior to our key revenue drivers. The detailed analysis that Aegis has been doing has enabled us to focus on the factors that are critical to the success of the call and the sales process. Kristin Henderson Regional Director, Learning, Development, & International Operations for Wyndham Hotel Group

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Global Footprint

UK: > Manchester US: > Irving, TX (2) > Killeen, TX > Port St. Lucie, FL > Fairmont, WV > Joplin, MO > Sierra Vista, AZ > New York, NY > Los Angeles, CA

Costa Rica: > San Jose

UAE: > Dubai Saudi Arabia: > Riyadh > Jeddah Sri Lanka: > Colombo

Philippines: > Baguio > Cebu (2) > Manila (3)

Global Headquarters

Argentina: > Tucuman > Cordoba > Bahia Blanca > Mar del Plata > Buenos Aires City (2)

South Africa: > Johannesburg (2)

India: > Noida > Gurgaon > Lucknow (2) > Hyderabad > Bangalore (3) > Hazira > Ahmedabad > Pune > Mumbai (2) > Kolkata (2) > Jamshedpur > Bhopal > Srinagar

Australia: > Melbourne (3) > Sydney

New Zealand: > Auckland

Awards
- Aegis positioned among leading companies in the Gartner Magic Quadrant CM Contact Center Worldwide 2011. - International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) honored Aegis in Leaders category in the 2012 Global Outsourcing 100 list. - Aegis recognized by Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific as Contact Center Outsourcing services provider 2011. - Aegis received 2011 MVP Quality Award from TMCs Customer Interaction Solutions magazine. - Aon Hewitt Best Employer Award 2011 in India and Australia. - Aegis honored with NCPEDP-Shell Helen Keller Award 2011 - for promotion of employment and accessibility for differently abled people.

About Aegis
Copyright 2012, Aegis Limited. All rights reserved

Founded almost 30 years ago in the US, Aegis is a global business services and experience management company committed to impacting clients business outcomes by focusing on end user brand experience across all touch points and channels. With a presence in 12 countries, 50 locations, and with more than 55,000 employees, Aegis manages over a billion customer interactions every year for over 300 clients across verticals such as BFSI, Telecom, Healthcare, Travel and Hospitality, Consumer Goods, Retail, and Technology. Aegis manages, enables, extends, and enhances business experiences for its clients and their customers across consulting, technology, outsourcing, and training and education. Contact us: info@aegisglobal.com, www.aegisglobal.com

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