Our Brand Partner
Our brand partner is a worldwide leader in software, services and consumer devices that help people and businesses realize their full potential. For more than 35 years, this company has transformed and dominated the computer-software industry. The company diversified recently, and now has eight business divisions, more than 90,000 employees worldwide and reached $70B in net revenue last year.
Challenge Presented
The offshore call centers supporting the partner’s gaming product lacked the flexibility to increase staffing to the levels necessary to meet the company’s peak season call-volume forecast. Management was concerned about significantly increasing capacity without compromising quality. Our partner sought an outsourced, work-at-home (WAH) solution to meet aggressive staffing needs while still delivering a high-quality customer experience.
Our Solution
SYKES helped the company transform their business by bringing outsourced customer service capabilities for this high-profile offshore division back onshore, securing the necessary capacity for the peak holiday season. SYKESHome’s virtual-network, at-home solution serviced their gaming customers and boosted customer satisfaction.
Together, the SYKESHome onboarding team and the brand partner created a ramp strategy that would support both holiday peaks and a new product launch. To meet the brand’s needs, SYKES identified, hired and trained 1,100 full-time employees (FTE) in just four months. The company’s brick-and-mortar provider’s capacity was limited to 400 FTE due to real estate and corresponding recruiting constraints.
SYKESHome’s flexibility to recruit without boundaries across North America enables us to recruit, hire, train and launch any program in only 60 to 90 days with the highest-quality service in the industry. The 100-percent virtual nature of our WAH model makes it ideal for clients who have growing staffing needs, and seek the best and the brightest talent available.
Partnership Outcomes
SYKESHome hired, trained and launched 1,100 new customer-care professionals for the brand within four months. Almost 50 percent of the 1,100 employees were in production in six weeks! This ramp-up strategy began in July with the launch of a 90-FTE pilot program, and evolved to:
- 180 FTE by August
- Doubled again in September to 360 FTE
- Grew to 1,100 FTE in November, coinciding with the new product release
SYKESHome repeated the same holiday ramp-up the following year. This time, collaboration, planning and preparation between SYKES and the partner began six months earlier, working together to craft the strategy and forecast needs as a team — and the results were just as impressive. SYKESHome adjusted staffing levels to handle four peak weeks and massive changes in volume. From a staffing perspective, SYKESHome overperformed on every level:
- When the client needed more representation on the phone to meet unanticipated call volume, we delivered.
When the client’s traditional brick-and-mortar, call-center vendor was unable to scale up to provide the coverage needed, SYKESHome took the overflow and handled the additional call volume.
- When the pilot program began, SYKESHome employees handled inbound hardware support calls. Because of the value delivered by our Work At Home solution, the partner expanded the call types and communication channels provided by SYKESHome to include live technical support and chat channels. This allowed employees dedicated to this partner to handle both call types, providing customers with a more efficient customer experience.
This client wants to be recognized as an industry innovator and the leading customer experience provider. As the partner’s only at-home virtual partner, SYKESHome is committed to helping them achieve those objectives while continuing to ramp with quality, deliver consistent staffing and provide continuous quality improvement.
“I know that when you deliver the support that you do, we are earning customers for a lifetime. This group represents the ability for us to maintain, retain and develop relationships with customers better than our competitors, because they know that we will solve their problems and take care of them.” – General Manager, Brand partner product team.
