The Evolving Role of Outsourced Contact Centers: How Customer Direct Realized $130k in Annual Savings with Happitu

We believe the BPO industry is experiencing a fundamental transformation. Outdated vendor relationships focused entirely on access to a low-cost workforce meeting basic KPIs are no longer enough.  Customer support can be more than a “cost center” and forward-thinking BPOs are in the best position to drive business outcomes using technology.

As a trusted partner to both national and global brands, we believe our responsibility is not merely putting “butts in seats” but to solve problems and improve customer experiences. We’ve taken that approach since our founding in 1997, and today, our St. Louis-based team brings decades of experience delivering high-quality support with cutting-edge technology.

Among the partners we support is a leading provider of healthcare apparel.  Recently, they experienced some early warning signs:

• Call-per-order ratio climbing to 15%
• Support volume was growing faster than sales
• Profit margins under pressure

The typical BPO as a vendor response would be tactical: push for reduced handle times, regardless of resolution quality. Instead, we wanted to uncover the root causes and for that, we leveraged technology.

The Solution: Happitu’s Conversation Intelligence Platform

We partnered with Happitu because of their incredibly fast and easy setup with our existing CCaaS platform, NICE inContact (now NICE Mpower).

Within the first month, Happitu was instantly delivering detailed analytics of our partner’s customer interactions across multiple dimensions. The platform provided:

• AI Call Summaries to identify conversation themes
• Customer Intent Classification revealing underlying needs
• Granular Sentiment Analysis & Reactions to infer the voice of the customer and the effectiveness of our team

What Happitu Revealed

The analysis exposed the real sources of the increased call volume with unprecedented speed and precision. As Dale McManness, President of Customer Direct, explains:

“Before we’d have to get look at that disposition, start listening to calls and that’s very time consuming to get to the point in the call where they actually talk about what’s driving the call itself…we can get to that data very quickly with AI call summaries and I can filter down to that disposition and I can look through the summaries very quickly and tell our partner, hey, here’s what’s driving volume.”

Sources of increased call volume:

• Process gaps that resulted in customer inquiries for simple issues.
• Digital barriers to self-service resolution
• Lack of self-service options for the most common issues
• Friction points leading to extended handle times and negative customer experiences

• 4% of calls: Customers trying to cancel orders that hadn’t shipped yet
• 8% of calls: Return policy questions because information was buried deep in the website
• 18% of calls: Customers couldn’t find tracking information in confirmation emails
• 10% of calls: Basic “where’s my order” inquiries that automated updates could prevent

These simple customer service issues were creating expensive phone calls and frustrating customers.

Results: Dramatic Operational Transformation

With this actionable data, we approached our partner with a comprehensive operational improvement plan that would deliver:

• Enhance Self-Service Options: Recommended creating self-service cancel option in customers’ online portal
• Proactive Communication: Include additional process information to order confirmation emails, including order tracking, returns/exchanges, and cancellation policy.
• Streamline IVR Experience: Implement smart routing for self-service opportunities rather than connecting directly to agents
• Automated Updates: Recommended inclusion of comprehensive next steps to all order status and confirmation emails
• Knowledge Base Optimization: Recommended filling information gaps with updated FAQs and knowledge base

Quantifiable Outcomes:

This success went beyond the numbers. Because customers already preferred self-service, evidenced by the volume of online orders, customer experience took a leap forward because customers could now self-serve the post-order process as well.  If they chose to call, they achieved faster resolutions.

The Strategic Advantage of a Solution-Focused BPO

This case exemplifies how technology-focused BPO operations can be essential strategic partners. Customer Direct’s technology-led partnership approach enabled them to:

• Provide data-driven solutions for their partner
• Transform operational challenges into success stories
• Create measurable value

Traditional BPOs would view $130,000 in annual savings for the brand as $130,000 in lost revenue for a BPO. But Customer Direct transformed a potential partner crisis into a demonstration of its strategic partnership value and its commitment to the success of the brand.  That’s how partnerships should work.

The bottom line: In today’s competitive landscape, success belongs to organizations that work with partners who can spot problems early and proactively provide solutions. The old BPO paradigm of reactive vendor relationships is not enough. Data-driven strategic partnerships are the path to success.

Companies that invest in strategic partners today position themselves for success tomorrow because those partners can drive growth, not just cost management.

Ready to for a strategic partner relationship that moves your business forward?  LET’S TALK