CX Files

Ted Nardin is the VP of Customer Success & Value Add at Teleperformance Jamaica.

Ted has spent years researching CX. He recently joined Teleperformance and Mark saw a LinkedIn update with this new job title focusing on customer success and value add.

Mark called Ted to discuss this idea. How can BPOs put business success on the table and talk to clients about how to add value in the customer relationship - rather than the usual focus on the cost to serve customers?

What more can companies get from all those customer interactions?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tnardin/

https://teleperformance.com/

John Dinardo is the CEO and president of Nordia, a Canadian CX specialist with over 10,000 employees on the team. Nordia is the largest BPO in Canada.

Peter Ryan and John are both based in Montreal, so this is a local Canadian edition.

Bell Canada created Nordia back in 1999, but a quarter of a century on they are now looking at many new opportuntiies and areas of business. John talked about expansion beyond Canada and also about the complexities of managing customer service processes in both English and French.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-dinardo-nordia/

https://www.fr.nordia.ca/

Vidya Ravichandran is the CEO of UnifyCX. She is based in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

In this conversation with Peter Ryan, Vidya talks about the evolution of GlowTouch Technologies into UnifyCX, how technology is changing the BPO industry, and how CX and BPO is evolving as technology solutions become more integral to customer interactions.

As customers demand more complex solutions the BPO community is adopting or building different tech solutions - using AI in particular. But should BPOs buy off-the-shelf tools or create their own and attempt to lead their sector? In this conversation Vidya talks about how BPO is evolving and how the new brand wants to be seen as a CX leader.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/vidya-ravichandran-53423b2/

https://www.unifycx.com/

The new (July 2024) UK government just announced their budget plans for the year ahead. Several measures look like they could impact the BPO and CX industries. In this special extra edition of the CX Files, Peter Ryan called a few UK-based friends of the podcast to ask for their views on the challenges and opportunities they can see in the latest UK budget...

Featuring a discussion with...

Alistair Niederer, CEO, NeedleRock

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aniederer/

http://www.needlerock.net/

Lian Rowlands, Principal Consultant, Tayma Solutions

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lian-rowlands-a26119/

David Rumble, Managing Partner, On Consultancy 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-rumble-4a4a09b/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/on-consultancy/

Tanya Scotece is also known as 'Dr T.' She is a Professor and Program Coordinator at Miami Dade College focused on funeral service education. Tanya is also a senior placement specialist with Sunshine Senior Placement, helping familes find an assisted living facility for their loved ones.

Tanya is a licensed funeral director and has direct experience managing a funeral home and crematorium.

The funeral and mortuary environment in the US is heavily regulated and people working in this field need to understand that end of life and funeral care is an environment where a very special level of care is required.

Peter called Tanya to ask about this fascinating area of customer care that is often not discussed because so many people prefer to avoid end of life conversations. 

https://www.mdc.edu/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanya-scotece-ph-d-lfd-cfsp-%E2%80%9Cdr-t%E2%80%9D-a85a6226/

Almost everyone in the CX environment knows about B2B sales. BPO companies need to sell to clients. CX software companies need to sell to customer service teams or BPOs. Most people in this industry are working for specialist companies selling services to another company.

Mark Hillary has just written a book about this - how do B2B companies sell to each other and how has it changed since the Covid pandemic?

Mark and Peter talked about the new book. What inspired it and why it matters for people working in CX...

The book also features a foreword by Paul O'Hara - a legend from the CX environment with a decade plus experience of using social sales strategies for B2B.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhillary/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauloharateleperformance/

Published October 11, 2024

https://www.amazon.com/Social-Sales-Playbook-Developing-Results/dp/B0DJY3MYD2/

Neal Topf is the founder and President of Callzilla. He is based in Miami, Florida.

Callzilla is a CX specialist based in the US, but also with delivery centers in Colombia and South Africa.

Peter Ryan called Neal for a conversation about corporate culture - in particular culture inside the BPO environment. Neal recently posted on LinkedIn that a prospective client was impressed with the Callzilla technology and their business proposal, but he wanted to meet the team.

Seeing the team at work and learning about their daily on-the-job culture was really important to this company - he wanted to build a rapport with the Callzilla team. 

Neal has often written that prospective clients today are less interested in contact center metrics and much more interested in how the team can help with both sales and service or how engaged the team is and how this will translate into great CX.

Clients today are looking for a BPO to have solutions to business problems - not just AHT statistics.

Tune in for the latest CX Files where Neal talks about culture and why it is more important than ever for BPOs to have a positive answer when a prospect suggests visiting their team.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nealtopfcustomerexperience/

https://www.callzilla.cx/

Peter has recently been touring Asia, including some time meeting CX and BPO experts in the Philippines. Mark called Peter in Tokyo to talk about his recent time in the Philippines. What is going on in CX over there right now and do they need to reinvent their approach to communications and promoting what they can do? 

When will we see Philippines BPO 2.0?

https://www.ibpap.org/

https://ryanadvisory.com/india-is-the-most-favored-offshore-cx-delivery-location-in-2024/

https://ryanadvisory.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-ryan-montreal/

The CX Alliance is a brand new CX trade association launched in September 2024 in the UK. It is being launched by Karen Howard, MD of The Retail Bulletin (TRB) and the partnership director of the CXA is Isobel Rogers. They aim to publish information, research, and host events all focused on various aspects of CX.

Mark Hillary talked to Isobel and Karen to find out more about how this initiative got started and what are their plans for 2025.

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/cxisobelrogers/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenhoward/

https://www.theretailbulletin.com/

https://www.theretailbulletin.com/general-merchandise/the-retail-bulletin-announces-set-up-of-cx-industry-body-cx-alliance-19-09-2024/

The CX Alliance news is so recent that they are still in the process of setting up their website and other channels ... follow Isobel and Karen for now and check TRB for new information...

http://cxalliance.org/

Graham Brown is the SVP EMEA Sales for Alorica. He is based at Leicester in the UK.

In some parts of the world, like Europe, brands need to offer a customer experience in many different languages. For major languages this is not a problem. It's relatively easy to find French and English speakers, but some languages can be hard to support and often they are not even economic to support. 

What if you want to operate in Finland, but you can't support those customers in their local language? Do you expect every customer to use English?

Graham has been working on simultaneous voice translation with Alorica. This allows an AI-powered translation system to sit between the customer and the agent.

How well does it work and can we really just staff a contact center with English-speakers and let them support anyone from anywhere?

Listen to this conversation between Graham and Peter Ryan to find out!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/graham-brown-cx/

https://www.alorica.com/