Eric: Welcome to the contact center cactus chat podcast. I’m your host Eric Mulvin coming to you from sunny Phoenix, Arizona.
Jake: And I’m your co-host Jake Cayang from Dumaguete City, Philippines.
Eric: I’m a serial entrepreneur, started my business 10yrs ago and 6 LLC’s later, I started Pac Biz Contact Center Outsourcing in 2015, today we have over 200 employees, and growing.
Jake: And I’m the Operations Manager here in Pac Biz and I have been working with Eric since 2014 and I grew as the company grew.
Eric: So whether you’re looking to outsource for the first time, whether you manage a Contact Center or you’re just looking to improve your customer experience, we’ll be covering topics for you.
Jake: So Business Managers, Operations Managers, Business Owners, this is for you so make sure to subscribe.
Eric: Today, we’re gonna talk all about outsourcing. And we’re going to talk about the difference between onshore versus offshore, working with an outsourcing company versus freelance how to outsource successfully. That’s a really important topic. What’s the difference between dedicated staffing or paying per call and strategic outsourcing and why you should pay more attention to how you’re planning out your outsourcing. And so that’s a lot of content to pack in. It’s not going to all fit into one episode. And so we’re going to split this up part one today. And episode eight is going to be part two. So to kick things off with my co host, Jake.
Jake: All right, let’s start with a question. So what are the different kinds of ways to outsource?
Eric: Yeah, so if you’re outsourcing, you’ve got some options to consider here. Now there’s onshore nearshore, and offshore. Now what’s the difference between those? onshore is you have people you’re outsourcing to in your own country. And so you might find a business in your own city, maybe somewhere else in your country, but you’re you’re working with someone that’s born and has their business in their own in the country that you’re from. And so some of the cultural differences, maybe language barriers, you won’t necessarily have that. But the cost savings will not be there that might cost more than what you’re currently paying for onshore and the near shore, is you’re looking outside of your country, but still close by. So if you’re in the US and you outsource to Mexico, that’d be near shore. So it’s close by you could easily travel to it. Unlike offshore, which is typically a bit further away. But then you also get to take advantage of lower rates. And so Philippines is a great example where taxes is based. India, even countries like Albania, Ukraine, actually all over the world people are offering outsourcing for from their country. And so offshore is available all over. So thanks for the question, Jake. Now, I got a question for you. You can outsource with a company or you could work directly with an individual. So you help manage the office at Pac Biz, and what’s working with? We’re one option, right? We’re working could work with one company like us. But what are the advantages with working with a company like packages versus hiring freelance, through some of the different freelance websites?
Jake: Yeah, actually, there’s, there’s a lot of differences, like uhm, I mean, talking about hiring direct directly to a person versus, you know, outsourcing to a company. You know, I think that, that involves the reliability and the accountability. And, of course, if, if you’re working directly with a person, you know, just, it’s, you know, who would, you know, who, who’s, who is accountable for any mistakes. And if, if there are mistakes that are done, you know, you’re done with that person. And, you know, you’ll be looking for someone else. Unlike if you’re, you know, sourcing with a, with a company, just like what we do, we, we provide talents, like, you know, we always do backup people. We do have backup people for certain tasks, or jobs or positions.
Eric: I’ve been talking with a lot of businesses lately that have outsourced their outsourcing currently, and they’re not happy with the results. And the key word I keep hearing is reliability. And you mentioned the backup person that we provide. And it’s to make sure that there’s if there’s a shift a sign that we’re covering it, and you know, some of the ways that I’ve seen us, make sure that there’s realiability. If that person is sick or out, you know, there’s a supervisor that’s making sure the backups in. And if for some reason, maybe the backup is not available, then we’re notifying the client. So they’re aware, many times in advance that we are not able to cover the shift, compared to figuring out 30 minutes in, you’re still trying to contact the rep, what’s going on? And there could be a number of reasons why they’re not available. Maybe there’s a power outage and internet outage. And those are again, things that when you’re working with a company, we provide, yeah, like what like to talk about that for a bit? Like, what are the things that we helped do to backup these agents, even if they’re working from home.
Jake: yeah
Jake: Yeah, we do have the power pack. So though we are using, we’re using laptops, for them to, you know, as you know, part of the their workstations and all they have a laptops, and so we all know that laptops, they have their own batteries. But you know, for a longer outage of power outage outages, we have this power pack that would support the power. And along with that we have the internet, back backups. So and yeah, that’s the that’s when those are the things that we provide to do the call takers. And and the most important is we also have backup people. So aside from that, aside from those things that we did we sent to, to the agents, we have people so we’re, you know, working as backup in different locations. And we also have people in the office, since we’re doing hybrid office.
Eric: Thanks, thanks for sharing your perspective out there, since you’re the one overseeing things in the Philippines.
Jake: yeah
Eric: So now, you’ve been an account manager for years, and you work closely with clients as they get started. And so, you know, one of the other things that people need to look out for is that we see the differences when we’re working with companies is those who have outsourced before, and maybe those who haven’t. So, kind of break that down a little bit like what do you what do you typically see, from your perspective, when businesses are first starting? Because, you know, like, I’m sure you’re thinking sometimes, like, oh, this company could be more prepared. Because you don’t know what you don’t know, like you’re getting, these companies are going into this kind of figuring it out as they go. And so, you know, what are you seeing when businesses first start?
Jake: like, for the first time, as we, of course, we have supports for them, and most of the time, the support that we do work, and so there’s, there was one time I remember that we have this client that didn’t have any, any any idea and we just, you know, we, we learn the things that they want us to have. And at the same time, we’re giving them an idea and what to expect on the, you know, the days to come. And also also the same as you know, the expectations that would come along with with with the onboarding call, you would know what to expect and all these things. So for the people who are not experienced, I mean, how it was we does that it doesn’t have experience with outsourcing. You know, you will be guided, so but uhm, there is the advantage of it, you know, working with us, since we have experienced working with those with both the experienced one and the experienced companies who tried to work with Pac Biz. So I think it’s just the you know, yet and yet the experience like we can help the non experienced ones because of the the experience that we have for the experienced companies with us outsourcing. And uhm, yeah, well, we that. I have a question for you, Eric.
Eric: Yeah, I think we are kind of at our time for this episode. So let’s just take a quick timeout here and end it for episode seven. So thank you guys for listening. I hope you’ve been learning and I hope you’re really interested to hear what we’ve got to say next episode eight. We’re gonna keep the conversation going. And I’m gonna let Jake and ask his question in the next episode here. So thank you guys for listening and I will catch you next week.
