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On Target, Will Improve
Constant
adaptation, change improvement...it takes much to just survive.
but you need to...
CERTIFICATION
OPTIONS
As BPO companies face heat from the West on quality of
services, there is a rush to get themselves benchmarked and
certified to global standards. Being a relatively nascent
sector,when compared with the software counterparts, BPO companies
are trying to find a quality-assurance standard which will
identify problems and suggest ways and means to improve process.
This, however, does not mean that there are no benchmarks
or certification standards in the industry at the moment.
Most of the BPO firms have been ISO certified, but ISO is
seen to be associated more with manufacturing sector than
in BPO services, The ISO, BS-7799, PCMM and Purdue University
Certification for Customer Relationship Management are some
of the generic standards and have been modified to suit BPO
companies.
A couple of years ago, Satyam partnered with Carnegie Mellon
University and Accenture for the eServices Capability Model
(eSCM) to provide a set of practices that enable companies
to effectively manage outsourcing relationships by focusing
on the critical organizational attributes for people, technology
and knowledge, and their applicability in the outsourcing
process. But eSCM certification has not become as popular
as Customer Operations Performance Centre (COPC) certification.
- Benchmarking vs
Certification: Benchmarking and quality-assurance certification
are two separate fields and should not be confused with.
For a BPO company both are equally important. While benchmarking
is a comparison of the company's processes and performance
with the best in the industry, certification is measuring
the company on certain operational parameters. Benchmarking
gives the company a reason to introspect and an insight
as to where the company stands vis-a-vis the best performers.
Certification means meeting at least the minimum targets
to maintain the quality standards. Certification has to
do more with being consistent in meeting a framework of
matrices.
Benchmarking is a must as it gives a peer-group profiling
and provides best-in-class comparison. It helps identify
areas of improvement, adaptation and change. Whereas certification
is essential as it gives the companies a perspective to
maintain minimum standards to meet the targets required
for certification. As a result, a company has to constantly
improve itself to attain the targets and, hence, the performance
level also goes up.
- Six Sigma and Kaizen:
Six Sigma and Kaizen are processes aimed towards achieving
total quality management. Six Sigma means measurement of
quality and processes to achieve near perfection. But the
statistical implications of a Six Sigma program to well
beyond the qualitative eradication of customer-perceptible
defects. It's methodology that is well rooted in mathematics
and statistics. The objective of Six Sigma quality is to
reduce process output variation so that on a long-term basis
this will result in no more than 3.4 defect parts per million
opportunities.
DMAIC Process for Six
Sigma
- Define a problem
- Measure the Problem
- Analyze the problem
- Improve on the problem
- Control the problem
Kaizen is a Japanese term
which means continuous improvement by benchmarking oneself
for the better. Both Kaizen and Six Sigma methodologies are
implemented at individual level to improve the performance
of the organization as a whole. These are philosophies which
lead to process and performance improvement and , hence, help
in getting certifications.
- Customer Outsourced
Performance Centre :
Customer outsourced performance center (COPC) for call
centers is the equivalent of the CMM level certification
for software firms. The COPC standard was written in 1995
by a core group of users of call center services and associated
distribution fulfillment operations. COPC is a proven system
that helps achieve operational efficiency with high customer
satisfaction and retention. It proven system that helps
achieve operational efficiency with high customer satisfaction
and retention. It helps clients to develop and execute high
return on their investment and frame operational improvement
strategies for their contact centers. The Registered Coordinator
Certification is an essential part of the COPC certification
process for any entity. Each location seeking certification
needs at least one COPC-certified registered coordinator.
In India, QAI has facilitated COPC implementation and Six
Sigma deployment in over 20 leading customer contact centers
and business process outsourcing organizations.
There are 32 essential parameters that a company has to
comply with in order to get a COPC certification, the main
ones being: client satisfaction; end-user satisfaction;
timeliness, quality and accuracy of responses; efficiency,
speed and productivity; telecommunications and computer
infrastructure; people policies relating to recruitment,
compensation and training; attrition; staff satisfaction
and resource utilization.
The process begins with a baseling assessment of the call
center's curent services moving on to a gap analysis, structural
and training support, followed by a final audit, after which
the 'pass' certification is awarded.
In between, COPC consultants interact with the client on
issues as process control, transaction monitoring, staffing
and scheduling, data security, contingency, planning, defining
and verifying skills. One certified, a re-audit takes place
in 12 months and each year the standard of assessment and
targets become more stringent. If a client fails to get
certified then a plan is drawn to close the gaps and lapses.
Then again the whole process of conducting the audit for
certification is carried out. A COPC certification may cost
from Rs. 27-30 lakh.
TIPS TO CLEAR THE QUALITY
TEST
- Performance: The
basic parameter of a certification agency includes testing
the performance level of a company. They see whether the
organization has been meeting the minimum target level or
not. If they are meeting the targets, then the consistency
of the company is seen over a period or time, which can
extend from six months to one year. If the company has not
been meeting the target then the agency sees what efforts
have been employed towards attaining those taragets.
- Quality Monittoring:
The certification agencies
do quality monitoring from the end-user' perspective. A
company might be maingaining very high quality standards
internally but the end user experience might not be up to
the mark. Being in a service industry where resolution of
customer's problem is the primary objective, what matters
most is the accuracy with which an issue is resolved. The
agency monitors number of mistakes done while resolving
an issue and steps taken to reduce the mistakes.
- Training Testing
: The level of training imparted to the employees is
measured on the pass-fail threshold. The agency tests the
employees and ranks them accordingly which in turn is added
towards the overall performance of the company.
- Forcasting and Scheduling
: This includes estimating the workflow in the future
and deciding on the manpower to be used accordingly. The
certification agency sees how efficient is the company in
managing its resources. While some companies have huge buffers
which means loss of manhours while some might pressurize
agents to do more. All this needs to be kept in mind in
the final ratings.
- Planning and Reviewing
the whole System: Planning forms the base on which the
success of a company is dependent. Without planning the
process being implemented would not succeed. Similarly,
a BPO company has to review its processes to keep pace with
client requirements and technological changes. Certification
auditors take into account the efficiency in planning and
reviewing system while estimating the company's capabilities.
IMPORANCE OF CERTIFICATION
The process of certification
is a powerful management tool and cannot be ignored especially
when the market is highly competitive. The whole exercise
to get certified makes perfect business sense as it gives
an idea of the company's performance. It also helps in understanding
performance gaps in financial terms and suggests corrective
measures to avoid potential failures. The investment made
in certification is rewarded by improving the overall performance
and it also makes a good impression on the clients.
COPC
COPC-certified Companies:
Transworks, Wipro Spectranet, Talisma, Daksh, 24x7 customers.com,
ICICI OneSource.
Applied for COPC Certification: Accenture, Cellbion, Sutherland
Technologies, GLT, EXL services, iGate, Reliance Infocom,
ICICI Bank, HCL Technologies BPO, Hughes BPO, Intelnet Global
Services
Under Implementation: Convergys, Dell are in the process of
adopting COPC for their global operations including India
centers
COPC Benefits
- Improved Quality and
service level
- Improve efficiency
and reduction in costs
- Higher customer satisfaction
- Practical improvement
recommendations
CUIKA Model for COC:
- C: Collect data-
Auditors see how the submitted data has been collection
and how authentic is the data
- U: Usable data-
Whether the collected data is usable or not
- I: Integrity-
The auditors check whether the data is collected has the
integrity to be used while setting up the targets for the
company
- K: Knowldege
of the data- The employees particularly the middle management
understands the data and the ways to implement the data
or not
- A: Action-What
are the actions taken to meet the targets fixed on the basis
of the collected data and what are the corrective measures
taken to achieve the targets
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