Owing to the huge losses suffered by our bank in the last financial year, it has been proposed that certain measures be taken to ensure our future profitability. These changes include the reduction in the cost of services for our customers believe that our bank is charging too much. Our bank has also lost its image as a “caring” bank to the customer; measures should therefore be taken to ensure that the customers once more perceive Auric Bank as an understanding and caring bank.
It has been proposed that the bank’s cost of operations should be reduced so as to boost profits and share prices. The issue of our call center location has been seen as the key to making the proposed changes a reality. In this report, I shall give a brief summary of the four proposed options and make recommendations as to the option that I believe is the most feasible for the bank to achieve its goals of customer satisfaction and increased profitability.
The first option is to keep the call centers at their present locations but tries to reduce the costs by employing more part-time employees and reducing the hours of business at the centers. The number of calls handled per hour is also to be increased. While this option will lead to a saving of €3 million in the next five years, the option might actually lead to a propagation of some of the current problems. The proposed use of part-time employees will lead to more inefficiency due to lack of experience. An increase in hourly targets will lead to the brisk treatment of customers, and this will lead to a rise in customer perception of the bank as uncaring.
The second option is the outsourcing of calls to Resource Plc, a South African firm reputed for reliability and good service. This move will save the organization an estimated €8 million in the next five years. This move will lead to a decrease in the cost of running the call center, thus increasing the company’s profitability. In addition to this, the Cape Town-based firm is hailed to have a lot of experience and one can therefore expect them to treat the customers amicably.
The third proposed option is to outsource to Orion Plc, a Scottish based firm. While the firm is relatively new and has young managers, it has several contracts with big companies. The company also has experience in running the call centers. However, there have been incidents of customers complaining in the newspapers about the lines always being busy. While outsourcing with this company will cost Auric bank €10 leading to a €6 million saving in the next five years, the delay in customer service provision by the organization may lead to losses since the customers will perceive our bank as being inefficient and uncaring.
The fourth option involves eliciting the services of X-source India, a company based in Bangalore. This company is said to be fast expanding and has contracts with several large US companies. It has a high number of staff and its costs are low. Using this company will only cost Auric Bank %5.5 million which is nearly a third of the bank’s current running cost.
In my opinion, outsourcing the call center services to X-source India is the most beneficial move for the bank. This is because this option proposes to solve all three problems that the organization currently faces. Owing to the low costs that X-source charges, we can reduce the costs to our customers. In addition to this, the large number of staff employed by X-source will lead to timely service provision therefore restoring the bank’s images as a “caring” bank to the customers.
Considering that the cost of running the call centers will be a mere third of the current costs over five years using X-source, the bank will be able to boost its profit thus raising its share price for the benefit of all the shareholders.