Pay for Performance Contact Center Consulting

I have always been a firm believer in the old adage that "you get what you pay for", but it is also true that just because you paid a lot for something doesn't always mean you get a good result.

I think that generally products and services are priced based on their value and based on how the markets have valued them in comparison to alternatives available. But there always are charlatans out there who will charged big bucks and deliver little value. The technology and technology services realm has been rife with these occurrences...think vaporware. How many times have we heard how good something is going to be. How often have these future capabilities been presented or implied as being available today. All to often the truth only comes out after the purchase has been made. This experience is widespread enough to have lead to the creation of another adage specific to the technology space, "nobody gets fired for buying IBM". The upshot of this message is clear, the only safe choice is to buy what you know you can trust.

This whole purchasing premise is based on agreeing up front to price based upon a set of expectations and then seeing what you get. Well known and well regarded firms generally deliver what is expected, though this is not always the case. The less well known companies represent risk for the buyer, "what if they can't deliver?", 'what if it doesn't work?". We all avoid risk and clients are no different. Less well known firm and start ups have to overcome the perception that they are asking the customer to 'buy a pig in a poke', the clients' skepticism and natural risk avoidance can lead all to often to 'buying IBM', which is great if you are IBM and not so great if you are the unknown company with a great product or service, but can't demonstrate that without the client agreeing to buy your offering.

So what is a company with a good product or service to do? Well this is a situation that is common in the consulting space where I operate. The Taylor Reach Group, Inc. (TRG) a call and contact center consultancy, may possess a leadership team with hundreds of years of Strategic and Operational Management experience, serve clients organizations that read like a who's who of the corporate world. We may have won awards for the work we do and have offices in three major cities (Toronto Atlanta and Sydney, Australia) and operate globally, but we are certainly not a household name.

I have seen prospective clients elect to go with IBM (or in this case IBM Global), or PwC and other big 5 consulting firms based upon their skepticism and/or to avoid both personal and professional risk. Yet instead of getting a senior consultant with 20+ years of experience they may get a twenty-something year old MBA grad who has completed a six week training program. Now I ask you which approach do you think is more risky?

So the challenge we face is still the same...How do we overcome the skepticism of buying 'a pig a poke' and eliminate the associated risk?

Our approach is to let the client decide. It sounds simple, let the client decide what a project is worth at the end of the task. Rather than agreeing up front to a cost with a set of expectations but no guarantee of the quality of the result we let our clients determine the quality and how much value they believe they received from an engagement of project. Our Pay for Performance Contact Center Consulting model gives the client control over what we get paid. Of course this doesn't eliminate risk it simply transfers the risk from the client to TRG and we have the confidence to know that we can add value and are comfortable giving control over our remuneration to our clients.

So how will this venture work out for us, I can't see the future, but I am confident. I will keep you posted.