Site Selection for your Contact Center

Site Selection for your Contact Center

The boss has just asked you to head up the search for a new location for your contact center. You are flattered by the confidence that the boss has in you, you are confident that you can accomplish this task, just as soon as you figure out what to do. The business of site selection has changed considerably in the past decade.

Ten or fifteen years ago we worried about moving our call center off the subway line and today we worry about relocated the center internationally. In both scenarios the key to finding the best or ideal location was tied to finding or keeping staff. In a intra-city move you are concerned with where you can locate and retain most of your staff. In a search to find a location outside of the urban location you previously occupied the focus become where can we locate a center and have access to potential staff.

Of course the connection between labour and location is not and cannot be the only consideration, or if salary cost was king we all would have off-shored our call centers long ago. No, labour, labour availability are critical factors but not the only ones. Other factors that require attention. At Watts we developed a center location matrix that considered 134 factors on a weighted score basis that created a range of more than 500 basis points from the worst possible to the best possible scores. It is important that you develop your own matrix for evaluating and assessing potential locations. Some of the factors that you should consider would include not only staff or workforce issues ( what is the population, what is the employment/unemployment levels, workforce participation, college, university or military base presence all speak to potentially available labour which could be potential recruiting targets for the call center. Assessing the number, type, function and staffing levels of existing call & contact center can provide guidance related to the level of saturation that call/contact center represent in the local workforce. It is important that we locate in a market where we can identify potential sources of employees and identify that there are enough potential workers to support the center, but we also nee to look at how many of them are presently employed in call or contact centers. In my opinion the lower the saturation the better, though you can no longer find locations without contact centers you can find locations that have low saturation levels. We recommend to our clients that markets with more than 6% of their workforce presently supporting call/contact centers will represent on-going recruiting and retention issues, while under 3% can tend to be stable and much easier to operate within. Given that labor is the single greatest expenses in a call center and the cost to recruit a single agent exceed $3,000 finding a stable and easily maintained environment is highly desirable. Other factors for general site consideration would include:.


Population local
Population 45 minute draw area
Workforce Local
Workforce 45 minute draw area
Unemployment %
Unemployed
Under-Employment %
Under-Employed
Participation Level
College/University
Military Base
Other Call Centers
# Type of Centers
Total Call Center Seats
Call Center Saturation
Call Center Saturation
Proximity to airport
Available Real Estate
Estimated Operating Rent
Estimated Leasehold Improvements
Build to Suit' Options


Population Growth %
Average Income
Average house price
Level of Education (% of Pop)
Quality of Life
Public Transit
Infrastructure- Public
Infrastructure- Electricity
Infrastructure- Telecom
Severe Weather Occurances

Available Incentives
Incentives
Right to Work State
History of Union activity
Starting Call Center Wage
Median Wage Customer Service


Some of these suggested criteria are straight forward and others require some explanation. Infrastructure is critical to call center operations. We expect the call center to operate regardless of external factors. Of course we can provision for business continuity through back up power, redundant telephony connectivity etc, but the single largest factor influencing operational survivability will be the location and its pre-disposition to: floods, power outages, hurricanes, snow etc. Of course we must remember that some locations such as the Canadian Atlantic region may get a great deal snow each season they are used to this and have built buildings and infrastructure in expectation of these conditions. Businesses in the State of Virginia lose more work-days to snow than does Prince Edward Island.

Real estate in any considered location is alos critical. If you have found a great market with no available real estate that is suitable, then you options become delaying the project in hopes that something suitable becomes available (unlikely in a small market) or to delay the project and build to suit. This is often a longer and more capital intense option, though can proven to be have the lowest total cost of ownership/operation over a 5-10 year operating window.

The prevalent wages in the target market, associated level of education at that wage level, prevalence of union activity are all valid considerations and ones you must assess and incorporate in building a budget.

If you are considering a US location you will find some additional considerations: Right to work states, which ironically really reflects that the opposite of the right to strike. Right to work states tend to be significantly more favourable to business than non-right to work to work states. The second key factor can be one party versus two party states. This refers to the number of parties that need to be informed that a call is being monitored or recorded. Of course a two party consent state will require that the customers consent be secured whereas in a one party state this is not required.

Incentives opposite job creation still exist though the salad days of governments handing out millions without any real basis for accountability or reconciliation. Today the available incentives are closely tied (where present) to long term employment and are generally available as tax credits in the US and training grants within Canada. In both countries this is positioned as ‘recoverable’ meaning that the government can recover these dollars should the company fail to deliver the agreed employment levels.

Finding a new call or contact center (or any back office function can be very challenging) and that is why a number of firma and organizations have come into existence to serve this market. They generally fall into two camps: real estate driven companies, often spun off from commercial real estate firms that see call and contact center as desirable tenants, who seek new tenants for suitable vacant space. The second type are consulting firms who approach this from a form & function perspective. There are a number of excellent firms within each of these groups and your determination of which is better for you often comes down to the level of specialization and uniqueness your center possesses. The more specialized in terms of staff, space requirements and the smaller the size the less interesting it will be to a real estate based firm.

Before you do anything to find a new location, assess what has worked well and what has work less well in your current location and start to compile a wish list for your new location and the either start to contact potential jurisdictions you feel align well with your goals and objects or begin to interview and external firm that has the experience and capabilities to assist you in this endeavour. In my experience building, operating our own centers and assisting client to source more than 40 center locations I have employed all of the above approaches and no one is the best. Your choice will be , as mine have been based upon the specific goals, objectives, timelines and budgets of the project. So long as you do your homework you can succeed in creating a productive, efficient and cost-effective location for your new call center that will remain so for many years.

Job Opportunities - Toronto- Senior Account Exec,

From time to time I get asked to assist friends and clients in recruiting staff in call center related activities. This is just such an occasion. The positions below are great opportunities for the right people and have significant upside potential for growth and advancement.

If either role is of interest to you send me your resume via email to ctaylor@thetaylorreachgroup.com

Job Description
Senior Account Executive

General Description
Introduce and sell Client’s core services to potential medium to large enterprises in the Greater Toronto market. Client’s is a leader in the deployment and installation of Turnkey Data Networks and Voice Over IP PBX systems. While initially being primarily responsible for sales you must have the ability to multi-task in the areas of marketing and general management. You must have a successful track record in meeting/exceeding targets in selling enterprise solutions to senior and `C' level executives. The successful candidate will have a strong track record in direct technology sales, be a self starter and be motivated to achieve.

This is a ground floor opportunity and as such this position has definite potential for the right individual to become a key player and share in the growth of the organization. Clients’ initial push is to develop this market leading with a leading Voice over IP PBX product. General knowledge or experience selling and promoting VoIP PBX products is a definite plus as a qualifier for this position.

Duties and Responsibilities
Sales Prospecting
General development of Toronto Market
This will be supported by direct marketing, tele-prospecting and direct mailings
Daily use of Goldmine CRM
Call reporting
Sales Forecasting
Weekly sales planning
Weekly, Monthly and Quarterly Reporting
Development of individual sales plan on a quarterly basis
Field Demonstration of VoIP equipment
Sales Training and Demo Certification will be provided
Seminars
Conduct monthly seminars
Supported by marketing plan
Marketing
Help develop marketing plan for territory
Identify verticals

Job Qualifications:
Related Experience:
· 2+ years experience as a in Enterprise Sales focused on Networking and or Telephony
· Experience working with service providers to obtain pricing for end users
· Working level knowledge of Telephony and Data Networks.

Formal Training or Education:
BA/BS education preferred

Compensation
The compensation plan will be a combination of base plus commission on sales. Base compensation will be commensurate with experience.

Job Description
Network Engineer

General Description
Manage and maintain network, systems, telecommunication services, provide customer installation and support. Client company, is a leader in the deployment and installation of Turnkey Data Networks and Voice Over IP PBX systems. While most of the duties of this job will entail post sales installation and support some presales engineering support will also be required. The successful candidate will have a strong track direct technology support, be a self starter and be motivated to achieve.

This is a ground floor opportunity and as such this position has definite potential for the right individual to become a key player and share in the growth of the organization. The client’s initial push is to develop in this market a leading Voice over IP PBX product. General knowledge installation and maintenance of VoIP PBX products is a definite plus as a qualifier for this position.

Duties and Responsibilities
The following is a partial list of expected day to day duties the position of Network Engineer may be required to perform. It is by no means comprehensive and additional roles, responsibilities and tasks are expected to be preformed at the direction of management. Some weekend, off hour and travel will be required.
LAN/WAN troubleshooting
VoIP PBX troubleshooting
Multi vendor firewall and router programming - Multi vendor switch programming
Intensive Cisco router and switch programming
Cisco PIX and ASA programming
Design LAN and WAN topology
Visio diagrams of logical and physical data flow
Access control lists
Multiple protocol routing
Routing protocols such as – OSPF, RIP, BGP, EIGRP
Live cut-over support
Circuit troubleshooting
Server troubleshooting/Desktop support/Application support
Server installation/SQL/Citrix/Terminal Services

Job Qualifications:
Related Experience:
2+ years experience as a Network Field Engineer or a Network Operations Center Technician/Engineer
In-depth knowledge of the seven layers within the OSI model and detailed familiarity with industry protocols.
Extensive experience with IP Addressing to include sub netting
Experience in troubleshooting router, switch and fault-tolerant redundant environments, configuration, troubleshooting and hardware maintenance
Experience working with service providers testing and troubleshooting

Formal Training or Education:
BA/BS education preferred

Compensation
Compensation commensurate with experience.