Investment Initiative: Xerox earmarks $30 million for call centers
Xerox Corp. has invested $30 million to open new call centers in North America and Europe as part of a year-long drive to overhaul its business-to-business teleservices strategy.
The investment is part of an increased DM focus by the Rochester, NY-based company, which launched a DM division in January to increase growth by selling products by phone and online, as well as through retailers, resellers, dealers and agents.
A desire to enter new markets – as well as serve existing customers better – is behind the plan.
“We want to be where the customer wants to buy – superstores, the Web, on the phone or with a field sales rep,” says Michael C. MacDonald, president of North American general markets operations. Xerox has developed teleservices programs to perform several functions, including developing and managing leads for field reps; answering questions from customers and prospects calling toll-free numbers; leasing and selling equipment by phone; processing orders for repeat buyers; and managing larger established accounts.
Several new call centers have been opened since last year, such as a new 160-station Web-assisted center in Irving, TX, that debuted in June. Xerox also opened its own call centers in London and Dusseldorf, Germany, last year to similarly promote product sales outside of the United States.
The Irving facility and a new 240-station call center in St. John, Canada, are responsible for all inbound and outbound teleservices in North America. The only exceptions are lead generation and lead qualification telemarketing programs recently outsourced to Sutherland Group Ltd., based in Pittsford, NY, which manages some outbound campaigns for Xerox.
The in-house call centers were also set up to process phone orders generated by a new catalog recently launched by Xerox. Annual circulation for the catalog, which marks the first time the company is selling hardware via catalog, has been set at 600,000 copies. Previous catalogs only offered supplies to existing customers, says MacDonald.
As a result of the recent changes, North American call volume for in-house teleservices is expected to increase 50% to 1.5 million outbound calls this year. Prior to the restructuring, Xerox did only outbound lead generation and lead qualification in-house, and did not have a Web component in its teleservices operation.
Xerox uses the Internet in conjunction with its teleservices operations in several ways, notes MacDonald. It transmits data and voice mails about customers to resellers and dealers who represent Xerox, with the expectation that all leads and inquiries will be followed quickly. The leads are tracked and then bounce back to call centers in-house if after four hours no contact is initiated by the resellers or dealers.
“That’s because we find that after four hours a lead loses value,” he says.
Teleservices agents at the Texas facility handle inbound and outbound calls, while offering to conduct online product demonstrations for customers simultaneously accessing Xerox’s Web site. The new “Tele-Web” center also manages calls originating from the Xerox site when customers click call-me buttons to be contacted by teleservices reps at the company. “We’re not using banner ads yet, but we plan to start using them on other Web sites,” says MacDonald.
Xerox presently generates about 2,500 inbound calls daily using only direct response advertising and the call-me button online site. Inbound call volumes are expected to increase substantially in the future, he says.
