Customer Retention

ImprovedCustomer

Lifetime Value

EnhancedCustomer

Experience

EnhancedCustomer

Experience

Customer Retention

ImprovedCustomer

Lifetime Value

Vol. 4 December 2010

Global Footprint

Do write in with your feedback on Insight to info@aegisglobal.com

CORPORATE HEADQUARTERSAegis LimitedEssar House

11 K.K. Marg, MahalaxmiMumbai – 400 034

INDIA

Phone: +91-22-6660 1100Fax: +91-22-2495 4490

Contact Information

India : Philippines :Argentina : South Africa : UK : US & Costa Rica: Australia :Kenya :Sri Lanka :New Zealand :Email : info@aegisglobal.com

+91 40 6616 6220+63 2885 8000

+54 115 080 0000 +27 11 461 9154

+ 44 207 096 5097+1 877 892 3447+61 3 9256 5000

+ 254 750 1026 78+94 114 810 001

+64 9 302 1730

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Case in Point

THE CLIENTOperating at the cutting-edge of technology and innovation, our client, a luxury automobile manufacturer, is a brand renowned for its premium luxury passenger vehicles, as well as superior trucks, buses and vans. The brand incorporates the highest global production standards in terms of quality. As a leading brand, the company has extended its customer offering to include a distinctive ‘menu’ of Financial Services tailor-made to its customers’ needs, thus enhancing end user experience even when they are not in the driver’s seat.

CUSTOMER CHALLENGESImpacted by recent financial crises with luxury cars sales’ dipping by nearly 26%, the company was compelled to re-examine its current processes in order to reduce costs, enhance customer service and reinforce its reputation for excellence. The company sought to intensify the interaction between dealers, itself and its customers. As the current disparate communication patterns were causing deficiencies in providing optimum customer service, leading to a need for system re-engineering. The primary challenge was presented by the fact that crucial customer and business processes resided in a number of different systems.

To sustain market share, the company required a partner capable of providing robust customer support in the automobile domain. To remain competitive, the company also needed a strong collaborator who was able to handle back-office activities such as settlements, balance installments and skipped payments etc.

AEGIS SOLUTIONAegis’s domain knowledge in the automobile industry combined with its talented pool of Six Sigma consultants made it the perfect choice to optimize the company’s service systems. The interconnected triad of customer service, profit and growth, defined Aegis’s overall approach to the engagement. As part of the solution, Aegis’s consultants worked with the company to re-engineer and overhaul business processes, refining the efficiency of its customer service and proffering best in class customer experience. This would in turn raise customer loyalty, attract more customers and improve customer retention.

5

Enhanced customer retention by re-engineering diverse business systems

Aegis provided a number of features to both, end users and dealers that included dedicated representatives catering to the South African and the Middle Eastern market and answering financial queries for the customer. General inquiries such as pricing, new models and other value-added product information were provided to both them through e-mail, telephone or fax. Aegis ensured that the new channels and features remained in line with company’s business requirements . Aegis’ services included financial assistance and options on matters such as capital reductions, balance outstanding and restructuring of contracts. Further, language support was provided in English,

Arabic and Afrikaans. Aegis’ integrated solution along with superior customer service simplified

consumer information gathering and analysis, improved financial advice, and

increased acceptance of company’s financial and insurance products.

RESULTSAegis was able to successfully reduce costs, while significantly exceeding expectations by improving customer satisfaction. From a cost perspective these initiatives resulted in total savings of 16.4% as a result of process improvements, superior quality and performance of the centre. The impact

of Aegis’ services can also be highlighted from the statistics mentioned below◆ Improved quality scores from 79% to the current 92%

◆ Customer satisfaction index increased from 85% to 96%

◆ Number of settlement quotes completed per month rose from 316 to 1128, thereby increasing customer loyalty, and increase First-call resolutions.

The Average Handle Time, or AHT, remained consistent leading to the adoption of strategies for offering additional support such as cross sell and up sell. This efficiency improvement as a result of the improved workflow meant that Aegis had created extra capacity which could thus take on additional processes.

Business process overhaul

Support contact centre

Robust cutomer support

Better collection activities

G lobal Headquarters C entersC ountry Headquarters

Killeen, TX

> Bhopal> Srinagar

Argentina:> Tucuman> Cordoba> Bahia Blanca> Mar del Plata> Buenos Aires City (2)

Customer Satisfaction leading to Customer Retention

Luxury AutomobileManufacturer

Aegis Speak

2

Industry Buzz Aegis Buzz

Buzz Factor

3

the customer, delivers outstanding customer experience. For this to happen, training is crucial. Also top management direction is critical – customer retention should be part of the mission statement of organizations.

What does current research on customer retention show? Is it possible for a company to link customer retention to business goals like profitability?Many companies are trying to link customer retention to profitability. For some verticals, this is an imperative. For example, margin-sensitive industries such as FMCG and travel and tourism should treat customer retention as mission critical, as from the customer’s perspective it is easy to switch brands in these industries.

What is your advice to companies in the business process outsourcing industry – companies who are serving their clients’ end customers and may need to ensure their satisfaction and retention? Organizations are looking to engage BPOs that can go beyond reducing costs to enhancing the quality of interaction (which in turn leads to customer retention) – this is especially true of higher end hotel chains and banking companies, for example. So, BPOs should focus on enhancing end customer experience.

BPOs that have a solid technology backbone for analytics will be favored by industries such as media and hospitality, where customer satisfaction has to be tracked in a robust fashion.

It will be good for BPOs to adopt a partnership stance – of being a trusted guide to enterprises, helping them navigate the ever-changing landscape of customer service, customer satisfaction and retention.

Peter Ryan leads the BPO research within Ovum’s IT services practice, having joined Datamonitor, Ovum’s parent company, in 2003. Peter has wide-ranging interests within the BPO/CRM field that include company profiling, offshore & outsourcing, self-service technology & speech solutions, national and sectoral market segmentation/sizing, internal and external customer satisfaction, commercial online content analysis, and economic analysis.

Prior to joining Ovum and Datamonitor, Peter acquired an in-depth understanding of strategic marketing at Gateway Computers, NFO Prognostics and the Bank of Ireland.

Peter holds a BA in Political Science and Economics from the University of Saskatchewan. He also has an MBA from Dalhousie University where he specialised in International Business.

Think Tank

4

Aegis acquires Actionline ArgentinaAegis entered into an agreement with Y&R Inversiones Publicitárias, S.A. and its business partner to fully acquire their jointly held business process outsourcing (BPO) company, Actionline in Argentina. This is the 16th acquisition for Aegis over the last five years. Actionline is one of the largest BPOs in Argentina, with about 5,000 associates, spread across six centers in five cities. It is focused on the domestic market, serving leading telecom, banking, insurance, and energy clients in the region. Actionline will mark Aegis’ beachhead in Latin America, a fast-growing market with a strong domestic demand.

Aegis to bring 250 more jobs to Killeen at Sallie Mae siteAegis acquired the former Sallie Mae contact center in Killeen on June 4 2010, saving about 350 jobs. The company added 250 people in November, and plans to add many more in December, in the process making Aegis one of West Bell County's largest private employers with nearly 900 workers. The former Sallie Mae call center had been slated for closure at the end of this year but with this acquisition Aegis has help retain around 350 jobs and has reiterated its commitment of significant capacity expansion in the area. The Killeen facility marks Aegis’ ninth delivery center in the United States and provides contact center services to major health care companies that operate in the Medicare sector.

Aegis pioneers a new service delivery model, outsources its quality function to COPC, Inc.Aegis entered the world’s first “Quality Process Outsourcing” deal with Texas-based Customer Operations Performance Inc. (COPC Inc.), a leading authority on quality standards for customer experience. This deal marks the beginning of a new era, wherein all aspects of service delivery like process management, implementation, monitoring, and auditing are outsourced on a global scale. 1000 Aegis employees will move into COPC Inc.’s fold and render ‘quality as a service’ to Aegis under the terms of this multi-year contract.

Location Decisions for Outsourcers

Awards

Peter Ryan can be contacted on info@aegisglobal.com

Dear Customer,

I am delighted to meet you on the platform of the fourth issue of Insight.

The recent global recession has underscored the importance of customer retention. As customers become more and

more demanding and informed of more choices, organizations must go beyond customer satisfaction studies to

transform the customer experience. This in turn leads to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – Customer

Retention, our theme for this issue.

At Aegis, we have moved from merely delivering services to the paradigm of creating unforgettable experiences for you

and your customers. The learning from our global practices is ploughed back into processes to ensure that the ‘Wow’

factor is present in every interaction that Aegis anchors. We have proposed to clients innovative programs that result

in increase in first-call resolution and improvement in customer retention.

The secret is to focus on creating positive experiences for your customers and preempt them from thinking of a

substitute brand, in the process achieving customer retention. You will find details of how Aegis does this for a luxury

automobile manufacturer in South Africa and the Middle East, in our Case in Point section.

Peter Ryan, who heads BPO research within Ovum’s IT services practice,

reiterates our views in this issue’s Think Tank. He believes that training is

important to ingrain the idea of customer retention in every interaction a

customer may have with an organization. On the same lines, Aegis, in

association with the Customer Operations Performance Center Inc.,

Indian Institute of Management-Indore (IIM-I) and Service Quality Centre

(SQ Centre), recently launched the Institute of Customer Experience

Management (ICEM).

As always, you will find analyst views and market reports in our Buzz Factor section.

I invite you to share your views on this issue and also write in with

suggestions of what you will like to see in upcoming issues.

Regards,

Sudhir Agarwal

President – Global M&A & Business Transformation

Increasing Emphasis on Customer Retention

Despite research showing that the cost of acquiring new customers is higher than the cost of retaining old customers, do you think that enterprises are still not paying sufficient attention to customer retention? The bar is constantly rising for enterprises. With customers becoming more and more discerning, and their demands increasing constantly, enterprises are continuing to place importance on ensuring customer satisfaction and thus retaining customers.

Customer retention means increasing customer loyalty and trying to anticipate customer needs. Consider the case of a retailer who sells a flat TV today. He should anticipate what kind of warranty the customer will need, what kind of upgrade the customer will go in for after 3 years, what other products he may be interested in and so on.

Do you see any signs that enterprises today are sensitized to the importance of customer retention? Please elaborate.Yes, certainly. There is an emphasis on analytics and data mining – on learning as much as possible about the customer during a telephone call; this information then serves as the feed for initiatives in customer retention.

Also, companies are relying more and more on simple steps such as requesting customers to fill in a form (after the first sale). This data gathered in this manner is then used to generate loyalty and repeat purchase.

How can customer retention be woven into the fabric of an organization?There is no debate that any organization’s culture should be built around customer retention. But it is easier said than done. It is no mean task to make sure that everyone, from the first person that the customer comes in contact with to the last one who services

Ranked 5th among the top BPO players in India in NASSCOM’S 2010 BPO ranking, a leap forward from being ranked 8th last year

Ranked 4th in the 2010 Dataquest-IDC Employee Satisfaction Survey

Ranked 4th in Dataquest’s Top 20 BPORanking 2010, moving forward two places over the previous year

Ranked 21st in the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) Global Outsourcing 100 for the year 2010

Banks’ back office outsourcing expected to grow at CAGR 7.6% from 2010 to 2014An accelerated growth of U.S. banks’ back-office processing outsourcing has been predicted; it is forecast to grow from $38.1 billion in 2008 to $67.2 billion in 2015, and at an estimated CAGR of 7.6% from 2010 to 2015.The banking, financial services, and insurance segment held the largest share – 40% – of the overall U.S. back office outsourcing market in 2009. Information technology outsourcing accounted for 16% of the deals finalized in 2009. The increase in outsourcing has been attributed to increased M&A activity and a drive towards cost mitigation and resource optimization.

Source: MarketsandMarkets

Gartner outlines the Top 10 Forces to impact Outsourcing and IT Services IndustryHyperdigitization, consumerization, componentization, hypercompetition, hyperverticalization, value chain, cloud, intelligent technology, security and privacy, and globalization have been identified as the top 10 forces reshaping the future of the IT services and the outsourcing market by Gartner, Inc. With hyperdigitization and cloud computing emerging as definite trends, security and privacy are expected to be the key concerns. The value chain will no longer be one-dimensional, but a network of providers will be examined for specialization. A fragmented market, offering increased customer choice, is expected to develop due to hyperverticalization of solutions. The bent towards reusable components will stimulate a demand for componentization of IT. Globalization through and in IT services, integration of consumer-oriented technology into enterprise IT, intelligent technology for analytics and decision making, hypercompetition driven by low cost deals are the other influential forces outlined by Gartner.

Source: Gartner, Inc.

Aegis Speak

2

Industry Buzz Aegis Buzz

Buzz Factor

3

the customer, delivers outstanding customer experience. For this to happen, training is crucial. Also top management direction is critical – customer retention should be part of the mission statement of organizations.

What does current research on customer retention show? Is it possible for a company to link customer retention to business goals like profitability?Many companies are trying to link customer retention to profitability. For some verticals, this is an imperative. For example, margin-sensitive industries such as FMCG and travel and tourism should treat customer retention as mission critical, as from the customer’s perspective it is easy to switch brands in these industries.

What is your advice to companies in the business process outsourcing industry – companies who are serving their clients’ end customers and may need to ensure their satisfaction and retention? Organizations are looking to engage BPOs that can go beyond reducing costs to enhancing the quality of interaction (which in turn leads to customer retention) – this is especially true of higher end hotel chains and banking companies, for example. So, BPOs should focus on enhancing end customer experience.

BPOs that have a solid technology backbone for analytics will be favored by industries such as media and hospitality, where customer satisfaction has to be tracked in a robust fashion.

It will be good for BPOs to adopt a partnership stance – of being a trusted guide to enterprises, helping them navigate the ever-changing landscape of customer service, customer satisfaction and retention.

Peter Ryan leads the BPO research within Ovum’s IT services practice, having joined Datamonitor, Ovum’s parent company, in 2003. Peter has wide-ranging interests within the BPO/CRM field that include company profiling, offshore & outsourcing, self-service technology & speech solutions, national and sectoral market segmentation/sizing, internal and external customer satisfaction, commercial online content analysis, and economic analysis.

Prior to joining Ovum and Datamonitor, Peter acquired an in-depth understanding of strategic marketing at Gateway Computers, NFO Prognostics and the Bank of Ireland.

Peter holds a BA in Political Science and Economics from the University of Saskatchewan. He also has an MBA from Dalhousie University where he specialised in International Business.

Think Tank

4

Aegis acquires Actionline ArgentinaAegis entered into an agreement with Y&R Inversiones Publicitárias, S.A. and its business partner to fully acquire their jointly held business process outsourcing (BPO) company, Actionline in Argentina. This is the 16th acquisition for Aegis over the last five years. Actionline is one of the largest BPOs in Argentina, with about 5,000 associates, spread across six centers in five cities. It is focused on the domestic market, serving leading telecom, banking, insurance, and energy clients in the region. Actionline will mark Aegis’ beachhead in Latin America, a fast-growing market with a strong domestic demand.

Aegis to bring 250 more jobs to Killeen at Sallie Mae siteAegis acquired the former Sallie Mae contact center in Killeen on June 4 2010, saving about 350 jobs. The company added 250 people in November, and plans to add many more in December, in the process making Aegis one of West Bell County's largest private employers with nearly 900 workers. The former Sallie Mae call center had been slated for closure at the end of this year but with this acquisition Aegis has help retain around 350 jobs and has reiterated its commitment of significant capacity expansion in the area. The Killeen facility marks Aegis’ ninth delivery center in the United States and provides contact center services to major health care companies that operate in the Medicare sector.

Aegis pioneers a new service delivery model, outsources its quality function to COPC, Inc.Aegis entered the world’s first “Quality Process Outsourcing” deal with Texas-based Customer Operations Performance Inc. (COPC Inc.), a leading authority on quality standards for customer experience. This deal marks the beginning of a new era, wherein all aspects of service delivery like process management, implementation, monitoring, and auditing are outsourced on a global scale. 1000 Aegis employees will move into COPC Inc.’s fold and render ‘quality as a service’ to Aegis under the terms of this multi-year contract.

Location Decisions for Outsourcers

Awards

Peter Ryan can be contacted on info@aegisglobal.com

Dear Customer,

I am delighted to meet you on the platform of the fourth issue of Insight.

The recent global recession has underscored the importance of customer retention. As customers become more and

more demanding and informed of more choices, organizations must go beyond customer satisfaction studies to

transform the customer experience. This in turn leads to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – Customer

Retention, our theme for this issue.

At Aegis, we have moved from merely delivering services to the paradigm of creating unforgettable experiences for you

and your customers. The learning from our global practices is ploughed back into processes to ensure that the ‘Wow’

factor is present in every interaction that Aegis anchors. We have proposed to clients innovative programs that result

in increase in first-call resolution and improvement in customer retention.

The secret is to focus on creating positive experiences for your customers and preempt them from thinking of a

substitute brand, in the process achieving customer retention. You will find details of how Aegis does this for a luxury

automobile manufacturer in South Africa and the Middle East, in our Case in Point section.

Peter Ryan, who heads BPO research within Ovum’s IT services practice,

reiterates our views in this issue’s Think Tank. He believes that training is

important to ingrain the idea of customer retention in every interaction a

customer may have with an organization. On the same lines, Aegis, in

association with the Customer Operations Performance Center Inc.,

Indian Institute of Management-Indore (IIM-I) and Service Quality Centre

(SQ Centre), recently launched the Institute of Customer Experience

Management (ICEM).

As always, you will find analyst views and market reports in our Buzz Factor section.

I invite you to share your views on this issue and also write in with

suggestions of what you will like to see in upcoming issues.

Regards,

Sudhir Agarwal

President – Global M&A & Business Transformation

Increasing Emphasis on Customer Retention

Despite research showing that the cost of acquiring new customers is higher than the cost of retaining old customers, do you think that enterprises are still not paying sufficient attention to customer retention? The bar is constantly rising for enterprises. With customers becoming more and more discerning, and their demands increasing constantly, enterprises are continuing to place importance on ensuring customer satisfaction and thus retaining customers.

Customer retention means increasing customer loyalty and trying to anticipate customer needs. Consider the case of a retailer who sells a flat TV today. He should anticipate what kind of warranty the customer will need, what kind of upgrade the customer will go in for after 3 years, what other products he may be interested in and so on.

Do you see any signs that enterprises today are sensitized to the importance of customer retention? Please elaborate.Yes, certainly. There is an emphasis on analytics and data mining – on learning as much as possible about the customer during a telephone call; this information then serves as the feed for initiatives in customer retention.

Also, companies are relying more and more on simple steps such as requesting customers to fill in a form (after the first sale). This data gathered in this manner is then used to generate loyalty and repeat purchase.

How can customer retention be woven into the fabric of an organization?There is no debate that any organization’s culture should be built around customer retention. But it is easier said than done. It is no mean task to make sure that everyone, from the first person that the customer comes in contact with to the last one who services

Ranked 5th among the top BPO players in India in NASSCOM’S 2010 BPO ranking, a leap forward from being ranked 8th last year

Ranked 4th in the 2010 Dataquest-IDC Employee Satisfaction Survey

Ranked 4th in Dataquest’s Top 20 BPORanking 2010, moving forward two places over the previous year

Ranked 21st in the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) Global Outsourcing 100 for the year 2010

Banks’ back office outsourcing expected to grow at CAGR 7.6% from 2010 to 2014An accelerated growth of U.S. banks’ back-office processing outsourcing has been predicted; it is forecast to grow from $38.1 billion in 2008 to $67.2 billion in 2015, and at an estimated CAGR of 7.6% from 2010 to 2015.The banking, financial services, and insurance segment held the largest share – 40% – of the overall U.S. back office outsourcing market in 2009. Information technology outsourcing accounted for 16% of the deals finalized in 2009. The increase in outsourcing has been attributed to increased M&A activity and a drive towards cost mitigation and resource optimization.

Source: MarketsandMarkets

Gartner outlines the Top 10 Forces to impact Outsourcing and IT Services IndustryHyperdigitization, consumerization, componentization, hypercompetition, hyperverticalization, value chain, cloud, intelligent technology, security and privacy, and globalization have been identified as the top 10 forces reshaping the future of the IT services and the outsourcing market by Gartner, Inc. With hyperdigitization and cloud computing emerging as definite trends, security and privacy are expected to be the key concerns. The value chain will no longer be one-dimensional, but a network of providers will be examined for specialization. A fragmented market, offering increased customer choice, is expected to develop due to hyperverticalization of solutions. The bent towards reusable components will stimulate a demand for componentization of IT. Globalization through and in IT services, integration of consumer-oriented technology into enterprise IT, intelligent technology for analytics and decision making, hypercompetition driven by low cost deals are the other influential forces outlined by Gartner.

Source: Gartner, Inc.

Aegis Speak

2

Industry Buzz Aegis Buzz

Buzz Factor

3

the customer, delivers outstanding customer experience. For this to happen, training is crucial. Also top management direction is critical – customer retention should be part of the mission statement of organizations.

What does current research on customer retention show? Is it possible for a company to link customer retention to business goals like profitability?Many companies are trying to link customer retention to profitability. For some verticals, this is an imperative. For example, margin-sensitive industries such as FMCG and travel and tourism should treat customer retention as mission critical, as from the customer’s perspective it is easy to switch brands in these industries.

What is your advice to companies in the business process outsourcing industry – companies who are serving their clients’ end customers and may need to ensure their satisfaction and retention? Organizations are looking to engage BPOs that can go beyond reducing costs to enhancing the quality of interaction (which in turn leads to customer retention) – this is especially true of higher end hotel chains and banking companies, for example. So, BPOs should focus on enhancing end customer experience.

BPOs that have a solid technology backbone for analytics will be favored by industries such as media and hospitality, where customer satisfaction has to be tracked in a robust fashion.

It will be good for BPOs to adopt a partnership stance – of being a trusted guide to enterprises, helping them navigate the ever-changing landscape of customer service, customer satisfaction and retention.

Peter Ryan leads the BPO research within Ovum’s IT services practice, having joined Datamonitor, Ovum’s parent company, in 2003. Peter has wide-ranging interests within the BPO/CRM field that include company profiling, offshore & outsourcing, self-service technology & speech solutions, national and sectoral market segmentation/sizing, internal and external customer satisfaction, commercial online content analysis, and economic analysis.

Prior to joining Ovum and Datamonitor, Peter acquired an in-depth understanding of strategic marketing at Gateway Computers, NFO Prognostics and the Bank of Ireland.

Peter holds a BA in Political Science and Economics from the University of Saskatchewan. He also has an MBA from Dalhousie University where he specialised in International Business.

Think Tank

4

Aegis acquires Actionline ArgentinaAegis entered into an agreement with Y&R Inversiones Publicitárias, S.A. and its business partner to fully acquire their jointly held business process outsourcing (BPO) company, Actionline in Argentina. This is the 16th acquisition for Aegis over the last five years. Actionline is one of the largest BPOs in Argentina, with about 5,000 associates, spread across six centers in five cities. It is focused on the domestic market, serving leading telecom, banking, insurance, and energy clients in the region. Actionline will mark Aegis’ beachhead in Latin America, a fast-growing market with a strong domestic demand.

Aegis to bring 250 more jobs to Killeen at Sallie Mae siteAegis acquired the former Sallie Mae contact center in Killeen on June 4 2010, saving about 350 jobs. The company added 250 people in November, and plans to add many more in December, in the process making Aegis one of West Bell County's largest private employers with nearly 900 workers. The former Sallie Mae call center had been slated for closure at the end of this year but with this acquisition Aegis has help retain around 350 jobs and has reiterated its commitment of significant capacity expansion in the area. The Killeen facility marks Aegis’ ninth delivery center in the United States and provides contact center services to major health care companies that operate in the Medicare sector.

Aegis pioneers a new service delivery model, outsources its quality function to COPC, Inc.Aegis entered the world’s first “Quality Process Outsourcing” deal with Texas-based Customer Operations Performance Inc. (COPC Inc.), a leading authority on quality standards for customer experience. This deal marks the beginning of a new era, wherein all aspects of service delivery like process management, implementation, monitoring, and auditing are outsourced on a global scale. 1000 Aegis employees will move into COPC Inc.’s fold and render ‘quality as a service’ to Aegis under the terms of this multi-year contract.

Location Decisions for Outsourcers

Awards

Peter Ryan can be contacted on info@aegisglobal.com

Dear Customer,

I am delighted to meet you on the platform of the fourth issue of Insight.

The recent global recession has underscored the importance of customer retention. As customers become more and

more demanding and informed of more choices, organizations must go beyond customer satisfaction studies to

transform the customer experience. This in turn leads to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – Customer

Retention, our theme for this issue.

At Aegis, we have moved from merely delivering services to the paradigm of creating unforgettable experiences for you

and your customers. The learning from our global practices is ploughed back into processes to ensure that the ‘Wow’

factor is present in every interaction that Aegis anchors. We have proposed to clients innovative programs that result

in increase in first-call resolution and improvement in customer retention.

The secret is to focus on creating positive experiences for your customers and preempt them from thinking of a

substitute brand, in the process achieving customer retention. You will find details of how Aegis does this for a luxury

automobile manufacturer in South Africa and the Middle East, in our Case in Point section.

Peter Ryan, who heads BPO research within Ovum’s IT services practice,

reiterates our views in this issue’s Think Tank. He believes that training is

important to ingrain the idea of customer retention in every interaction a

customer may have with an organization. On the same lines, Aegis, in

association with the Customer Operations Performance Center Inc.,

Indian Institute of Management-Indore (IIM-I) and Service Quality Centre

(SQ Centre), recently launched the Institute of Customer Experience

Management (ICEM).

As always, you will find analyst views and market reports in our Buzz Factor section.

I invite you to share your views on this issue and also write in with

suggestions of what you will like to see in upcoming issues.

Regards,

Sudhir Agarwal

President – Global M&A & Business Transformation

Increasing Emphasis on Customer Retention

Despite research showing that the cost of acquiring new customers is higher than the cost of retaining old customers, do you think that enterprises are still not paying sufficient attention to customer retention? The bar is constantly rising for enterprises. With customers becoming more and more discerning, and their demands increasing constantly, enterprises are continuing to place importance on ensuring customer satisfaction and thus retaining customers.

Customer retention means increasing customer loyalty and trying to anticipate customer needs. Consider the case of a retailer who sells a flat TV today. He should anticipate what kind of warranty the customer will need, what kind of upgrade the customer will go in for after 3 years, what other products he may be interested in and so on.

Do you see any signs that enterprises today are sensitized to the importance of customer retention? Please elaborate.Yes, certainly. There is an emphasis on analytics and data mining – on learning as much as possible about the customer during a telephone call; this information then serves as the feed for initiatives in customer retention.

Also, companies are relying more and more on simple steps such as requesting customers to fill in a form (after the first sale). This data gathered in this manner is then used to generate loyalty and repeat purchase.

How can customer retention be woven into the fabric of an organization?There is no debate that any organization’s culture should be built around customer retention. But it is easier said than done. It is no mean task to make sure that everyone, from the first person that the customer comes in contact with to the last one who services

Ranked 5th among the top BPO players in India in NASSCOM’S 2010 BPO ranking, a leap forward from being ranked 8th last year

Ranked 4th in the 2010 Dataquest-IDC Employee Satisfaction Survey

Ranked 4th in Dataquest’s Top 20 BPORanking 2010, moving forward two places over the previous year

Ranked 21st in the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) Global Outsourcing 100 for the year 2010

Banks’ back office outsourcing expected to grow at CAGR 7.6% from 2010 to 2014An accelerated growth of U.S. banks’ back-office processing outsourcing has been predicted; it is forecast to grow from $38.1 billion in 2008 to $67.2 billion in 2015, and at an estimated CAGR of 7.6% from 2010 to 2015.The banking, financial services, and insurance segment held the largest share – 40% – of the overall U.S. back office outsourcing market in 2009. Information technology outsourcing accounted for 16% of the deals finalized in 2009. The increase in outsourcing has been attributed to increased M&A activity and a drive towards cost mitigation and resource optimization.

Source: MarketsandMarkets

Gartner outlines the Top 10 Forces to impact Outsourcing and IT Services IndustryHyperdigitization, consumerization, componentization, hypercompetition, hyperverticalization, value chain, cloud, intelligent technology, security and privacy, and globalization have been identified as the top 10 forces reshaping the future of the IT services and the outsourcing market by Gartner, Inc. With hyperdigitization and cloud computing emerging as definite trends, security and privacy are expected to be the key concerns. The value chain will no longer be one-dimensional, but a network of providers will be examined for specialization. A fragmented market, offering increased customer choice, is expected to develop due to hyperverticalization of solutions. The bent towards reusable components will stimulate a demand for componentization of IT. Globalization through and in IT services, integration of consumer-oriented technology into enterprise IT, intelligent technology for analytics and decision making, hypercompetition driven by low cost deals are the other influential forces outlined by Gartner.

Source: Gartner, Inc.

Customer Retention

ImprovedCustomer

Lifetime Value

EnhancedCustomer

Experience

EnhancedCustomer

Experience

Customer Retention

ImprovedCustomer

Lifetime Value

Vol. 4 December 2010

Global Footprint

Do write in with your feedback on Insight to info@aegisglobal.com

CORPORATE HEADQUARTERSAegis LimitedEssar House

11 K.K. Marg, MahalaxmiMumbai – 400 034

INDIA

Phone: +91-22-6660 1100Fax: +91-22-2495 4490

Contact Information

India : Philippines :Argentina : South Africa : UK : US & Costa Rica: Australia :Kenya :Sri Lanka :New Zealand :Email : info@aegisglobal.com

+91 40 6616 6220+63 2885 8000

+54 115 080 0000 +27 11 461 9154

+ 44 207 096 5097+1 877 892 3447+61 3 9256 5000

+ 254 750 1026 78+94 114 810 001

+64 9 302 1730

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Case in Point

THE CLIENTOperating at the cutting-edge of technology and innovation, our client, a luxury automobile manufacturer, is a brand renowned for its premium luxury passenger vehicles, as well as superior trucks, buses and vans. The brand incorporates the highest global production standards in terms of quality. As a leading brand, the company has extended its customer offering to include a distinctive ‘menu’ of Financial Services tailor-made to its customers’ needs, thus enhancing end user experience even when they are not in the driver’s seat.

CUSTOMER CHALLENGESImpacted by recent financial crises with luxury cars sales’ dipping by nearly 26%, the company was compelled to re-examine its current processes in order to reduce costs, enhance customer service and reinforce its reputation for excellence. The company sought to intensify the interaction between dealers, itself and its customers. As the current disparate communication patterns were causing deficiencies in providing optimum customer service, leading to a need for system re-engineering. The primary challenge was presented by the fact that crucial customer and business processes resided in a number of different systems.

To sustain market share, the company required a partner capable of providing robust customer support in the automobile domain. To remain competitive, the company also needed a strong collaborator who was able to handle back-office activities such as settlements, balance installments and skipped payments etc.

AEGIS SOLUTIONAegis’s domain knowledge in the automobile industry combined with its talented pool of Six Sigma consultants made it the perfect choice to optimize the company’s service systems. The interconnected triad of customer service, profit and growth, defined Aegis’s overall approach to the engagement. As part of the solution, Aegis’s consultants worked with the company to re-engineer and overhaul business processes, refining the efficiency of its customer service and proffering best in class

5

Enhanced customer retention by re-engineering diverse business systems

customer experience. This would in turn raise customer loyalty, attract more customers and improve customer retention.

Aegis provided a number of features to both, end users and dealers that included dedicated representatives catering to the South African and the Middle Eastern market and answering financial queries for the customer. General inquiries such as pricing, new models and other value-added product information were provided to both them through e-mail, telephone or fax. Aegis ensured that the new channels and features remained in line with company’s business requirements . Aegis’ services included financial assistance and options on matters such as

capital reductions, balance outstanding and restructuring of contracts. Further,

language support was provided in English, Arabic and Afrikaans.

Aegis’ integrated solution along with superior customer service simplified consumer information gathering and analysis, improved financial advice, and increased acceptance of company’s financial and insurance products.

RESULTSAegis was able to successfully reduce costs, while significantly exceeding expectations by improving customer satisfaction. From a cost perspective these

initiatives resulted in total savings of 16.4% as a result of process improvements, superior quality and performance of the centre. The impact of Aegis’ services can also be highlighted from the statistics mentioned below◆ Improved quality scores from 79% to the current 92%

◆ Customer satisfaction index increased from 85% to 96%

◆ Number of settlement quotes completed per month rose from 316 to 1128, thereby increasing customer loyalty, and increase First-call resolutions.

The Average Handle Time, or AHT, remained consistent leading to the adoption of strategies for offering additional support such as cross sell and up sell. This efficiency improvement as a result of the improved workflow meant that Aegis had created extra capacity which could thus take on additional processes.

Business process overhaul

Support contact centre

Robust cutomer support

Better collection activities

G lobal Headquarters C entersC ountry Headquarters

Killeen, TX

> Bhopal> Srinagar

Argentina:> Tucuman> Cordoba> Bahia Blanca> Mar del Plata> Buenos Aires City (2)

Customer Satisfaction leading to Customer Retention

Luxury AutomobileManufacturer

Customer Retention

ImprovedCustomer

Lifetime Value

EnhancedCustomer

Experience

EnhancedCustomer

Experience

Customer Retention

ImprovedCustomer

Lifetime Value

Vol. 4 December 2010

Global Footprint

Do write in with your feedback on Insight to info@aegisglobal.com

CORPORATE HEADQUARTERSAegis LimitedEssar House

11 K.K. Marg, MahalaxmiMumbai – 400 034

INDIA

Phone: +91-22-6660 1100Fax: +91-22-2495 4490

Contact Information

India : Philippines :Argentina : South Africa : UK : US & Costa Rica: Australia :Kenya :Sri Lanka :New Zealand :Email : info@aegisglobal.com

+91 40 6616 6220+63 2885 8000

+54 115 080 0000 +27 11 461 9154

+ 44 207 096 5097+1 877 892 3447+61 3 9256 5000

+ 254 750 1026 78+94 114 810 001

+64 9 302 1730

Cop

yrig

ht 2

010,

Aeg

is L

imite

d. A

ll rig

hts

rese

rved

www.aegisglobal.com

Case in Point

THE CLIENTOperating at the cutting-edge of technology and innovation, our client, a luxury automobile manufacturer, is a brand renowned for its premium luxury passenger vehicles, as well as superior trucks, buses and vans. The brand incorporates the highest global production standards in terms of quality. As a leading brand, the company has extended its customer offering to include a distinctive ‘menu’ of Financial Services tailor-made to its customers’ needs, thus enhancing end user experience even when they are not in the driver’s seat.

CUSTOMER CHALLENGESImpacted by recent financial crises with luxury cars sales’ dipping by nearly 26%, the company was compelled to re-examine its current processes in order to reduce costs, enhance customer service and reinforce its reputation for excellence. The company sought to intensify the interaction between dealers, itself and its customers. As the current disparate communication patterns were causing deficiencies in providing optimum customer service, leading to a need for system re-engineering. The primary challenge was presented by the fact that crucial customer and business processes resided in a number of different systems.

To sustain market share, the company required a partner capable of providing robust customer support in the automobile domain. To remain competitive, the company also needed a strong collaborator who was able to handle back-office activities such as settlements, balance installments and skipped payments etc.

AEGIS SOLUTIONAegis’s domain knowledge in the automobile industry combined with its talented pool of Six Sigma consultants made it the perfect choice to optimize the company’s service systems. The interconnected triad of customer service, profit and growth, defined Aegis’s overall approach to the engagement. As part of the solution, Aegis’s consultants worked with the company to re-engineer and overhaul business processes, refining the efficiency of its customer service and proffering best in class customer experience. This would in turn raise customer loyalty, attract more customers and improve customer retention.

5

Enhanced customer retention by re-engineering diverse business systems

Aegis provided a number of features to both, end users and dealers that included dedicated representatives catering to the South African and the Middle Eastern market and answering financial queries for the customer. General inquiries such as pricing, new models and other value-added product information were provided to both them through e-mail, telephone or fax. Aegis ensured that the new channels and features remained in line with company’s business requirements . Aegis’ services included financial assistance and options on matters such as capital reductions, balance outstanding and restructuring of contracts. Further, language support was provided in English,

Arabic and Afrikaans. Aegis’ integrated solution along with superior customer service simplified

consumer information gathering and analysis, improved financial advice, and

increased acceptance of company’s financial and insurance products.

RESULTSAegis was able to successfully reduce costs, while significantly exceeding expectations by improving customer satisfaction. From a cost perspective these initiatives resulted in total savings of 16.4% as a result of process improvements, superior quality and performance of the centre. The impact

of Aegis’ services can also be highlighted from the statistics mentioned below◆ Improved quality scores from 79% to the current 92%

◆ Customer satisfaction index increased from 85% to 96%

◆ Number of settlement quotes completed per month rose from 316 to 1128, thereby increasing customer loyalty, and increase First-call resolutions.

The Average Handle Time, or AHT, remained consistent leading to the adoption of strategies for offering additional support such as cross sell and up sell. This efficiency improvement as a result of the improved workflow meant that Aegis had created extra capacity which could thus take on additional processes.

Business process overhaul

Support contact centre

Robust cutomer support

Better collection activities

G lobal Headquarters C entersC ountry Headquarters

Killeen, TX

> Bhopal> Srinagar

Argentina:> Tucuman> Cordoba> Bahia Blanca> Mar del Plata> Buenos Aires City (2)

Customer Satisfaction leading to Customer Retention

Luxury AutomobileManufacturer