Customer Experience, Operational Excellence, and the Human Touch

R Y A N S T R A T E G I C A D V I S O R Y

A white paper for GlowTouch

March 2020

Introduction

Never before have enterprises so struggled to manage interactions with consumers in Western locations. No matter the country, today’s customer is more demanding, less patient, and very likely to switch providers if they are not satisfied. Factor in the increase of channels across that end-users use to interact with enterprises, and not only has customer experience management become more expen-sive but it has gained an unprecedented level of complexity.

For enterprises based in the US, the need to drive better interactions across digital channels is at a crisis point. Many technology-driven organizations understand that they need to provide non-voice support using both mature and emerging channels, but they are not certain where to begin the journey. It is in this context that GlowTouch has taken the initiative to disrupt digital customer experi-ence using a platform that incorporates the right talent, modern infrastructure and a positive company culture, all based in an exceptional delivery location. This approach has proven effective, and continues to help clients ensure consumer loyalty.

Meet GlowTouch

For enterprise executives unfamiliar with GlowTouch, it is a name that is becoming synonymous with digital customer experience delivery. As an emerging player in the global contact center outsourcing space, its beginnings define its ongoing journey.

Company History

Founded as a family enterprise, GlowTouch has been operating for almost two decades. Starting in 2002, GlowTouch established a headquarters in Louisville, with its delivery and technology incubation center in Mangalore, India. Over the following 18 years, the company has grown in both its US pres-ence, as well as its delivery platform from Mangalore. Along the way, it has taken into account different channel capabilities, back-office technology functionality, and an experienced team of leaders that have helped shape the organization over its evolution.

Today, GlowTouch employs over 1,700 people and continues its upward trajectory, based on strategic management and responsiveness to changing customer experience needs. Notably, throughout the course of its corporate journey, GlowTouch has been recognized for its innovation and leadership through numerous accolades.

These include:

• Inc. 5000 – 2009-2014, member of Inc. 5000 Honor Roll

• Recognition as a Top 100 Technology Company by Silicon India

• Induction to the Inc. 5000 Honor Roll

• Federation of Karnataka Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FKCCI) Export Excellence Award – 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2016, 2017

Local Employer Favorability

When visiting GlowTouch’s delivery center in Mangalore, it is immediately apparent that the firm retains a great deal of goodwill among local talent. As one of only a few of the outsourcing firms based in Mangalore, job seekers looking for work in front-line customer services, technology and third-party delivery are immediately drawn to GlowTouch. Many are motivated to work for a local employer, in order to remain in their hometown. However, what distinguishes GlowTouch in the context of Manga-lore is the emphasis that it places on curating talent within the organization, which stirs interest among prospective recruits.

Some of the most notable elements that employees of GlowTouch cite as the most important reasons they joined the firm include:

• A proactive work atmosphere, in which skills are curated and developed;

• Open feedback designed to improve the organization’s performance;

• Targeted training that has the objective of helping employees develop careers within GlowTouch;

• Modern, ergonomic facilities that are pleasant to work in, with affordable food, transport and short-term accommodation (when required);

• Family-friendly policies, including extended leave for new mothers and work / life balance;

• Competitive compensation schemes that reward performance excellence.

These factors have been vital in driving two important recruitment channels for GlowTouch. The first is its ability to attract the best potential hires in the Mangalore area, drawn both from the city’s numerous post-secondary institutions (many of which have formal placement agreements with GlowTouch) and through media channels. The second is the willingness of existing employees to refer friends and family to GlowTouch, further providing a stream of talent from which the company can draw.

In equal measure, attrition rates at GlowTouch are less than 5% monthly, with agents remaining at the company on average for approximately 5 years. Logically, the ability to bring in the best people and to keep them ensures exceptional interactions for consumers. This drives loyalty and repeat business, two objectives that US enterprises are desperate to achieve.

A Socially-Responsible, Sustainable OutsourcerSince its inception in India nearly two decades ago, GlowTouch has made a conscious effort to lift up the Mangalore community. Some examples of GlowTouch’s commitment to social responsibility include:

• Establishing the GT Foundation in Mangalore, which is designed to provide support for artistic endeavors in the community and to assist individuals in need. This foundation has been in existence since 2004.

• Providing assistance to a charity called The Little Sisters of the Poor, which has been active in Mangalore since the late 1960s. This organiza-tion is run by nuns who operate a modern senior citizens’ home for elderly people without resources, as well as families that lack the resources to look after them in their old age. Through GlowTouch’s involvement, The Little Sisters of the Poor are able to provide comfortable lodging, nutritious food, activities and health care (including physiotherapy and dental care) for individuals that are truly in need.

• Partnering with the Akshaya Patra Foundation in order to address child hunger around Mangalore, by constructing a ‘mega-kitchen’ that has the capacity to prepare meals for roughly 50,000 children each day.

Environmental friendliness is also a major facet of GlowTouch commitment to social responsibility. It has taken the following steps to ensure that it is doing its part in the fight for against climate change:

• ISO 14001:2015 (Environmental management systems) certification – as part of this process, GlowTouch is compliant with conserving natural resources and energy by minimizing consumption and waste.

• Green Team – this program sees a group of GlowTouch employees take a proactive stake in mini-mizing the company’s environmental impact. Key initiatives include planting trees and abolishing plastic bottles in the Mangalore site.

• Municipal partnerships – GlowTouch has partnered with the city of Mangalore to promote programs that will reduce waste, such as digitization.

Empowerment is also another facet to GlowTouch’s engagement with corporate social responsibility. Notably, in H2 2019, GlowTouch was certified as a Women’s Business Enterprise by The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), providing both encouragement and example to its aspiring female leaders.

A Modern Work Environment

GlowTouch’s delivery point in Mangalore is designed to respond to client needs, while at the same time appealing to employees. Constructed over five floors, the facility immediately strikes observers as an open environment, with much natural light and ample space for agents to main-tain an optimal level of comfort to perform their work duties. Modern technology and ergonomic furnishings line the GlowTouch contact center operations, further ensuring team member satisfaction. Employee catering facilities are located on two floors, providing both freshly-made American menu items and local cuisine.

Agents have ample parking for both automobiles and motorcycles / scooters, while the company funds transportation for team members requiring assistance to get to/from work after-hours.

A Proven Track Record of Success

GlowTouch has achieved a great deal for their clients over the company’s tenure as an outsourcer. Some of the most notable include:

• Helping a flagship client transform its technical support function into a profit center by incorpo-rating cross-sell / upsell techniques. This resulted in an ROI of over 170% over the course of the campaign.

• Through rigorous operational management and process improvement GlowTouch was able to help a web hosting client achieve customer satisfaction levels of 93%;

• Helping various clients deal with seasonal demand by ramping up over 300 agents for the 2019/2020 holiday period.

Key GlowTouch Areas of Specialization for US Enterprises

GlowTouch is a full-service front-office outsourcer, with a track record of delivery for clients in the US. The company’s key areas of specialization through which it has been driving value for its clients include:

Customer Experience Management

GlowTouch is well-known as a provider of high-quality consumer and technical support. As a specialist in non-voice delivery, it is positioned in one of the fastest-growing sectors of customer management. According to the latest buyer research from Ryan Strategic Advisory, among US enterprises nearly 50%

of workstations in captive operations are either fully or partly dedicated to digital delivery. GlowTouch’s experience in delivering interactions for clients using email, chat and other digital platforms provides subject matter expertise and referenceability in this customer experience angle.

Equally, GlowTouch is expanding its channel capabilities to take into account voice delivery. The firm is already performing some domestic voice support for the Indian market, and is currently establishing this service for US consumers, anticipating this service line to grow rapidly once it is launched.

Technology / Digital Enterprises

In the current commercial environment, it is important for any customer experience partner to offer vertical-specific knowledge in order to ensure high-value interactions. GlowTouch has long been one of the most trusted partners in the delivery of technology services, with a particular emphasis on supporting consumers of internet-based clients, such as webhosting and email domain providers. From their Mangalore delivery center, the firm handles both digital customer care and technical support queries from the US, and it is expanding its reach into other technology-driven areas of support.

Back Office and IT Services

It would be wrong to classify GlowTouch as only a contact center services provider. The reality is that it has grown into a variety of other service lines, including:

Back Office Processing IT ServicesData entry Cloud marketplace integrationBack-office processing QA testingManaged Services Custom software developmentDatabase management Mobile app developmentDocument / image archiving Infrastructure and NOC monitoringData mining

The Mangalore Outsourcing Advantage

A clear competitive advantage that GlowTouch has in the current market is its delivery location. That it has chosen to house its operations in India should be underscored as wise. After all, in the most recent Ryan Strategic Advisory Front Office Omnibus Survey of enterprise contact center decision-makers, in terms of offshore front-line delivery favorability, US respondents ranked India second place out of over forty different overseas choices. This is magnified by its choice of Mangalore, located on the south-west end of India in the state of Karnataka, as the city in which it delivers services for its clients, which carries numerous advantages that include:

Pro-Business Atmosphere

American clients working with GlowTouch can be confident that delivery will be conducted in a city that is decidedly friendly to business. Mangalore has one of the longest established chambers of commerce in India, a body that has proven instrumental in lobbying the local council and state governments for commercially-friendly regulation. It is further noted that the City of Mangalore has placed an emphasis on the development of both business services and IT, investing in modern communication networks and commercial parks. Meanwhile union activity, while present in certain industrial sectors, has not presented itself in the technology or services space.

Sustainability

Mangalore has managed to balance its dynamic commercial environment alongside efforts to promote green living among its businesses and citizens. It was included in the 2016 Smart City Initiative, designed to make 100 cities across India more ecologically sustainable, while improving the quality of residents’ lives.1

Safety

For travelers and local employees, feeling secure is of utmost importance. In this context, Mangalore ticks an important box, as it is a community that is seen to be safe, without the omnipresent public security issues faced in so many offshore locations. In fact, some estimates rank Mangalore as the safest major city in India.2

Abundance of Educated, Sophisticated Talent

Something that immediately strikes visitors to Mangalore is the large number of educated, sophisticated and multilingual people that can be recruited. Much of this has to do with the significant number of post-secondary institutions in the city, as well as the legacy of Catholic primary schools (which have been instrumental in

developing English language fluency). These include approximately two dozen engineering institutions, seven medical colleges, and more than 14 arts and sciences colleges.

Combined, this provides a steady stream of graduates, a growing number of whom aim to make a career in customer experience management, and have targeted GlowTouch as an employer of choice.

This pool of talent is also large enough that there have been no concerns raised about a labor saturation to date, a trend that threatens many outsourcing delivery points around the world.

Work / Life Balance

Another important advantage Managalore brings to the table is its ease of living. It is noted that during research for this white paper, the extent to which residents indicated their willingness to remain in Mangalore was pronounced. Many cite the city’s laid-back atmosphere, ease of getting around and affordability as key reasons. This has also been recognized in more broad terms by media outlets.3

Accessibility

For clients looking to access contact center delivery locations in as straightforward a manner as possible, Mangalore is well positioned. The city has recently constructed a modern international airport that has regular connections to domestic hubs and the Middle East. The city has an array of hotels geared toward Western visitors, and more are under construction.

On the ground, Mangalore’s road network is modern and well-organized, with traffic moving steadily at all times. It is noted that for traveling American executives, Mangalore will be less prone to the conges-tion that is commonplace in many larger Indian cities.

Conclusions

The delivery of top-flight services for US consumers is dynamic and enterprises that are looking to ensure quality interactions cannot stand pat. As more customers choose to connect with firms by way of non-voice channels, having the right partner in place can make a significant difference between a long-term relationship and one that is lost all too soon.

GlowTouch has emerged as a player to watch in this regard. By approaching customer experience with a wisely-crafted strategy that concentrates on quality people, facilities and delivery point, this company continues to disrupt in all the right ways. Its commitment to socially responsible and inclusionary policies only cements this fact further.

GlowTouch has proven adept at using its position as an employer of choice to find, hire and retain the best talent, which have a track record of getting the best results for consumers. As it expands to a new site in Mangalore, with plans to increase capacity in the US, these skills the company has nurtured will become even more important. The extent to which it has been awarded industry accolades validates this point. Moving forward, it will be an outsourcing provider that is highly likely to continue attracting the attention of forward-looking customer experience stakeholders.

1 https://www.mangalurusmartcity.net/2 https://www.numbeo.com/crime/rankings_current.jsp3 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mangaluru/mangaluru-is-the-most-livable-safest-city-in-karnataka/articleshow/65389105.cms