Giovana:
Hi and welcome to the CX Coffee Chat. I’m your host, Giovana Dragone, Global Operations Excellence Manager at the Nest by Concentrix. And today we are here with Sara Pettinari, BPO Strategic Lead at Refurbed.
Hi Sara, welcome and thank you for joining us. Could you please introduce yourself to the audience
Sara:
Hello. Of course. Hi, Giovana. Very nice to be here today and be your guest!
I’m Sara Pettinari, I’m BPO strategically at Refurbed. Refurbed founded in 2017 and I joined in late 2018. So I’m one of the longest tenured employees, I would say. And I’m very excited to be here today.
Giovana:
Great, thank you. So now let’s start with our first question. Can you tell us more about Refurbed and its mission?
Sara:
Sure. So, Refurbed is actually the leading online marketplace in the German speaking countries for all about refurbished products. We actually started basically focusing on smartphones, tablets, laptops, but now we have a multi-category approach. So, we also offer household appliances, for example, or kids equipment, sports equipment. We are present in 11 European countries.
So yeah, basically our goal, our mission is to make the refurbished the new normal. So really our motto is to rethink new and look at not only the convenience in prices, but also most importantly the environmental impact.
Giovana:
Thank you, that’s very interesting. And can you provide an overview of your role as BPO Strategic Lead?
Sara:
Of course. So I think of my role as being a bit of a facilitator, I would say. I’m currently managing three BPO partners across four locations in Europe. And for us at Refurbed, outsourcing is all around the first level customer service operations. And basically for me, it’s really crucial to make sure that the voice of customers, which is really the point of contact that the first level agents have really is of top notch quality.
So my tasks vary from the performance monitoring to the adjustments in terms of forecasts, initiatives to include teams with our in-house teams, and of course, all of this in sort of iteration of processes and optimization.
Giovana:
Thank you. What role does outsourcing play in refurbed growth strategy and scale? And how do you ensure alignment with your partners?
Sara:
Well, it plays a crucial role, I can say. Of course, there’s the financial side. We always want to look at having the best quality for the best financial, let’s say, situation or conditions. And we are also always looking at the…impact that this has in terms of customer experience overall and customer happiness. So it really has a crucial role, especially considering that the first line of contact is really with all the outsourced teams that we have.
Giovana:
And are there any misconceptions about outsourcing that you would like to address or clarify?
Sara:
I mean, there are definitely some, especially if looking at it from the outside perspective, one might think that outsourcing is all about cost cutting in offshore solutions. I think this is the first misconception and the most present. But as I see it and as I experienced it so far, at Refurbed at least, it’s way more than just cost cutting or cost optimization.
Way more often, I would say, it’s about optimization of the operations themselves. Looking at a way on how to balance workload distribution in terms of, especially if we are having hybrid teams, so part of the team working from the in-house and part of the team working from an external partner. So that I think plays a way more important role. And on the other side, think another misconception lies on the fact that one might think agents from external teams are way less invested. So they might not have really in mind the vision and mission of the core company.
But as I saw it in my direct experience, this is really false! I see a lot of agents’ investment and involvement and really believe in the ultimate mission. But of course, this is one of the crucial things that have to be communicated from the very beginning, of course, and then has to also… be questioned and relieved in the day-to-day operations. It’s nothing that you just have and take for granted, of course.
Giovana:
Thank you, Sara. As AI becomes more prevalent, how do you see shaping the future of outsourcing and is preferred exploring those capabilities?
Sara:
So AI is currently, of course, very trending in the customer service operations, in customer experience topics overall. Definitely, it can shape both the nature of the interactions between customers and agents, but also, and most importantly to me, the experience of the agents themselves.
Because, for example, there are lot of situations in which we see now AI assist tools that really do not operate directly in the interaction with the final customer, but rather are a support to the agent in providing more swiftly, more rapidly the correct answer or solution to the inquiry.
So this is of course a topic also at Refurbed in the customer service department for us of course We really want to have a bit of a personal touch. So we don’t want to focus too much on finding all the solutions to our problems within the AI tools we are exploring this is not the level of dependence we want to reach. But basically for us, the approach would be exactly that of using it to provide support and to, let’s say, make the operations internally more efficient. So to facilitate a bit the agents’ job and to turn them into true experts.
Giovana:
And what KPIs or metrics are important to you when evaluating the success of a BPO partnership?
Sara:
We can start from the basics, like service level across the most important channels. Average handling time, of course, plays a role in terms of understanding how long does it take normally to handle a request. Should we differentiate among different tasks? But then for us, at least the quality score, the level of quality that a team as a whole and the single agents can reach is really one of the core points that we want to focus on. And all of this then is also taken into consideration when also analyzing CSAT, which is also one of the main KPIs, not only for the customer service department, but for the whole company as is Refurbed. So I would say that CSAT really in the end can find a correlation and the other way around to the previous KPIs that I mentioned.
Giovana:
What have been the biggest challenges you faced in your role at Refurbed and how have you overcome them?
Sara:
Well, personally, in this latest role, because I started as an agent myself, I then was a team lead for the second level operations, but I find the BPO strategic lead role as the various, I would say, and most challenging at the same time in terms of the variety of topics that you have to handle and to keep in mind, especially when navigating change, be it a change in the BPO setup or in a CRM tool that is used for the operations. I find having an ongoing communication and transparency while always keeping also the full picture in mind and the main goal in mind, that has been definitely a challenge.
I learn a lot, I’m still in an ongoing learning phase. But yes, I think it’s a very challenging and interesting role that you can a bit also tailor-made, depending on, of course, on the use case of your company. But balancing also the strategy and the operations, orchestrating all of this, also being as a facilitator, as I mentioned before between in-house and external teams.
Yeah, those topics really are keeping me very, very much, let’s say, working day in, day out. But I’m really happy to have this role. It’s a really great challenge and opportunity.
Giovana:
On the other hand, what are you most proud of in your current growth?
Sara:
I can say I can be most proud of the level of communication that was actually achieved with all the partners that we have. I think no matter how good or how bad a period in time can be in the cooperation with a specific partner, having the… security and safety to be able to speak openly, to be very transparent on what the situation is, what the common goal is, is really key to the success.
There might be ups and downs, this we can see really on a regular basis, but I think I can be very proud of the communications on high level that could be reached so far with the current BPO partners.
Giovana:
That’s nice to hear and I completely agree with that!
And for startups considering BPO partnerships, what key factors should they evaluate when choosing a provider?
Sara:
Well, this is a good question. I think, of course, there’s some level of personalized answer. I don’t want to say my answer is the answer. What I can recommend in my case is to look a bit on the why you want to do it, what’s the goal of outsourcing, and the how… meaning what’s the strategy behind it, what do you want to give over, when and for what reason. So having a clear path in mind on how would it be translated in the end, this outsourcing of operations.
So I think this is definitely important coupled with the question of course around costs. Not really like budget of course, but really the cost model. What kind of option and flexibility do we need and what kind of option and flexibility are there available in the market?
Giovana:
How do you recommend scaling customer operations without compromising on company values or service quality?
Sara:
Well, let’s say the approach that I would suggest can be like in three perspectives.
I would say first of all, do rather start small, in a smaller scale. Finding a partner that gives you that opportunity to not to have to start with a huge team size, being flexible also in terms of agreement, contractual agreement, timing and change procedures.
Secondly, I would advise to also stay close, so really connect to the team, to the management, but really also with the agents themselves, so that you can really share the values, the mission, be very transparent in that communication from day one, because I think that key connection at the beginning really can make the difference for the later stages.
And as a third point, at least for the beginning, what we experienced and what worked for us was to, or is still to keep the quality assurance in-house. So to really be able to be on top of the trends to be as proactive as possible whenever, you know, seeing challenges or trends that are going in the wrong direction. And of course, doing this always calibrating with the external team so that you can find a balance and find a common understanding what is quality to us.
Giovana:
What trends or innovations in customer experience are you excited about and how do you see them influencing Refurbed’s strategy?
Sara:
I think the main trend or innovation is what I mentioned already, that is the sort of AI powered agent assist. So assisting or AI assistant tools that I think could really empower in the end the agent, making them not anymore like a mere agent, even though the agent work is already like a real challenge, I can assure, but really to make them into experts. So to have them then really focus on what matters most and what is more complex of a higher level of complexity. I think this is a very interesting innovation to follow and to invest at least time to investigate into.
For us at Refurbed, an important opportunity is sentiment analysis. So tools that allow you to, based on the text, on the communication with the customers, to really real-time identify issues, identify via keywords what’s happening, what’s the topic.
And this is really, I think, something that could open a new way, a strategy to become way more proactive. Because of course, the trend so far has always been okay to react to what customers tell us. But with this sentiment analysis, we might become faster and faster in recognizing the issue and to change perspective and to become proactive in the end.
Giovana:
Refurbed emphasizes sustainability in its mission. How does this principle influence your approach to customer operations?
Sara:
Well, this question is a good question and one that we have also asked recently directly to our agents, our teams. I think first and foremost, we use and benefit from each and every interaction that we have, especially if on the phone, as an opportunity to really reinforce how the customer can impact positively by choosing refurbished over new. So really we use each interaction to underline that and to be grateful for their choice. And this in the end really means that they are advocating for our brand and we can really see a shift in the mentality of the customer themselves.
Then looking a bit more into how we run operations in general, we basically have the standard setup of working from home as teams, both in-house at Refurbed, but also with our BPO partners for the majority, or at least we give this flexibility and opportunity. And lastly, of course, we want to also only choose BPO partners, providers that align with our values and that really can prove that they focus on the positive impact not only environmentally but also socially.
Giovana:
Thank you, Sara. Any last piece of advice that you would like to share with our audience?
Sara:
Yes, I think the key word that I have in my mind when I have to give an advice is to stay connected, to do networking. Be it really internally with the management of course of your BPO partners to always align how are we doing, question the current setup, can we do something better or more efficiently.
But also networking with stakeholders from the industry overall, industry, so customer service, customer experience, to always have a bit of a fresh perspective to broaden, to also uncover perhaps new opportunities for the business itself, for cooperation, and also to challenge then existing processes because when hearing something from another completely different perspective or company, you might still uncover something that you have never challenged yourself for your company, for your department. So I think, finally, keeping the conversation going is a way to drive the long-term success.
Giovana:
Thank you so much, Sara, for joining us today. It was great having you here. And thank you all for listening. This was the CX Coffee Chat.
Sara:
Thank you.
