Press Room

ATLANTA, Ga — December 3, 2002 — Spherion® Outsourcing Group, the division of Spherion Corporation that is a leading provider of outsourcing services, today announced that it is expanding the strategic focus and technical infrastructure of its customer development solutions business to accelerate client revenue-generation capabilities through its contact center operations. The expansion is designed to help clients who are looking for effective ways to increase sales opportunities beyond the traditional sales force in order to drive bottom-line improvements. It is in line with the results of a recent survey, conducted by Spherion in collaboration with Chief Executive Magazine, which found that driving profitability and increasing customer loyalty have displaced cost reduction as the primary concerns of chief executives today, indicating that maximizing lifetime customer value will be a key market trend and business strategy to sustain long-term growth.

Industry experts have reported that some 70% to 90% of all customer interactions occur through a company’s contact center, creating a substantial number of live opportunities to build customer loyalty and incremental revenue through exceptional customer experiences.  With more than 55 years’ experience in recruiting and managing people, workforce optimization is Spherion’s DNA, suggests Bill Parker, president of Spherion Customer Development Solutions. “In high-touch environments such as contact centers, even the most innovative technologies and highly efficient processes are merely tools for the people on the front line—the customer service representatives who are interacting with customers everyday. We are convinced that the right people, applying professional service skills and customer insight, enabled by real-time performance support tools, are the key to developing customer relationships and delivering value-added revenue.”

 Brian Bingham, program manager for CRM and Customer Care Services for IDC, added, “Many outsourcing failures have been due to an emphasis on technology with little or no consideration of the human impact on business process performance. Spherion's coupling of workforce management expertise with outsourcing is a key differentiator for the company, particularly within the context of the CRM services industry."

As the industry continues to be plagued by high turnover rates of 80% to 100% and a shrinking workforce, many leading analyst firms have begun reporting on the importance of the human factor in contact center operations.  In a recent Yankee Group report, Spherion was featured in a case study that illustrated how human performance management enabled by the right technologies can generate measurable improvements, such as accelerated speed-to-proficiency, increased productivity and reduced attrition.

Spherion helps clients transform the call center from a transaction processing center to a customer development asset by aligning their customer service professionals and interaction center operations with client business and marketing strategies. The integration of Spherion’s forthcoming CM^360SM technology architecture within each client’s business will leverage an exclusive competency-based routing ^SM (CBR) approach to ensure that the best agent is “custom matched” with the right customer to deliver the best results, thus maximizing the contact experience.

By January 2003, Spherion will unveil the key components and execution strategy for CM³⁶⁰.     The revolutionary approach will provide real-time analytics to the agent desktop based on customer intelligence and customer insight at the point of interaction to maximize problem resolution, customer service and sales opportunities.

About Spherion

Spherion Corporation provides recruitment, outsourcing and technology services.  Founded in 1946, with operations in North America , Europe and Asia/Pacific, Spherion helps companies efficiently plan, acquire and optimize talent to improve their bottom line. 

In outsourcing, Spherion assumes total accountability for critical customer-centric business processes, helping clients maximize business performance and increase profitability through customer development solutions, employment process solutions and administrative services.  As a market leader in call center services, Spherion leverages a full range of customer development capabilities, including industry-specific pre-employment screening and assessment tools, specialized recruiting, staffing and training, integrated technology architecture, and best practice contact center operations. Spherion manages and operates customer contact center operations both domestically and internationally for Fortune 1000 companies, handling more than one million contacts each week on behalf of clients. For more information, visit www.spherion.com/outsourcing.