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Case study

A major e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia

Cutting costs while securing high customer satisfaction by setting up contact centers in multiple countries simultaneously

The e-commerce market in Southeast Asia is growing rapidly. This case study describes how a major e-commerce platform doing business mainly in Southeast Asia was able to keep costs down while securing high customer satisfaction by setting up contact centers in multiple countries simultaneously.
  • *Altius Link was formed through the merger of Relia, Inc. and KDDI Evolva.
  • *This case study describes the activities of Relia, Inc. and a major US e-commerce firm before the merger.

Contract details

Details of operations: Customer support operations in local markets

Locations Service channels Operators
Philippines Telephone, email, chat 120
Vietnam Telephone, email, chat 100
Thailand Email, chat 80
Philippines

Service channels : Telephone, email, chat
Operators : 120

Vietnam

Service channels : Telephone, email, chat
Operators : 100

Thailand

Service channels : Email, chat
Operators : 80

▷ Opening centers in three countries simultaneously cut costs by 30% while improving service abilities
▷ Setting up a dedicated quality control team achieved customer satisfaction of 90% or more
▷ Ranked highest among vendors in target total KPIs established by the major e-commerce platform

Background

  • Southeast Asia's growing e-commerce market

The e-commerce market in Southeast Asia is growing rapidly, reportedly by about tenfold from 2015 to 2025 *1 (to about JPY3 trillion). The region's largest e-commerce platform, which operates in seven countries centered on Southeast Asia, was receiving rapidly growing numbers of inquiries at its contact centers as its business grew. It needed to revise its operation structure, including vendors, quickly to handle growing inquiries and improve quality.
*1) Source: e-conomy SEA 2019

Topics

  • Handling rapidly growing inquiries

As inquiries are expected to grow tenfold or more from year to year, it is essential to increase desk numbers. This means that outsourcers need to have strong hiring capabilities and flexible expandability.

  • KPI (customer satisfaction) achievement

Customer satisfaction was identified as one KPI, but it was unmet continuously. Urgent improvements were needed to stop score from decreasing further as inquiries grew.

  • Building a structure that is able to control facilities in each country uniformly, for quality assurance.

Since the client does business in multiple Southeast Asian countries, it required operation structures suited to individual countries and systems capable of controlling all locations.

Measures

  • Opening centers in three countries simultaneously

Altius Link started operations at 50-desk centers each in three countries simultaneously: the Group companies MOCAP LTD. (Thailand), Altius Inspiro, Inc. (Philippines), and Altius Link Vietnam Joint Stock Company (Vietnam). We established operation structures suited to the individual countries, so that each facility can provide appropriate customer support. Furthermore, in choosing centers from these three countries we focused on expandability to secure desk space and actively hire local human resources in preparation for further business growth by client firms.

  • Review of operations by a dedicated quality control team

Previous vendors were unable to handle continual increases in inquiries, leading at times to lower response rates and associated decreases in customer satisfaction. This is why we established a dedicated quality control team at each facility. Specifically, quality managers accredited under the Six Sigma quality control framework investigated the causes of decreases in quality and review actual manuals and workflows. They also analyzed work that proved difficult for individual operators and held study sessions in small groups to improve business understanding and service skills.

  • Building of a management structure by our Overseas Business Division

In operating contact centers in multiple countries, we strived to improve the quality of operations through thorough cooperation between client business sites and the local contact centers in each country. Business administration was assigned to our Overseas Business Division as an international control function. We strived to ensure stable quality across the Southeast Asia region through sharing information on successful case studies in each country and direct communication with clients from a base in Singapore (Fig. 1).

  • Information sharing between facilities in different countries

Regular meetings by central managers from all the facilities. Sharing information on best practices and issues from the operations and discussing their backgrounds. Although countries supported differ, use of successful case studies from centers in other countries can help to achieve facility KPIs and improve service quality even more.

Results

Choice of expandable facilities and migrating operations to them, while improving quality, made it possible not only to handle rapidly growing inquiries but also to improve customer satisfaction, which had been underperforming continually, to over 90% within one year after we accepted the contract. We still maintain similar levels of customer satisfaction today. Active hiring of local human resources as operators through our strong hiring capabilities realized cost savings of about 30% compered to the previous vendor.

As a result of these measures, we were ranked highest among vendors on total KPIs specified by the e-commerce platform (separation rate, customer satisfaction, primary resolution rate, etc.). The client regards our operation abilities highly, and new orders and requests to expand contact center operations have doubled the scale of the business on one year since it began (to 120 desks in the Philippines, 100 in Vietnam, and 80 in Thailand).

Future

Many markets are experiencing rapid growth in ASEAN, centered on Southeast Asia. As a result, client inquiries are growing too, and we need to meet these. Our wholly owned subsidiaries play central roles in our ASEAN business. Their deep understandings of local business practices and cultures are strengths that enable us to operate contact centers with the same high-quality levels as in Japan.

In addition to operating contact centers at overseas facilities, we also leverage their overall strengths to realize globally optimized operations. Feel free to contact us about your needs.

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