• when the need for telecommunication services is fluctuating, for example with a seasonal activity
• when business volumes are irregular (peak activity) and require external support
• when a company prefers to focalize its financial and human resources on its core business and hand over the entire call center management to an experienced service provider
• when launching a new activity for which the outsourced contact center is managed on an occasional basis
• when a company wishes to benefit from the expertise of an outsourcing service provider and "discover" telephone services and constraints
  

Many companies use a combination of an in-house call center backed by the services of an outsourced provider. This solution may be a short and medium term option for companies that fear handing over their customer service to another company.

For example, when the in-house call center is saturated, the outsourced service provider can handle the overflow of calls and unburden the customer’s center.

The service provider’s telephone agents can also handle the contacts considered less "strategic". The core activity is taken care of in-house, while less specialized calls are covered by more generalist telephone operators.

Moreover, the combined solution makes it possible to compare the two services (in-house and outsourced) and determine the most advantageous solution. Prospecting, appointment scheduling, customer service, requests for basic information can easily be outsourced.

The year 2003 marked the real kickoff for outsourcing call centers to North African countries, following the Anglo-Saxon phenomenon of off-shoring and relocation to India.

Morocco, benefiting from being to a high extent French speaking, with very competitive labor costs and an excellent telecommunications network, has become the leading destination for these customer relationship activities with more than 4,000 operational jobs.

Countless success stories which can be categorized into 3 types have indeed attracted the attention of general managements on the benefits of outsourced call centers :

• An estimated 30 to 40% decrease in the hourly cost (including telecom) of processing a consumer call or email.
  
  
• Increased flexibility due to legal factors and social behaviors allowing for peak activity management which would be difficult and very expensive if conducted in France.
  
  
• Identical and sometimes even superior quality, due to telephone operators speaking French without accents, recruited for their academic profiles (on average 3-4 years of university studies) which are significantly higher than their French counterparts.
  
  

With a capacity of 4,500 jobs in Morocco for the French market, and 400 jobs in Romania, Webhelp is also the only ISO 9001/2008 certified offshore service provider covering the entire customer relationship activity.

"With more than three years experience, we have proved, and are backed by important customer references, that we are able to combine service quality and competitive prices," says Olivier Duha, Co-Chairman of Webhelp.

"Some companies may of course be tempted to set up their own offshore centers, but the difficulty of such projects that require strong local expertise and important human and financial resources, lies beyond 100 jobs. Our knowledge of these countries and the fact that our headquarters are in Paris where we run the program controls serve as quality guarantees. They mean we have our French customers close-at-hand and fully understand their requirements whilst cutting costs on our offshore locations,"says Olivier DUHA Co-Chairman of Webhelp.