It happens all the time in TT – you pick up your phone to call a private or public sector organisation for a simple query or update and you have one of the worst experiences as a customer. Either you are met with attitude or incompetence, or you wait for an hour on the phone to find out that you would still have to physically go to the office to address your issues.
But there are some sectors where customer service is the complete opposite. You are met with a warm, welcoming attitude; and even the melodic way we speak shines through to give a top class and in some cases award-winning customer experience.
The business processing outsourcing (BPO) sector is one of those areas where the best of TT’s qualities come to the fore to produce great customer service. Dr William Huggins, vice president, operations and country manager for iQor, a Florida-based BPO operating in TT, prides himself in saying his locally trained operating staff provide the best in customer service – a far cry from the service you would normally get with your chicken and chips, or your local bank.
Huggins in a conversation with Business Day said that people – teaching them, motivating them, and serving them through various business process operations – are at the core of IQor.
The largest BPO in TT
iQor landed in TT in 2015. An InvesTT case study on its website said it needed to facilitate the expansion of one of its existing clients, a well-known telecoms brand, by adding a new contact centre to its existing global fleet. The company wanted a suitable near shore location where it could implement performance-based employee management and get competitive labour. It established itself in Tamana InTech Park in Wallerfield for its first call centre. Since then it has expanded to two other areas – Barataria, and in January, Chaguanas.
Huggins said that iQor specialises in business processing operations – which is the delegation of multiple IT-intensive operations including customer service.
“What we do is manage customers’ engagement for various brands across the globe,” Huggins said. “A lot of companies are outsourcing a lot of their customer service elements. For example, you might say you are going to stay a night at Hyatt and you go online and see a number and you call. That number that you call to stay in Hyatt in Orlando, you might get someone from TT on the phone.”
What iQor does is manage the customer service aspects of businesses so they can focus on providing the product. A company would delegate specified functions, from customer service to human resources, to the service provider, and through its technology and training it would manage that aspect of the business.
Huggins said the BPO locally manages businesses in the financial industry, telecom providers, residential home insurance and is now venturing into the hospitality and healthcare sectors.
The company provides omnichannel support such as voice, chat, email and social media support using intelligent automation, conversational AI and speech analytics.
The newly
