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CLIENT PROFILE
Our client is a leading, publicly-traded, global consumer goods corporation that has operations on six continents, with more than 55,000 employees and over $34 billion in revenue. Our client’s division provides a range of shared services functions from Costa Rica for the corporation’s business units in the Americas, including North, South, and Central America and the Caribbean. A key area of service is the Human Resources (HR) Service Desk, which includes support for the company’s current and past employees.
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
The client had set up a centralized team to support HR administration activities. However, the volume of requests from the more than 7,000 employees across the Americas was overwhelming the current team structure. Without formal processes, customer service was poor and inconsistent – often lacking follow-up and visibility into the status of issues and how they were being handled.
To help manage the volume and improve overall customer satisfaction levels, the client wanted to create a Level 1 HR Help Desk function to triage initial contacts, resolve more basic requests, and escalate issues that required more detailed responses. With no experience establishing an inbound contact center-type function, they decided to outsource the service to a third party.
A key criterion was finding an outsourcing partner based in Costa Rica, where the client’s shared services center is located. The client prioritized choosing a provider located near its current center to make it easier to facilitate the transition, collaboration, and communication between the two parties.
SOLUTION & APPROACH
Auxis was selected as the ideal partner because of its deep expertise in designing business processes and operating IT Service Desks and Customer Service Centers for dozens of other clients for more than 10 years.
Key steps of the transition included:
With no formal processes previously in place, Auxis built a High-Performance HR Service Desk from the ground up. Auxis’team defined the scope the help desk would support with the client’s executive team and established protocols to address those issues and escalate them appropriately.
Since 2014, Auxis has provided Level 1 HR Support Services via phone, email, and employee portal to the company’s past and current employees in 16 countries across the Americas, including the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and the Caribbean. Auxis’ team also handles inquiries from related third parties, such as banks seeking employment verifications.
Specific support services include:
- HR Help Desk
- HR Administration
- Benefits Administration
- HR Compliance and Administrative Reporting
The Auxis team provides multilingual support to the diverse Americas region, with resources fluent in Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese.
Auxis created a leveled team structure to support more complex service requests. Junior Agents are supplemented by Senior Agents and a Team Leads to increase the level of support from Level 1 to essentially Level 1.5, with defined protocols on service requests that needed escalation and follow-up.
Auxis provided the operating platform for Level 1 Support, using the Five9 Contact Center System for inbound calls and self-service portal access. However, since the client utilizes the same HR processes at three shared services centers globally, Auxis also customized its solution to incorporate other systems that the client already had in place. After the program started, Auxis further adapted its services to accommodate the client’s transition to cloud-based computing – for instance, moving from managing SAP files electronically to training its teams to become experts in cloud-based Success Factors software.
To maximize security and manage complexity, Auxis accessed the client’s systems through a special connection tunnel that was only available to select users from the Auxis Global Delivery Center in Costa Rica.
With an outsourcing model focused on functioning as an extension of the client’s team, Auxis created formal processes for handoffs, escalations, and interactions between internal and outsourced teams that center around daily communication. For instance, the Auxis team is tasked with managing employee absences, which includes inputting vacations and sick leaves. While the client’s internal team handles the more complex payroll process, the two teams work together seamlessly to ensure payroll is calculated correctly based on absences and issues are resolved quickly.
Auxis provided a Quality Assurance (QA) program through its Customer Support Center of Excellence (CoE) to measure team member performance against established company standards, report on results, and proactively address any performance concerns with additional coaching and training.
RESULTS
Auxis was able to quickly establish a fully functioning Human Resources Help Desk, working with the client to define specific service level metrics as well as service-level reporting. While the program initially supported employees in Latin America and the Caribbean, excluding Brazil, the client recognized its effectiveness early on and increased the geographic scope to include Brazil and North America.
Some of the key benefits the client has been able to achieve through its HR outsourcing relationship with Auxis include:
99.6% Customer Satisfaction Score
With structured processes, best practices, best-in-class technology solutions, and proven talent, Auxis delivered a higher level of service to employees that quickly achieved near-perfect results in customer satisfaction surveys.
HR Support that Significantly Beat Client Targets
From the start, the Auxis team delivered overall performance metrics that significantly surpassed the high targets the client set:
- 98+% QA scores (97% target)
- 99+% Process Accuracy (98% target)
- Average Handle Time of 4:37 minutes (6:00 minute target)
- Average Speed to Answer of 15 seconds (45-second target)
- Abandonment Rate of 2% (4% target)
Flexibility to Scale Up or Down as Business Evolves
The Auxis team handles approximately 1.2 tickets per employee per month for the client across all channels – averaging more than 8,000 tickets per month for the more than 7,000 current and past employees it supports. Auxis also provides the ability to scale resources up and down as demand changes.
Improved Visibility and Structure Around Ticket Status
Auxis provides detailed reporting on the various service requests, including a breakdown by location, category, employee type, and more. As a result, the client gains visibility and insight into where tickets sit and how they are handled.
Simplified Talent Management & Access To Best Practices
By outsourcing this function to Auxis, the client does not have to deal anymore with the ongoing effort of hiring, training, and retaining a Help Desk Operation that typically experiences high turnover and service issues if not managed properly.
The client was also able to get access to help desk best practices and systems for a fraction of the cost.
Internal Staff Freed to Focus on Higher-Value HR Functions
Under the old structure, a lack of formal processes meant any HR employee could be tasked with any service request that came in. By creating a formalized, outsourced HR Service Desk, in-house employees can stay focused on more important HR tasks like payroll and employee retention.
