SOURCE: elfinancierocr

Benchmark Portal, a US-headquartered firm that assist contact center organizations with service excellence, has set up a regional center in  Costa Rica.

This company, which services 25,000 customers worldwide,  choose Costa Rica as a regional headquarters  due to the strong growth of the industry and also the incentives offered through Costa Rican Coalition for Development Initiative (Cinde), a governmental body.

“It was decided to come here also for the teaching of English,” said CEO Bruce Belfiore Benchmark Portal.

Among other services Benchmark Portal is dedicated to certifying compliance with  call center best practices and to compare results with business peers  in order for companies to improve performance and correct deficiencies. The aim is to standardize and continuously improve processes and quality control.

Orlando Morales, regional manager of corporate relations, in partnership with Purdue University in the United States, applies a proprietary methodology involving 24 processes.

For example, Benchmark Portal knows that 93% of companies conduct surveys with customers but less than 33% use this information to drive internal change.

He also said Jose Perez, regional manager for Latin America, have been asked why customers leave or do not use more than one company (call center) and 80% say it is because the service (contact center – agents) provided was very bad.

Criteria for certification

The company analyzes 43 sectors including insurance, banking, education, human resource management, financial services.

The certification process takes between one and three months, with annual audits and costing between $ 15,000 and $20,000.

Objectives include promoting human resource development and quality processes. The goals of the new company are very much in line with the vision of CINDE.  Vanessa Gibson, director of post establishment of CINDE, said that certification is beneficial and necessary for local contact centers.

Without doubt, Gibson said, there is pressure from parent companies of firms based in the country to improve their practices and services as well as pressure from customers.

The certification, Belfiore said, is a guarantee for the customer that your provider does things or struggle to improve them.

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