request for information · wsol llc. dba working solutions is headquartered at 19111 dallas pkwy...
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1 Confidentiality Notice: This document is confidential and contains proprietary information and intellectual property of Working Solutions, LLC. Neither this document nor any of the information contained herein may be reproduced or disclosed under any circumstances without the express written permission of Working Solutions, LLC
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION Overview and Questionnaire
Peloton
Vendor Name: Working Solutions
Questionnaire Contributors: Brandon DelVecchio, Troy Hesselgesser, Kristin Skiko, Tamara Schroer, Tracey Sloan, Billy West and April Wiita
2 Confidentiality Notice: This document is confidential and contains proprietary information and intellectual property of Working Solutions, LLC. Neither this document nor any of the information contained herein may be reproduced or disclosed under any circumstances without the express written permission of Working Solutions, LLC
GENERAL 1. Provide your company’s legal name, address, and headquarters location WSOL LLC. dba Working Solutions is headquartered at 19111 Dallas Pkwy #180, Dallas, Texas 75287. Operating virtually for 24 years, Working Solutions is a recognized leader in on-demand, onshore contact center outsourcing. The company has placed in the FlexJobs Top 100 Companies for Remote Jobs for the past six years—the last five in the Top 10. This recognition helps us attract the best talent, agents with industry-specific skills, for clients. Primary Contact: Brandon DelVecchio, Director of Business Development o: (469) 929-2620 / m: (805) 657-8755 /[email protected]. Secondary Contact: Troy Hesselgesser, SVP Business Development, m: 949-355-3646 /[email protected]. Website:
In 2020, Working Solutions again made the FlexJobs list of top companies, including Appen, Amazon and UnitedHealth Group. Read more >
(VIDEO) 20+ Years of Great Customer Experiences. In 1996, visionary entrepreneur Kim Houlne saw the need for on-demand contact center services. Watch Video >
Business-to-business site workingsolutions.com.
Agent/jobsite – jobs.workingsolutions.com.
3 Confidentiality Notice: This document is confidential and contains proprietary information and intellectual property of Working Solutions, LLC. Neither this document nor any of the information contained herein may be reproduced or disclosed under any circumstances without the express written permission of Working Solutions, LLC
2. Provide the name, address, and location of your parent company, if applicable N/A. We are a privately held company, solely owned by our founder and chief executive Kim Houlne.
3. Please describe products and services that your company provides. Working Solutions provides clients a wide variety of business process outsourcing (BPO) services for diverse industries, such as consumer services, healthcare, retail, travel and hospitality. Those services include the people and technology to support customer care, sales, technical support, back-office administration, data entry and billing.
4. Describe any third parties you are dependent upon for the delivery of your services Working Solutions is not reliant on any third parties in providing dedicated, onshore, work-at-home agents. All aspects of delivering exceptional, white-glove service to our clients’ customers are provided by internal U.S.-based. corporate employees. They include: workforce management, recruiting, agent onboarding (education), operations, aligned with client-specific key performance indicators (KPIs), as well as information technology and finance. As a virtual company, we practice what we preach. We have 180+ employees, with 80% of them officing offsite and the rest working at the Dallas corporate headquarters. Remote workers include executives from our senior management team. Occasionally our partners need an omnichannel platform set up for our agents to handle customer interactions. In that case we would use a third-party provider, depending on needs. We prefer Bright Pattern, due to it being a true, omnichannel platform. We have, however, worked on almost all the platforms available. We are glad to discuss options with each client to ensure the best platform or their specific needs.
4 Confidentiality Notice: This document is confidential and contains proprietary information and intellectual property of Working Solutions, LLC. Neither this document nor any of the information contained herein may be reproduced or disclosed under any circumstances without the express written permission of Working Solutions, LLC
5. List the top 5 market segments serviced (i.e. high-tech, retail, transportation, auto, consumer products, food and government) Here's a look at our revenue by industry last year:
Top 3 services provided and percent of business for each.
• Customer Care — 54% • Consultative Sales — 31% • Tech-and-user Support — 15%
6. Please list the location & size of any of your physical call center sites As a virtual business, Working Solutions has a 100% work-at-home contact center agent model for the past 24-years. The company does not operate any brick-and-mortar locations, which can be shut down due to storms or crises, such as the coronavirus pandemic. Agents are distributed throughout the U.S. and Canada, which enables us to shift resources and move work outside of harm’s way. This flexibility and scalability ensure nonstop customer service for clients.
7. How much of your work is comprised of agents at physical call centers vs work from home agents? As noted above, Working Solutions provides 100% work-at-home agents and does not operate any physical call centers.
5 Confidentiality Notice: This document is confidential and contains proprietary information and intellectual property of Working Solutions, LLC. Neither this document nor any of the information contained herein may be reproduced or disclosed under any circumstances without the express written permission of Working Solutions, LLC
8. Are your agents employees or contractors? All of our contact center agents are independent contractors (1099). They are customer service professionals with industry-specific skills, working from home throughout the United States and Canada.
9. How many work from home agents do you currently have on contract? Active agent headcount for our company varies greatly, depending on time of year, and helping clients with peak seasonal demands or unforeseen events. On average, we have 3,500 to 6,000 active agents that we receive invoices from in a given month.
10. What is the average tenure of your work from home agents? On average, an agent works with us for several years, with the mean being 2.8 years. During that time, an agent might be assigned to only one client or work for several, depending on the duration and requirements of the programs. A number of agents have stayed with us for more than five years. In fact, it's not uncommon to have agents with a tenure of 10 years at Working Solutions. Beyond that, there are even agents celebrating 15 years of customer service with us. Chief executive Kim Houlne makes a point of recognizing agent milestones.
11. What is the average education level of your work from home agents? Education attained as a percent of total agent population:
• Highschool Diploma or equivalent – 15% • Some college attended – 40% • Bachelor’s Degree – 40% • Master’s Degree – 5%
Enit | Agent since 2001– Resource leader in the communications industry.
Kathleen | Agent since 2007– Works as a corporate travel agent.
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12. Where are your work from home agents located? We currently have active agents in all 50 states, and in Canada. Depending on each client’s specific need, we are able to recruit in specific areas of the country. For business continuity, we will not have more than 20% of an agent population in the same region for each client. Again, this is a strength of the distributed, on-demand workforce. Engaged Agent Density by States and Provinces
13. What languages do you currently serve? At one time or another, we've supported more than 30 languages to engage our clients' customers. Seeking bilingual agents is built into our corporate culture. During the agent profile assessment, there is a language component that tests comprehension. In the live interview, a talent specialist will assess the fluency—spoken and in writing—that an applicant claims in a particular language. We contract out some of the testing if Working Solutions
This map breaks down
agent density by location
> 500 300-499
100-299 < 100
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does not have a talent specialist fluent in that language. The most prevalent languages that clients need are English, Spanish and French-Canadian. Besides being fluent in a desired language, we also know it's important for agents to "speak the culture" of a client's customers. That means understanding the nuances and subtleties of a client's customer segments, as well as any regional influences.
14. Which channels can your work from home agents serve (i.e., phone, chat, email, etc)? Working Solutions supports all traditional and evolving customer-service channels, including voice chat, social, email, text and video.
8 Confidentiality Notice: This document is confidential and contains proprietary information and intellectual property of Working Solutions, LLC. Neither this document nor any of the information contained herein may be reproduced or disclosed under any circumstances without the express written permission of Working Solutions, LLC
15. Please provide a few examples of relevant clients that would be available for reference calls
Company: Intuit – Turbo Tax
Service Provided: Omni-channel tax support Pete Vegors - Customer Success, Partner Manager 2800 E Commerce Center Pl. Tucson, AZ 85706 Work Phone: 520-901-2719 Cell Phone: 520-343-2942 [email protected] Company: Biotel Heart
Service Provided: Heart monitoring device setup and support Lisa Fischer – SVP Operations 1000 Cedar Hollow Road, Suite 102 Malvern, PA 19355 Work Phone: 610-729-7016 Cell Phone: 610-507-7474 [email protected]
Company: Monat Global
Service Provided: Retailer of premium hair and skincare products Kimberley Hayes 3450 NW 115th Ave. Doral, FL 33178 (786) 828-9449 [email protected]
16. What is your minimum for FTE or hours? As a dedicated agent model, we do require a minimum of 15 FTE or 2,580 agent staffed hours per month: 1 full-time equivalent (FTE) = 172 hours in a month.
17. What is your supervisor to employee ratio? This varies from program to program. On average, it’s 15:1 or 20:1. We will work with Peloton to achieve the right agents-to-leader ratio.
9 Confidentiality Notice: This document is confidential and contains proprietary information and intellectual property of Working Solutions, LLC. Neither this document nor any of the information contained herein may be reproduced or disclosed under any circumstances without the express written permission of Working Solutions, LLC
18. Please describe your pricing model(s) for your standard services, and provide information about the key drivers of each cost (Ex. Per agent, per hour, rates) Agent onboarding per FTE: Nominal fee per FTE covers talent management, recruiting, provisioning users on systems and security and systems compliance assessments. Remote agent preparation: This varies with the client program. Preparation for Peloton will be determined by your customer-service trainers and Working Solutions educators, who are degreed teaching professionals proficient in long-distance learning. After a client’s training curriculum is adapted for the virtual classroom, agent instruction can range from a day or two to several weeks or more. The complexity of the program determines the depth and duration of the agent lessons. Once schooled in a client’s business and on the job, refresher education is done for several months afterward to ensure the teaching sticks and updates are incorporated. Agent billable time: For most clients, we bill by productive agent hour, which includes the following agent states: talk, hold, wrap (ACW) and available time while waiting for customer interactions. We are able to bill on a utilized agent hour (talk/hold/wrap) if that is preferable to Peloton as well. All associated account management is included in the agent billable rate. We do not charge anything extra for it.
19. Please provide your implementation services & associated costs While launching a dedicated team for Peloton, we have several processes to ensure a successful kick-off.
Recruiting – Determine Peloton’s preferred agent profile and attributes. Using both online and offline channels we recruit to the ideal specifications you need.
Train-the-trainer (TTT) – Our educators will coordinate a time to fly to your facilities (or conduct using videoconferencing if current circumstances determine that to be necessary) and meet with your head instructors to review all of the training materials. They also will discuss Peloton’s brand so we can immerse our agents in your culture, which is essential for success. This way, agents become an extension of your brand. Based on Peloton’s typical 80 hours of training, TTT will be approximately fifty percent (50%) of total agent training, 40 billable hours at $200 per hour.
IT platform and system support – Our IT team will work hand-in-hand with Peloton’s technology team to create an agent onboarding process. This includes: streamlining login credentials for agents, accessing client systems, and creating secure connections for agents. Considering Working Solutions agents will be using Peloton’s platform and systems, this would be billable for approximately 10 to 15 total hours at $200 per hour as a one-time initial setup fee if needed.
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20. How quickly can you get a new client up and running? That question can be answered in two ways: normal times vs. critical times like now that are affecting all of us. Normal times: In most cases, we are able to move as quickly as our clients need. A standard launch of up to 100 to 150 FTEs will take about 60 to 90 days—from contract signatures to agents taking live customer interactions. Critical times: In emergency situations, we can drastically expedite the launch process, if needed. Here is a current example of how quickly we launched 150 FTEs for a client due to the COVID-19 impact:
21. Please describe your implementation process once a contract is signed Working Solutions’ dedicated Peloton team will consult with your service operations and internal staff onsite to design, develop and deliver an implementation plan. Your business cycles, customers and culture will be studied as the plan is drafted and put in place. The Working Solutions team will take your service training and adapt it to the virtual classroom, then roll it out to agents via educator-led instruction and continue fine-turning it while being delivered. In essence, we create an on-demand service workforce in Peloton’s image, reflecting the company’s brand and beliefs. This is all is customized to each specific client.
11 Confidentiality Notice: This document is confidential and contains proprietary information and intellectual property of Working Solutions, LLC. Neither this document nor any of the information contained herein may be reproduced or disclosed under any circumstances without the express written permission of Working Solutions, LLC
22. Please describe your support model for your clients Unlike traditional, brick-and-mortar centers, we do not have a program supervisor. The illustration below shows the team structure with a brief explanation of the roles. We have found that a program manager and the appropriate support works best in our virtual space and with clients. Based on program size, we will scale and grow the support roles as needed to ensure strong agent performance. Account Management Process. The chart below walks through the account management methodology:
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23. What capabilities, processes, or services set you apart from your competitors? Why should Peloton choose you over your competitors? Recruitment process and methods: Clients find our recruiting-and-assessment process of applicants to be more rigorous and in-depth than those of other service providers. Because we offer white-glove service, our standards are high and expectations great for the agents we select. Education and Development: We use degreed educators (featured below) as our instructors. Everyone has a minimum of a bachelor’s in education and quite a few have master’s degrees. All of them must have at least five (5) years of classroom experience before joining our Education and Development team. They’re well-versed in the virtual classroom and long-distance learning, as are their teaching assistants.
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The overall quality expectations will vary by program and client need. We do not have a one size fits all approach, however, our process for agent coaching, touch and performance improvement is standard across all programs.
1. Step 1: Education process 2. Step 2: SALT (strategic agent learning techniques)
• 30 to 90 days with Development Team o Coaching/call review o Workshops o Working Solutions University activities
3. Step 3: Handoff from Development to Operations
o Ongoing coaching call review o Dedicated quality improvement specialists o Roundtables/huddles o Call-sharing o Specific modules/ongoing education
Program Success Team: All corporate employees for Working Solutions are U.S.-based and directly manage all aspects of each partner program for consistency and exceptional quality. We do not have third parties or offshore employees managing agents. We provide all needed services through our corporate teams, such as operations, workforce management, information technology and finance. Flexible Staffing: We staff 2-to-3 agents per full-time equivalent (FTE). This way, we are able to put the agent headcount where the support volume is needed, and then back off of headcount when the volume drops. In a traditional, brick-and-mortar contact center, you have only one person, who equates to 1 FTE. That agent will typically work a 6-to-8-hourblock. With multiple agents working those same hours, Working Solutions can stack the headcount together or stagger the shifts to fluctuate with the volume. With short-term volume spikes for product launches, we have additional dedicated headcount available to handle increased customer interactions.
24. How long is a home agent required to stay on your account (e.g. agents must stay on an account for 3 months) We do not have specific stipulations on how long agents must remain on specific partner programs since they are 1099 contractors. We do try and be transparent as possible with all agents on the needs of each specific program ahead of time so there are no surprises. For instance, if a retail client is going to need agents to work more hours than typical for Black Friday and the following few days, then we want to set those expectations when onboarding the agents to the program so they are well aware of the client’s support needs.