David Cushman — HFS Research[00:05]
Hello and welcome to this latest Hot Vendor Fireside, and today we’re talking to Working Solutions. They were a Q2 2022 hot vendor. The pandemic accelerated a trend towards work from home, but models to support it have been maturing for decades. And one early mover, from long before lockdowns forced us all to go remote, is Working Solutions, a US onshore, completely virtual contact center BPO provider. The company’s remote workforce includes sales, customer care, and technical experts, providing multi-channel customer experience services, analytics, and back office support. Working Solutions has a network of 150,000-plus on-demand contact center work-from-home agents, all independent contractors across the United States and Canada. The company is known for flexible workforce capabilities to scale up and down sales and customer service quickly. Its sophisticated virtual workforce, recruiting, education, and operations capabilities are its strengths and differentiators. HFS named Working Solutions an HFS OneOffice hot vendor in Q2 of 2022 for its effective answer to questions of workforce models and employee engagement, among the most important hot-button issues of our day. So while many companies continue to grapple with the nuances of remote and hybrid working, and how to leverage gig models to augment the workforce as a new reality, companies like Working Solutions have been doing this for decades. Today I’m joined by April Wiita, VP of Program Success. April, tell us a bit more about what you’re actually delivering and who for.
April Wiita — VP, Program Success, Working Solutions[02:00]
Good morning, David. Thank you for having me. Great introduction — you said it very well and covered it all, on the avenues in which we support. But with our delivery and for who? Anyone and everyone, right? So from retail to healthcare to tax preparation, tech support, you name it, from a customer service support side all the way to tech support. So really, when you ask, delivery on demand, our on-demand solutions are for all.
David Cushman — HFS Research[02:29]
So that’s something that maybe quite a lot of other companies do. You do it in a bit of a different way. You do it — I understand you were set up from the get-go to be an organization that allowed people to work when they chose to work and work from home, etc. Which was potentially revolutionary when the idea first sprang, but why did you make that choice in the first place? What was it that you saw happening in the market that you thought this would be a good response to?
April Wiita — VP, Program Success, Working Solutions[03:00]
Right. Well, over 27 years ago when we got started, I think Kim Houlne was definitely taking the lead. She was the vanguard taking us in that next direction, right? And we were one at one point, and now we are one of many. So I shared this story just the other day, that we used to really pride ourselves on: we are the work-from-home company. And then the pandemic came, and as other companies started getting to work at home, pretty soon everyone was work at home, and we were no longer the special snowflake, and we had to continue to find ways to stand out and continue to keep delivery high. When you asked earlier who do we deliver for, I named a few of the verticals and the clients’ areas that we support, but I have a neat real story on delivery, if you want me to incorporate that. I’d love to share it, because I think it sums up best what we do. So if we have a moment for that — so, in 2023, it’s my favorite story so far. It was the weekend of New Year’s Eve, and if you were following what was going on with holiday travel, it was a nightmare between weather and thousands, hundreds of thousands of cancellations. And so we followed along as a company, and we realized one airline was really struggling, and over New Year’s weekend, we reached out, several of our senior leaders: what can we do to help? We see it, we feel it, how can we help you? And we got a call back, much to probably my surprise over a holiday weekend, we got a call back. And on New Year’s Day, we sat with senior leaders from this organization, our senior leaders, and we mapped out a plan on how we could solve for their struggles. We were ready to go the next day, but within three days, Working Solutions was able to have over 1,000 agents trained and ready to work a backlog of tickets and refunds for this particular airline. We worked 250,000 cases in less than five days. So we thought, on New Year’s Day when we all sat together, this partnership is gonna be fast, maybe a week, maybe two weeks tops. We cleared that backlog so quickly, our partner came back saying, can you do Tier 2, we think you guys can do this next level? We sure can. We took that on. That stint was supposed to be one to two weeks, it went two months, and we were able to help get them out of the backlog, turn it around quickly, help solve for their problems. The pain became our pain, and together we got through it. So when you ask how do we deliver and for who, that’s just one example.
David Cushman — HFS Research[05:09]
That’s a really good example, and it begs the question, how do you deliver that speed? I note that one of the things that you are a differentiated organization for is the kind of sophistication and quality of the training to make people able to do this kind of thing. But I guess with 1,000 people you’ve got to load into something perhaps they’re not familiar with. How do you actually tackle the pace of change requirement that’s implicit in that?
April Wiita — VP, Program Success, Working Solutions[06:09]
I think it starts in the beginning, with our recruiting process. We really do have a process that goes through and brings the best of the best, who are ready at any time to go into the service side and support. So when we did the 1,000, what made it fast and easy for us is we are on demand. As you mentioned, we have 150,000-plus agents at any given time, but in our current pool, we were able to just pull from the best of our best agents. We were able to post out who’s interested, who can do this at a fast pace and learn the training quickly, and then they self-selected into the process. And with our training, from recruiting right into the training, we have an amazing education team. They teamed up with our partner and said, how can we do this quick? How can we work together, do a quick train-the-trainer and get this out? So I think the execution from the education side made it easy for our agents to digest and come in quickly, producing strong results.
David Cushman — HFS Research[06:46]
That makes sense. So, interesting for me is how you got to this place in the first place. You started off, I’m guessing, with not thousands of people available at the drop of a hat. So what’s the journey been like? How did the scale-up happen, and what were the challenges along the way?
April Wiita — VP, Program Success, Working Solutions[07:28]
You know, I won’t be able to do this story justice as much as Kim Houlne, when she started 27 years ago and was a company of one, and here we are today. But I think it’s evolved over time. It’s constantly looking at what do we need to do next, being innovative at all times. When I joined the company 13 years ago, I remember I thought, how do they do this? I had come from a brick-and-mortar center. My background has been in call centers forever. And when I came to the virtual side of it, we had less than half of the agents at our disposal that we have today. And I remember thinking, how do they do this virtually? There’s no way you can do this. You can’t walk around and connect with people and build a strong team. And I learned quickly, when Kim sat me down, she said, everything you would do in your brick-and-mortar call center, you can do virtually. And I thought, that’s impossible — and it’s not. And so I think over the years, what we’ve done is we’ve had that mentality of, we can really do anything. We can reach out to any of our experts, and what’s helped grow our agent community is that high engagement, that personal touch, that anything you can do in person, you can do virtual. Our customer service agents, they don’t feel like a number, they feel like a name. And we make it our goal to never let them feel like they’re on an island by themselves. So if you’re one of 100,000 agents, you’ve gotta feel like you’re part of something, and I think our culture over the years has done that and has built a strong community. Referrals are everything. So as we continue to grow, our reputation — we’re one of the best out there. When we look at the rankings that come from the agent community directly, it’s one of the highest in the network, and I think that’s what helps us continue to grow: our culture, our engagement, and our ability to foster that within our agent community.
David Cushman — HFS Research[09:26]
Well, there are clear lessons there for everyone who’s struggling with this transition to hybrid. We’ve talked about the passing of the great resignation, maybe a swing of the pendulum back towards the employer, given the economic headwinds that we’re seeing in inflation and the cost of living for folk, the layoffs that we’re seeing. But I guess there’s still the challenge of taking your people with you when you can’t see them. It’s one of the things we’ve seen going on — we’ve seen the likes of Salesforce saying, hey, we’re not as productive when we’re not in the office, everybody get back in the office. What would you say to people who are maybe under the misapprehension that productivity is impacted by not being in the office? What’s your experience of that been?
April Wiita — VP, Program Success, Working Solutions[10:28]
You know, it goes back to what you mentioned earlier, how do we do it? It really is people, process, tools. So you’ve got to always have the right people, both on the agent side, the customer service agent, starting with recruiting. You have to have the right people and leaders driving those results and building those relationships, and you have to have the right technology and the process. And so I think at Working Solutions, we work with all of our clients to hear what their needs are. They’re all different, right? When you work with multiple clients, they all have different expectations and goals. So identifying what their goals are, outlining a clean, clear process of how to get there and driving it, and then having the right tools and technology. So in a virtual space, your agents — you might have one in Texas and another up in northern Wisconsin — how do you get them to feel like they’re together on the same team, and then above and beyond that, how do you get them to feel like they are brand ambassadors for your clients, that they’re representing your client and they feel like they’re part of it? And you can do that in the virtual space in a variety of ways, but I think through technology, our team does a great job bringing everyone together in virtual settings, virtual huddles. And then even right down to the personal touch, something that Kim Houlne does that is very cool, is she will travel around the United States — especially, we had a pause during the pandemic, we’re excited that we’re gonna be bringing this back in 2023, and she started in late 2022 — doing luncheons, doing meetings where she’ll travel around the United States, and she’ll find areas in which we have a heavy population, or a nice-sized population, of our agent community, and she’ll travel there, and she’ll host a lunch, host a dinner, and get to know them. It’s almost unheard of in the industry that we’re in, that the president and CEO will still continue to do that. So I think it’s the little differences, from the people touch all the way to using tools and technology to bring people together to drive high results. Engagement is everything. If your employees feel engaged, if your service agents feel engaged, they will drive and deliver high results. Engagement’s gonna be a big focus, I think, for companies in 2023 and into the next couple of years. It’s gonna be everything.
David Cushman — HFS Research[12:21]
It’s massive, and we’ve seen in data that reasons for loyalty — if you were to ask, cos I believe in the company’s purpose — has plummeted as a reason that someone won’t stay. People are much more likely just to jump ship. We’ve seen all the data about how little it takes, in terms of pay rise offered, to get someone to move from a similar job, because they’re not seeing the distinction. And one of the thoughts has been that’s because if I sign off from my job virtually today and I sign on for another one virtually tomorrow, I can’t really tell the difference. So what you’re telling me, I think, is that you’re trying to create something that they can tell the difference through, even in a virtual space, and that’s all down to personal touch. Is there any technology that supports that? I mean, I appreciate that it’s gotta be the culture and the people first, but what technology?
April Wiita — VP, Program Success, Working Solutions[13:39]
Right. Technology is key. You have to have it. It’s just the way that we’re moving, the direction that we’re heading, and we talk a lot about AI, and we also talk a lot about IA — intelligent agents. You have to have both together, right? So we’re continuing to find ways to integrate, as is everybody, AI working to help our clients build better chatbots. We are a partner that will help them get there. We don’t have fear that the chatbots are going to take over the work that we do. We know the work we do for our clients is valuable, but we wanna work with them to find different ways to drive their AI as well, so it works better for them, it’s more cost effective, and we’re still relevant. But we incorporate that on all levels within our organization. Technology is always changing, and you’ve always got to find a way to be one step ahead, whether that’s simple tools you’re incorporating on the front line to keep chat feeling real and live between our leadership team and our front line, or the tools and technology that we’re using to interact with the customers, or the tools and technology we’re using to staff the service agents, or the tools and technology we’re using for our clients. So it’s on all levels in our organization, and it’s constantly evolving and changing.
David Cushman — HFS Research[14:46]
And how do you handle the governance and privacy, security issues, when you’re having to work with multiple people in multiple locations working with multiple companies? Is there a way that you’re able to have a one-size-fits-all approach to that, or are you having to just make every single engagement different?
April Wiita — VP, Program Success, Working Solutions[15:20]
Yeah. We offer solutions that can be a one-size-fits-all for our clients and our partners, and we can also adopt theirs. Security is everything, so there’s not a client that we support today, and a partnership, that doesn’t have some form of secured desktop or security in place. They’re all a little different from client to client, but we work with the unique needs of theirs. As you can imagine, if you’re working with a tax client, it’s a very sensitive subject, and security is very high and very locked down. So you’ve got that side of it, but we don’t have a client today that doesn’t put security first. So there are multiple tools out there, but we do offer a solution for all that is a one-size-fits-all as well.
David Cushman — HFS Research[16:06]
Got it, okay. So, just maybe thinking a bit about the world we are now in, what are you seeing in the market? We’ve seen a little bit of consolidation recently in your world, in the call center world at least, and some of that consolidation, I think, seems to have been in acquisition of the kind of organizations that might have similar capabilities to your own, acknowledging that this kind of work-from-home model is here to stay. But what else are you seeing in the market? Are you seeing that as the way things are going to go, full stop, or do you continue to see a model where both kinds — the brick-and-mortar approach and the work-from-home approach — are applied?
April Wiita — VP, Program Success, Working Solutions[17:16]
It’s a hard one. I think you’ll continue to see a hybrid of the brick-and-mortar approach and the work-at-home approach. I think on the work-at-home approach, partners and clients will find more flexibility, and that ability is, I think, one of the biggest challenges that we’re seeing right now, which is around staffing and some of the challenges that are with staffing. So rewind a little bit. I mean, we’re always ready for that. I think over the years I’ve done this, staffing has always been one of the number one pain points for our clients, right? And you’ve seen it, anything from planning for the unexpected, weather, disaster recovery, to the pandemic, which was a crazy time for all. And then right now, what I’m starting to see, David, which is interesting, is staffing challenges, because they’ve come in working all year long to build a better bot, to really enhance their AI, and they’ve got these really strong expectations, and their forecast is set for staffing, and it’s going to drive down voice volume by 40%. And then it doesn’t. And I have a story that’s a real-life example, if we have a minute. But this is what we’re seeing: it’s no longer those natural disasters or people not wanting to work, it’s a forecast that goes wrong. So back in December, I got a call from a client saying, we’re gonna be reducing what we were forecasting by 40%. So there’s a lot of questions: why, how, what if you’re wrong? And it came down to, we’ve really been working hard to build a better bot, we’re gonna be driving down chat volume. Okay, but what if it doesn’t? They’re like, it can’t, it has to work. But what if it doesn’t? So we had to decide at Working Solutions, what do we do? Do we just cut all the planning we’ve done by 40% and play it safe, right, for us, cause it’s time, it’s an investment of our resources? Or do we come up with a plan B, just in case? And so we’ve worked with this partner for many years, and so we did a plan B just in case. And I’ve got to tell you, they weren’t wrong, but it went wrong. The customer behavior was not what they expected. You can’t predict customer behavior, right? You can’t assume that somebody is going to want to drive to chat, and that a chatbot’s going to be enough. They’re still fine-tuning that emotional — you know, the digital empathy and emotion. So 40% volume was reduced, 40% was needed higher. And because of plan B, we were able to come in and flex up and re-flex 38%, handling thousands of additional calls, thousands of additional hours. So it’s a new challenge that’s out there. I’m interested to see, in the next 12 months, as companies start pushing towards a better bot and pushing towards AI and moving that way in technology, how do you factor that in? And how do companies like Working Solutions put a plan B out there and be ready to solve for it, so they can help the customers?
David Cushman — HFS Research[20:16]
It’s interesting, it’s almost the risk analysis part of the story, and the importance of not washing your hands of that risk and being prepared to manage it.
April Wiita — VP, Program Success, Working Solutions[20:24]
Well, right, cause you can dig your heels in and just say, oh, okay, we planned for it and now you don’t need it, then we’re just gonna move it elsewhere. Or, in good partnership, you can think it through and find that win-win and take a little risk, right? So I think you’ve always got to have that in place for good partnerships.
David Cushman — HFS Research[20:24]
Well, okay. Thanks, April. Just to wrap up, perhaps, could you describe to us the kind of primary differentiators? What I’m really looking for is, if someone’s been listening to us today, what would you really like them to remember about Working Solutions?
April Wiita — VP, Program Success, Working Solutions[21:09]
Everything, but I think if it came down to it, I would say that Working Solutions — I think we’re different in the sense that we never sit still for very long, right? We’re always finding ways to recreate, to innovate, and to solve for our clients’ needs and our partners’ problems. I would tell you that for me personally, I would want anyone who needs me to take away: we aim to build partnerships. We strive for partnerships, not vendor-client relationships. I want partnerships with everyone I work with. I want them to leave knowing their problems are our problems. When they’re feeling it, we’re feeling it. When they don’t think they need a plan B, and we know that they might, it’s a risk we take, and we push forward that we are truly in it for them. So there’s so much I’d want them to remember, but I think it’s that, at the end of the day, Working Solutions uses people, process, tools to drive partnerships that last a lifetime.
David Cushman — HFS Research[21:55]
April, thank you so much for bearing with us. Time today — it’s been fascinating to hear about the story of Working Solutions and the direction of travel. You’ve opened my eyes, so I’m hoping that everyone listening and watching has enjoyed the experience just as much, and we wish you the best of luck for the future. Thank you very much.
April Wiita — VP, Program Success, Working Solutions[22:12]
Thank you, David, I appreciate it.
