SPECIAL PROMOTIONAL FEATURE
OUTSOURCING
It’s not unpatriotic, it’s better business
Sometimes the statistics speak for themselves – and when it comes to the cost savings of outsourcing you’d be foolish not to listen NO MATTER what your opinions on the Brexit vote may have been, the shock decision seemed to serve as a reminder of just how patriotic the British can be. While the implementation of Article 50 and its repercussions remain to be seen, the dramatic slump of the pound in early October, dropping as much as 6.1% and slipping below the value of a euro, would seem to indicate, however, that sometimes national pride can come before a great fall. Certainly that may be true if you’re not at least considering the outsourcing option for
BOTTOM-LINE BENEFITS Significant cost savings were achieved by GoSkippy Insurance through outsourcing:
26%
Average cost per head fell by 26%
£3.5m
Annual savings exceeding £3.5m were made on consolidation of management and team leader roles, staffing, recruitment costs and fixed overheads
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your insurance business – for while there is nothing wrong with being patriotic, being blind to the advantages of having a more open, global approach may be hurting your bottom line.
The business case GoSkippy is one of insurance’s modern-day success stories. Not only is its founder Arron Banks a household name, but the company has enjoyed headline-grabbing growth since its inception back in 2012. Within two years it had racked up 150,000 live policyholders for motor insurance alone, along with a 62% retention rate and average compliance scores across sales renewals of 97%. Its team grew rapidly from around 50 to circa 300 – and this expansion meant thinking outside the box. “When GoSkippy started to grow, Arron wanted to outsource some of it to South Africa,” said Alan Ball, business development director of Outworx Contact Centre and former managing director of GoSkippy Insurance. “I moved
out there to set it up, and now GoSkippy’s entire sales/service and renewals functions are handled by the teams in South Africa.” In GoSkippy there was a burgeoning UK insurance business, so why would such a success story choose to relocate? According to Ball, who oversaw the outsourcing, it was a step-by-step process and it quickly became clear there were great rewards to be gained. “The primary reason to move was cost savings, of course,” he said. “We initially chose Outworx to assist with basic admin-type work for checking customers’ driving licences and no-claims bonus proof that they had submitted, as well as setting up a small sales team in South Africa just to test it while we still had all the other sales functions back in the UK. That was 2013. “It then became apparent through competition between the two sales teams that, while Bristol was initially better, as things moved on South Africa far outstripped the UK, and the results we were getting were amazing. So we decided to move more functions, then more of sales … and eventually we moved all of sales. We always thought we won’t move renewals or customer service because they are key functions – but it was so successful that we moved all functions in their entirety.”
Reputation at risk Ball admits that making the leap to South Africa, no matter the potential cost savings, was one that put the company’s reputation at risk – or so he thought. “I didn’t want to destroy the reputation we had by moving abroad and everyone thinking ‘oh, it’s another India’,” he explained. “However, I needn’t have worried. “The accent is neutral and customers rarely notice – indeed those that do seem to enjoy it as a talking point. On top of that, the staff in Durban are very loyal; they like call centre work and insurance work in particular. The offices are state of the art and the data security associated with it far outstrips anything else.
www.insurancebusiness.co.uk
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