MEET CRAIG MENTO
Job: Chief executive officer of NexxLinx Inc.
Family: Married
Education: The Citadel, B.S. in math
Age: 58
Lives: Buckhead
Favorite book: "The Foundation Trilogy'' by Isaac Asimov
Philosophy: Set high standards, expect extraordinary results
NexxLinx CEO Craig Mento says his Atlanta-based firm provides specialized services to businesses that want to use an outside source of staffing and expertise to support portions of their operations.
Using outsiders to handle various functions — like fielding calls from consumers — provides his customers with ways to save money on employee costs, Mento said. It also can reduce the time it takes for consumers to get answers, place orders or get their problems solved.
“Companies come to us to fill a need they have that we can do cheaper or better,” he said. The company has 1,500 employees in eight “contact centers” around the country.
Q: Is a contact center the same thing as a call center?
A: Call centers focus on voice phone calls, but technology and customer behavior have come a long way in the past 10 years. Customers want to be able to contact the companies they do business with in many ways now, not just by phone. They use mobile devices, websites, chat services and email to get their questions answered.
A contact center provides those methods of contact. It’s not limited to just phone calls any more. NexxLinx provides the technology and staffing to cover all those methods.
We perform customer retention, sales conversion, and customer back office and technical support services for publishing, media, cable, telecommunications, financial services, e-commerce and retail companies, both in the U.S. and around the world.
Q: How many customers do you have, and can you give me a few examples?
A: Twenty-eight. Customers include AT&T, the Golf Channel, Time Warner Cable, the Financial Times, companies like that. Big companies.
Q: Why do companies outsource some business functions to NexxLinx?
A: Customer support is expensive and requires significant resources for hiring, staffing, managing and supporting an in-house staff. It takes those resources away from the company's core business focus. NexxLinx provides expertise in hiring, training, managing and supporting a staff on our customers' behalf.
Q: Would you please give an example?
A: You're going to Rome next month. You call AT&T International to see what you need to do to get service in Italy. We answer the phone as AT&T International Customer Care and answer the question.
Or you see a really cool swing trainer on the Golf Channel. You call the 800 number. We answer the phone as the Golf Channel and take the order. We do the same type of work for publishing companies, electronic game publishers, and media and cable companies.
Q: You had revenue last year of $50 million and 1,500 employees. Do you have plans to go public?
A: No.
Q: How do you go about hiring people?
A: We've developed a pretty good profile of what the model employee looks like. After an agent is hired, they go through a formal training program, then a period of "nesting" until they're ready to take live interactions.
Q: Quality staffing is a key issue for companies that have call centers. How has NexxLinx reduced attrition?
A: With personnel costs taking 65 cents of every dollar of revenue, most call centers struggle with attrition percentages. We have hired an industrial psychologist to develop a tool that is far more effective in the screening of applicants.
We’re also having great success hiring returning and disabled veterans. We find they have the discipline and maturity to make an outstanding associate.
Q: How does your system work?
A: Without going into great detail, calls, email and chat requests come in to Atlanta from all over the world. It could be from Boston to buy a new swing trainer, a customer in Chicago who just saw a new arthritis infomercial or a subscriber to a financial paper in London. We queue up those interactions to the best available associates anywhere in the world, then pass them the request, along with the relevant data to complete the task.
Q: How do you maintain the same service quality for your customers as they would for themselves with an in-house staff?
A: The short answer is experience. Over the past 10 years, we have developed and improved our processes for hiring, training, managing and developing our staff. This is a dynamic business so our processes are critical to our profitability and more importantly, to the quality of service we provide.
Q: Where are your call centers?
A: Atlanta, Norcross and Salt Lake City. Also, Austin, Texas; Montgomery, N.Y.; Orono, Maine; Jacksonville, N.C.
Q: What do you see as vital to your business in the future?
A: The greatest challenge is keeping up with change. Consumer behavior, customer requirements, regulation and technology are all changing. We have to accommodate the ways consumers interact with services anywhere, anytime and from a changing variety of devices.
Q: How many calls do you handle a day?
A: We handle 22,000 or so in eight call centers in this country. There are easily 4,000-5,000 call centers and we are in the top 50.
Q: So what about all the calls to India, the Philippines and other areas overseas that most folks have experienced?
A: There has been a backlash. One was why would companies be moving the jobs overseas. At first, people thought they could get jobs done for a third of the cost in India. At the end of the day, customer experience was bad. Calls started moving back. Over the past few years, there has been a repatriation of that type of work.
Q: Don’t you have partners overseas?
A: Yes, and our partners have access to 4,000 agents. Those partnerships are in Peru, El Salvador, the Philippines and the Netherlands. Their employees are not our employees.
Q: Is there a typical client?
A: A typical client that comes in the door has a need for 10,000 to 15,000 contacts a month. By definition, small companies would not outsource to a company like me.
Q: How long should a caller expect to be on hold?
A: Companies want 80 percent of phone calls answered in 30 seconds or less, which is four to six rings.
Q: What should a person do with an unsatisfactory response?
A: Ask to speak to a supervisor. You will have more of an engaged conversation. If an agent hangs up, absolutely note the time. Write down the person's name. Almost every call is recorded.
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