Rick Denton: 0:05

You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode well talk with our guests about great CX, travel...and just like the best journeys, explore new directions we never anticipated. I'm your host Rick Denton. I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport. Let's get going. Today's guest John Billings of Hilton embodies the spirit of cx passport, where we combine customer experience and travel. John and I came to know each other a few years ago, where I learned more about his deep experience working with global bpos, especially in the customer contact space. What's cool about john is that he's been on both sides of that world. He's been both the BPO provider and the BPO customer. his travels, both personal and business have taken him all over the world, causing john and me to lose quite a bit of productivity swapping travel stories together. It's all been worth it though, because it is hard. John really has a sense of the customer. And he strives to design a world that gives that customer what they want and need, and will learn why business travel the lands of beaches and sun isn't quite what you think it would be. John, welcome to cx passport.

John Billings: 1:25

Thanks for inviting me. It's great to be here.

Rick Denton: 1:27

Looking forward to this. So let's just start high level and talk about BPO. In general, why does a company start to look at a BPO? And how do you go into selecting a BPO? partner? what's what's the thought process there?

John Billings: 1:39

Absolutely. You know, there are a number of reasons why a company might consider working with a BPO agility, flexibility and scalability are one reason. For example, earlier this year, the pace of travel recovery picked up much faster than we expected. Oh yeah, caused us to really lean into our BPO partnerships. They could recruit, they could onboard, they could train agents much, much faster than we could here in the US. To meet demand, we ended up hiring over 3000 agents across our various BPO sites over a period of just a couple of months. Yeah, I mean, something that we couldn't have done if we limited the scope of that hiring to our captive operation in the US. Oh, yeah. You know, we also think about business continuity and the ability to support irregular operations. Some of this ties back to the ability to scale that I previously mentioned. But also by spreading our contacts across several partner sites, if we have a construction in one location, for example, we can simply reroute contacts across the rest of the network to minimize the impact. btos also give us the ability to optimize performance and cost. And I want to be clear, it's not just about the lowest cost, but about the best cost. And again, those factors vary from from company to company, right? Our BPO partners also allow our captive agents to enjoy their holidays. Usually contact volume is a bit lower on days like July 4, their labor day or Thanksgiving Day or Christmas Day. So we shut down our captive operation here in the US whenever possible, and have our partners work those days. And the same goes for overnight hours as well. You know, some other things that we think about, there are certain languages that we can't easily source in the US. So our BPO partners help us fill the gaps there as well. Unless there's something to be said about the diversity of thought that a third party brings to the table. Our company is in the hospitality industry. And while we have a lot of really smart people who have lots of experience running contact centers, that's not necessarily our core competency. btos. That's what they do. And they do it really well. They know how to recruit, hire, and train agents at scale. They have the facility, they have the technology and the polyphony infrastructure, they know the local labor laws, they have the human capital, so they can help us plug the gaps and all of those different areas in terms about you know, how we go about selecting a partner. You know, there are a number of factors that we look at as well. We look at the history of the company, do they have experience handling reservations, and customer care, which is something that we're looking to, to outsource? It doesn't necessarily have to be in travel and hospitality, but that's certainly a plus. We look at their attrition stats, can they keep agents, depending on the scope of the need that we have we look at their ability to handle multiple languages, the locations that they're proposing, and are they accessible? Are they politically stable? You know, we clearly lay out legal terms and provide an example of our legal documents to make sure that no surprises when we go to actually contract. And we try to get a feel for the leadership team, certainly at the executive level today seeing that they will be easy to work with their values and culture aligned with ours and would they look to us as a valued partner, are we just another logo that they can use for their next sales pitch? We try to assess the the team that will be managing our account. account managers, you want me to keep on going, Rick, how do you want?

Rick Denton: 5:13

I can tell <laugh>

John Billings: 5:14

Am I getting a little long on ya? <laugh>

Rick Denton: 5:15

No you're not getting along on me. But I can tell this. There's a lot of value in the BPO. And, you know, I like that you kind of lead off at the beginning that it's not, let's go back to that cost statement, not about just find the lowest cost. I think initially, a lot of us think that about the BPO space, a lot of us are assuming Where can we just find the cheapest cost. And perhaps that's where a lot of this world got started. And I think a lot of that, too, is where perhaps this world got a bad, a bad name a bad rap, that by choosing a lower cost provider, that it doesn't allow for some of the other great things that you talked about alignment with the brand alignment with how, you know, care for the customer, and hospitality, if you've got that, or you said something at the end that I want to unpack a little bit here, john, and that is that that partnership, and if a BPO is is is in its correct space, in relationship with the brand, it really becomes an extension of the brand, I would imagine that you'd want it to be at a at a point where the customer doesn't even know whether they're dealing with a BPO or whether they're dealing with your term captive agent and employee of the brand. So that means you have to have the BPO is able to understand your business. So tell me selections one thing, but there's an ongoing relationship, how do you help get that relationship into a true partnership, rather than just vendor client relationship?

John Billings: 6:35

Yeah, that's a that's a great question. And it's a really important one. Because as you mentioned, we don't want the guests thinking about who might be taking that call, we want them to have the confidence that we're providing the best solution to fit their needs when it comes to selecting a hotel. And also that the agents are trained and empowered to resolve their issue. If they're contacting us about a post booking issue, for example, to get that, right, it all starts with training, building and content about our culture, our brands, the various room types, for example, things like that. But it goes much further than that. In locations where we have a hotel, which is where, you know, most of our BPO contexts and our locations are are, we have the agents tour a local property during their training, to experience the product firsthand and see how our teams on property create that guest experience. And we also do something that I think is fairly unique, at least in the travel industry, we we extend our travel our employee travel privileges to our BPO agents, really, they can experience firsthand Yeah, so they get the exact same travel privileges that I get, you know, we want them to experience our various brands so that they can understand what it's like to go through the booking process, the check in process, the various features of our hotels, the food and beverage, opera options, etc. I haven't talked to another hospitality or travel brand that does something like that. So like I said, I think it's very unique. And lastly, of course, you know, we want our partners to make sure that the production floor is branded, so that when you enter the floor, it looks like you're walking in wanting to walk into one of our helping contact centers, that's that's really important to build an affinity for the brand.

Rick Denton: 8:15

So I'm already my brain froze a bit when you said that you extend the full brand benefits to the bpos. I'm already envisioning, okay, how do I get a gig with one of the IPOs? And how do I then book at what is it Punta Mita the Waldorf that's out there, I may, I may have the wrong Mexican beach, but there's a place that I want to get to, that would be spectacular with a Hilton benefit. So great. So we've got the brand alignment, and that's in place. But there's also that delivery of great cx and the customer will, as you hope will see no separation between brand and BPO. So how are you delivered, ensuring kind of that delivery of great cx through the bps while keeping those brand standards strong as well?

John Billings: 9:02

Sure, yeah. You know, as mentioned earlier, it starts with training. And we have a really great learning and development team that understands how to work with the btos has an appreciation for the cultural differences in the various locations, we have BPO locations. And as I mentioned earlier, we brand the centers to visually remind the agents about the culture and the various brands. And I have a really great group of partner managers who are constantly in contact with our partners, they are really crucial to ensuring that everything we've instilled and training stays alive. Once the initial training process ends. They're looking at performance data, coordinating with the site leaders and partner leadership. They're conducting focus groups with the agents and in general, they're the ones that are responsible for ensuring the partners instill the culture and hold the partners accountable for performance. And we supplement all of that with regular business reviews and site visits. With with a pandemic, obviously, we've had to pull back on those a bit over the past 18 months. But we're starting to get out there a bit more, right where we're visiting one of our partners in the ER, we just completed a visit with one of our partners in the Caribbean recently. And it felt really, really good to get on site and engage with the teams, right? Because there's, there's so much that you can pick up when you visit in person. That's what obviously very difficult to do when you're meeting with the teams virtually.

Rick Denton: 10:26

That's, I know, you and I will talk about travel, that's something that I've missed, I know that you've missed, I did get to do a little bit of business travel this summer and did almost exclusively stay inside the Hilton brand. So y'all can be happy about that there were a couple locations where y'all weren't represented, and I had to go outside. But I did have a conversation with Colin Cohen. And he's out of South Africa. He's got a BPO company there as well. One of the things we talked about was, there's a lot of insights that the BPO passes back to the brand. So you and I have been talking about how do we keep the BPO in line with brand standard and delivery of cx? Are you finding that when it is in that true partnership that you're almost I wouldn't say learning as much from the BPO. But you're actually gaining a unique sense of customer insight from your bpos. And how does that work?

John Billings: 11:17

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we, you know, we asked the the partners to provide insights back to us, you know, help us understand the contact types, what they're hearing from the customers, because I mean, they're, they're on the front lines, right, I'm sitting at right now sitting in my home in Dallas, but I'm sitting in an office in Dallas, and we're not the ones that are directly engaging with the partner with the guests. They're the ones that are doing that. So it's, you know, they can provide that insights that we just we don't have sitting in an office. You know, that's, that's away from the context centers

Rick Denton: 11:48

like that, including the front line. And that approach of it doesn't matter whether the front line is BPO, or whether it's internal Hilton that that is their insights are there ultimately, we're actually we're talking about humans here, right? We're using these labels of BPO and captive and that we're not about humans, frontline humans who are directly touching the customer and we know that great cx requires great employee experience. How do you engage with the BPO at the agent level we talked a little bit about I'd love to expand that building the affinity and connection of the brand. But especially when this isn't, quote your company, how do you ensure employee engagement in the BPO

John Billings: 12:26

Yeah, that's that's where the site visits are so critical in our minds, engaging with the agents engaging with the leadership teams sitting side by side with the agents and they take a call and observing the experience that they're delivering to our guests. When we go on site, we make it a point to celebrate with the teams as well we do rewards and recognition ceremonies, recognizing agents for achieving various KPIs and delivering great experiences. Hospitality is all about making a human connection that's that's critically critically important right and, and we can't check that at the contact center door and expect to be successful if we throw the work over the fence and just have our partners do all the work without any support from us.

Rick Denton: 13:12

Alright, so we haven't talked about where all these partners are, but I haven't know they are all over the globe. And you john have had a need to spend a little time in the lounge and some of your travels I'm sure So join me here in the first class lounge we'll move quickly here and hopefully have a little bit of fun. What is a dream travel location from your past?

John Billings: 13:31

You know, my my family's happy place is a little surf town on the Pacific coast of British Columbia. It's called Tofino, my wife and I first discovered it back in 1999 and make it back there about every three or four years. Thinking back on it was a sign that I was destined to work in the hospitality industry because we found out about it through a magazine that highlighting some of the best hotels in the world. And it was called the wickaninnish in in Tofino that was written up and that's that provided that nucleus for going there. You really have to want to go there. It's not easy to get to you fly to Vancouver, you drive for about 45 minutes to the ferry terminal. But you take a two hour ferry ride across the Strait of Georgia then you have to drive for three hours over the mountains to get to the west coast of Vancouver Island, but it's so worth that it's so beautiful, so remote, though admittedly, it's been discovered you know, we're seeing it get a bit more crowded every time we go there, you know, on some level breaks our hearts. We plan together each of the last two summers, but unfortunately due to COVID we've had to reschedule but keeping our fingers crossed that we can make the trip next summer.

Rick Denton: 14:36

Do you want me to misspell it in the show notes so that people don't know where to find it? So

John Billings: 14:43

I like that plan.

Rick Denton: 14:46

To fino it's in British How about the British Isles? Yes, that's where it is. It's in the UK. <laughing> We'll talk about that. So everybody enjoy what john has told you. But don't go there. And just To just read about it right. So, yeah, what is a look at a virtually? That's right. What is a dream travel location? you've not been to yet?

John Billings: 15:08

Yeah, you know that's it's hard to nail down and we're always trying to travel in the buildings house. We have tons of ideas. We have some close friends that we travel with. And the last couple years we've been to London and Portugal and the summer civil a bit closer to Boston, Colorado. And we're we're planning a trip to Spain over Thanksgiving with them. When we're together. We encourage everybody, the adults and the kids to come up with ideas. We have a dinner and we talked about where do we want to go next. And we have quite a list in Malta, Morocco, Singapore, lots of other places. But But I think Argentina is probably highest on the list right now. And we would love to spend time in Buenos Aires, which I've heard is an incredible city with a very European influence. Then we go to Guangzhou falls, central boundary schweiger and the Patagonian region at the very southern tip of South America. So I'm hoping we can do that sometime in the next couple of years.

Rick Denton: 16:05

I need to get into yells dinners that that is a dream travel location of mine as well. There's something about yesterday, European, and I've heard the beef even those of us here in North Texas woods. I've heard that it's fantastic. But there's something about the remoteness of Patagonia that I really want to experience. And I might trip over to Chile just so that I could say I was skiing in July as well. So there's a little bit of speaking I mentioned beef, but what is what is a favorite thing for you to eat?

John Billings: 16:37

Yeah, you know, you talked about beef in Texas. I mean, you know, it's so hard to narrow it down. But living in Texas, it's actually you know, Tex Mex is a staple here, right? So I'd say it's a toss up between that and actually sushi. But then the Indian food that's high on my list as well. You know, my, my first trip to India, this is interesting. So it was about 14 or 15 years ago, I was scared to death about eating in India, I just you know, it was an unfamiliar fruit to me. I just wasn't sure what to expect. So I packed up a bunch of dry goods in my cell, my gosh, all of ours, raisins, anything I think I could think of that would travel well, thinking that I was going to starve over there. And you know, needless to say, I don't lose any weight. When I go to India anymore. I absolutely loved the food. So

Rick Denton: 17:25

it is funny how naive we can be as Americans sometimes thinking, Oh, no, I don't want that right now. That is not thankfully I've just I'll get in there. Try it. I've got some stories from my travels with JC Penney of foods that we won't describe here and some of the lands that I've been to. But it is I have traveled with people that did the same thing that had a suitcase of peanut butter crackers, and I'm thinking No, no, no, you've got to try this. So I'm glad that you have converted and are not packing the dry goods anymore. Well, let's talk about this then on the flip side, what is the thing your parents forced you to eat but you hate it as a kid.

John Billings: 18:02

He's I just can't stand the texture and I just don't like the taste. You know, when I was a kid, I tried all the tricks to get out of eating those, all the stuff that every parent knows about of course, right like covering them up with my napkin or you know, putting some of my mouth and then politely excusing myself to go to the bathroom and stuff like that. Obviously, it never worked. But you know, now that I'm adult, I do anything I can to avoid peace they're not forced on anymore.

Rick Denton: 18:30

I always liked these, but it's come up a couple times here. So with you being a big traveler, and then of course you can't tell me your phone, you can't tell me your passport. But what is one travel item you will not leave home without.

John Billings: 18:43

Yeah, I'm probably gonna cheat a little bit because it's on my phone. But you know, I travel internationally for work for the most part. And that requires that I sometimes have to sleep very odd hours. For example, when I go to India or the Philippines, I work us daytime hours, which is the overnight shift in those locations and I sleep during the day. So as a result, I always make sure that I have the most current version of sleep machine it's a white noise that that's on my phone that's a little bit different sounds to help block out the noise from outside of the hotel or from the hotel staff going about their business throughout the day or, or just to help me relax on a long flight.

Rick Denton: 19:26

John, with that kind of travel, let's stick with travel a bit. I can see why you want to sleep machine especially having to sleep during the day. Well that may be a part of this next question. So I know that bpos are often in great and exotic places. Yeah, but tell me what it's like to be a business traveler to a leisure destination.

John Billings: 19:46

Yeah, it's, it's interesting, that's for sure. We have a couple of BPO centers in particular that are in a very leisure oriented location. We have one for India and one in Montego Bay, Jamaica. You know, it's a tough gig, let me tell you, but you can always tell who we are right? We're the ones that are wearing kind of the standard is issue business outfit, carrying our laptop bags, restaurant, quickly grab something on our way out the door. It's particularly hard in Jamaica where everybody else is getting ready to go to the pool for the day are out on a local tour that wearing their flip flops and shorts. And here we all are all dressed up. It's really tempting to want to play hooky down there in India, because we work us business hours. You know, as I mentioned earlier, we're typically heading out to the office in the late afternoon and just as people are returning from the tours, the tours the local cultural sites. And when we come back to the hotel, it's in the middle of the night, polishing the floors in the lobby and getting ready for the next day. So I'm places like that are in the Philippines. You know, I mentioned I work us daytime hours. So that means I'm sleeping during the day, I have to be really deliberate about my routine, and really adept at learning how to sleep during the day. So we'll come back from work, we'll grab dinner, which is really breakfast locally, and then head up to the room and try to sleep. I do have my routine I put on the Do Not Disturb sign I turn on the sleep machine app. As I mentioned earlier, I grab the eye shades and then I try to crash. You know when I first started traveling to the Philippines, I was just really freaked out when the sun would come up we'd be you know, we'd be heading back to the hotel and the sun would be coming up. Eric, but I wasn't gonna go to sleep. But you can use it. And like I said, we all have our routines to help us out. Yeah, you know, there's there's an actual, there's actually an unintended benefit to I unfortunate that I really don't suffer the effects of jetlag. But for the most part, I'm able to keep my body, my body clock on us time.

Rick Denton: 21:50

That's what I was thinking about when you were you were saying that now I feel sad for you in the Jamaica travel. I have seen those folks, I've seen them on the planes. And I thought, Oh, I'm sorry, as I have my cocktail in my hand or my flip flops on my feet. But the jet lag that's interesting that the Yes, you have to sleep during the day. But that as those of us that have traveled the globe know the pains of jetlag are real and avoiding it would be a nice thing to have. Well, let's think more about and still want to stay with your travels around the world. But you seen so many different global cultures, you've seen so many different approaches to what hospitality means. And your work in the hospitality space. So I'm kind of curious, what is hospitality around the world look like to you?

John Billings: 22:38

Yeah, you know, on some level, I mean, hospitality and hospitality. It's the friendly employees to anticipate your needs, create meaningful connections with our guests, you know, the comfortable rooms that are designed for relaxing and working, you know, the restaurants will be expensive menus. But in some locations, they're you know, there are noticeable difference in places like India, for example, I mean, hotels, they, they seem to have higher staff to guest ratios. So there's always somebody there to open a door or assist with your luggage, bring things up to the room, you know, or provide turndown service in the evenings. You know that the higher staff ratios, maybe a perception on my part. I mean, keep in mind, I run contact centers, I'm not responsible for hotel staffing, right. But it certainly feels like there's a higher level of staffing. And people in India are just really warm, very friendly people with a strong hospitality culture. So the experience there from what I've observed during my travels, it's just on a different level, they really go out of their way to make you feel comfortable. And I've also noticed that in other locations in Asia as well. And the sheer opulence of the hotels throughout Asia, as you know, we have some very beautiful hotels throughout the region that are just incredibly ornate with these very architecturally distinctive design details. So the combination of the top facilities and experiencing that type of service firsthand makes me really want to find ways to emulate the Onproperty guest experience through phone calls, emails and chat.

Rick Denton: 24:14

I can see that right so if you've seen that that high touch that that warmth, there was a guest Gavin Scott has a few episodes ago. Yeah, let's see he was Episode 32. And he talked about his wife and he's out of the UK and so his wife and he did their honeymoon in Sharm el Shaikh, I may get that a little bit wrong in Egypt. And as they approach the, the resort that they were staying the warmth with which they were greeted and talked about there was actually a band that played here comes the bride and I mean they went over the top for them and that kind of warm it is you do feel that when you leave and travel to certain areas and certain regions and I felt that to an Asian India as you're describing, but bringing that back into the contact center and delivering that sense of connectivity delivering that sense of warmth. And then when we get out there and see what it's like in the human to human touch space, then other elements of contact center, how do we bring that into the contact center makes a lot of sense. Let's, let's close out here. We're, unfortunately getting towards the end of time. JOHN, I would like to talk to you more about some of your travels. But let's close out by talking about the overall industry, just in general. So what are you seeing in the BPO? industry as far as location growth and change?

John Billings: 25:30

Yeah, I get I'm hearing more and more about South Africa these days. Yeah, you know, that market is traditionally focused on Europe, given the overlap and time zones and some of the colonial history with the countries like the Netherlands, in Portugal and France. But you know, now they're working hard to extend their services to the US, and they're having more and more success, with the South African government playing a strong supporting role there. You know, speaking of the African continent, I'm actually I've heard some folks talking about places like Kenya, which is really interesting. Yeah, it's not anything that would have been Top of Mind, certainly, but hearing more and more that from from a near shore perspective, there's lots of talk about Colombia right now. And Honduras. The outsourcing industry is traditionally focused on Central America, so namely, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, but now they're extending into the northern tier countries and South America and traditionally untapped markets in Central America as well. You're also starting to hear about some of the smaller islands in the Caribbean. That's a region that's been dominated at least from a BPO perspective by Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. But now companies are starting to invest in places like St. Lucia, Barbados, Grenada. Yeah, you know, those places have much smaller populations. There's not a huge labor market there. But the English skills are really good. And their local governments are starting to realize that the BPO industry can bring in really good staple jobs to the region. And they're starting to invest in the infrastructure and training to make their labor pools more marketable to the industry.

Rick Denton: 27:09

Interesting. So I'd heard South Africa, that's one that is becoming I don't wanna use Word trendy, but you hear about it a lot more. hadn't heard of Kenya, the Central American ones, don't surprise me to see those starting to grow. But the smaller Caribbean islands that's interesting. So what that means, john, is that there will be higher higher likelihood that I will be on a flight to a beach destination. And I will see you in your business casual attire as I am sipping a nice gin and tonic on

John Billings: 27:36

my laptop bag. And I'll be right and youre on your second drink...

Rick Denton: 27:41

I'll try to be I'll try to be kind to you. Well, john, thanks so much for talking with me today and see his passport. I've enjoyed learning, certainly the more about the BPO industry and I always just enjoy talking with you right with, I hope that we haven't lost too much productivity between each other as we talk travel stories today as well. It's enjoyable, and I, I hope that you do get to get back out on the road soon. I know you're looking forward to that. And that will then provide more fodder for great stories for me to hear from you in the future. JOHN, thanks so much for being a part of cx passport today.

John Billings: 28:12

Absolutely. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Rick Denton: 28:18

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. Make sure to visit our website cxpassport.com where you can hit subscribe so you'll never miss a show. While you're at it, you can check out the rest of the EX4CX website. If you're looking to get real about customer experience, EX4CX is available to help you increase revenue by starting to listen to your customers and create great experiences for every customer every time. Thanks for listening to CX Passport and be sure to tune in for our next episode. Until next time, I'm Rick Denton, and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.