In an emerging world managed by bots, TELUS International’s culture tells us why humans still matter

TBR perspective

Since the dawn of outsourcing, BPO has allowed enterprise buyers to trust third-party providers with the support of many internal and external processes. While in the past, the risk associated with managing IT and business assets was heavily weighted toward the buyer, in today’s age, where social media is leveraged as a sounding board for both positive and negative customer experiences, there is a heightened expectation for services vendors to deliver brand promises. During its 14-year tenure as an active participant in the CX support services market, TELUS International has successfully navigated the ever-changing dynamics of the BPO space by investing heavily in its employees. The company has an average annual attrition rate of approximately 25%, which is about 50% below the BPO industry average, as its employees and executives trade on trust and share a common goal of servicing customers. Deploying and managing learning and collaboration platforms globally as well as adopting many of the same technologies used to support clients, TELUS International’s approach to people, processes and technology shapes the company’s culture in the era of the machines. While the CX support space has been augmented by the increased use of AI-based technologies and one might consider the BPO industry to be highly commoditized from a labor arbitrage perspective, TELUS International continues to build a human-centric culture that empowers staff (most of whom are millennials) to take charge of their careers while also being brand ambassadors in their local communities. Touring TELUS International’s Las Vegas delivery site, which is one of the company’s 27 global hubs, during the event helped bring TELUS International’s strategy and vision around its employees and investments in innovation to life, further supporting the “from slides to code” trend TBR has observed in the industry over the past 18 to 24 months.

Moving forward, we expect TELUS International to continue executing on its standardized approach to customers’ digital enablement and to carefully select and manage its client base, including pursuing opportunities with enterprises that are also involved with approving TELUS International employee recruitment and training. As the BPO market evolves, the emergence of new pricing models, including outcome-, subscription- and license-based pricing, will compel the company to take on additional risk and retune stakeholders’ expectations around its P&L profile. As a result, TELUS International will need to continue its transformation into an increasingly automation-enabled organization with agent capabilities. 

At its inaugural Analyst Summit, TELUS International brought together industry analysts, company executives and clients. The company used the two-day event to prove why, according to President and CEO Jeff Puritt, TELUS International is the “best kept secret” when it comes to company culture, employee engagement and customer satisfaction in the highly competitive customer experience (CX)-enabled BPO market, especially in the area of talent.