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The games industry can be challenging for start-ups and new entrants. Get the adaptable support you need to navigate uncertainty.

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Adaptable support for growing games companies

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Protecting your company's reputation in an evolving digital world isn't always easy. Between cyberattacks, phishing, fraud and other harmful behaviors, companies have a lot of ground to cover when it comes to preserving their brand.

These concerns are often compounded when working with a customer experience (CX) provider. Not only do you need to ensure that your brand promise is met in an outsourced environment, but also that your customer and company data is protected.

When selecting a customer experience provider, risk mitigation should be a top consideration. The right partner will make sure you're covering every angle to care for the security of both your brand and your customers — at every touchpoint.

What should you look for in an outsourcing provider?

When it comes to customer experience outsourcing, brands typically have two primary concerns: preserving customer data, and keeping all systems that might compromise operations tight as a drum, says Steve Jablonski, vice-president of information security at TELUS International. These concerns are often driven by an idea that outsourcing some aspects of your business means giving up control — but that's not the case when the right checks and balances are in place.

Companies and their outsourcing partners need to set clear parameters about how to proactively prevent harm, and how to respond if it ever occurs. Setting a strong communication foundation in your outsourcing relationship enables your brand to work in concert with your partner to avoid and mitigate risk. With that at the core, here are three additional factors to consider when assessing an outsourcing partner.

Training: Team members are the first line of defense

With both online reputation management and protecting customer data, organizations frequently wonder where to begin. The answer is: start with employees. Team members are often the first line of defense against security breaches and ever-present bad actors. "Think of your CX team as a human firewall," says Jablonski. "You have to prepare your customer care representatives for battle by providing them with comprehensive training."

Rather than taking a one-and-done approach to customer service training, partners should treat it as an ongoing process, every part of which can strengthen and enhance the customer care team. As threats become more sophisticated and ill-intentioned parties find new ways to infiltrate your defenses, it's important that your team's knowledge base has comparably advanced documentation.

That said, it isn't just outsiders that are cause for concern. When assessing a CX outsourcing partner, businesses often want to know what's being done to mitigate insider risk and to keep employees from jeopardizing the system. While it's smart to ask questions related to brand loyalty and engagement, you should also consider whether teams are being sufficiently trained to prevent all manner of attacks and breaches, adds Jablonski.

Outsourcing partners must have processes in place to mitigate risk from internal and external individuals intent on committing a crime and innocent insiders who fall victim to phishing links. Phishing simulations and security awareness training are useful protocols in a world where threats are subtle and ever-changing. Team members should also know what to do if they suspect a colleague is acting nefariously. Training employees to recognize patterns is crucial, Jablonski says, "because you can't always get ahead of the threat."

Technology: Taking advantage of economies of scale

According to recent research conducted by TELUS International and Statista, leaders named data security and compliance as the number one challenge impeding their digital customer experience goals in 2023. The same research found that transparency and data security were considered the most important qualities for an outsourcing provider.

Collaborating with the right digital CX partner can provide brands with access to best-in-class software with the proper security checks. "There needs to be solid due diligence when buying secure software," Jablonski says of outsourcing partners. "Robust patching, internal scans and penetration testing should occur on a regular basis." A good outsourcing partner not only does everything in its power to safeguard your company; it also takes the pressure off brands to identify and invest in the new technologies needed to deliver a secure and scalable CX.

Put security management processes under the microscope

Outsourcing providers should be investing in market intelligence to stay on top of potential threats. Jablonski suggests that the right partner will "leverage paid and public intelligence to stay current. Your provider should always be collecting information and taking action." They should also have a strong network in place for sharing brand and industry information, he adds.

Look for a partner that prioritizes security at all levels and makes a point of obtaining their third-party certifications demonstrating their commitment to protecting brands like yours. Regulatory compliance and certifications like ISO27001 offer a solid foundation for cybersecurity. NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology at the U.S. Department of Commerce, is a good resource for publications, reports and other information about the standardization process, while the NIST 800-53 framework serves as a comprehensive guide to strategies, systems and controls that businesses should employ based on risk, cost and an organization's capabilities. Other options include industry-specific certifications, like HITRUST in the healthcare space.

Regardless of the approach your outsourcing partner opts to take, key controls like multi-factor authentication and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) should be standard. Consider your potential partner's stance on working from home and bring your own device (BYOD) management, too. From data leakage to loss and infection, related policies should be treated with the utmost caution and care.

Above all else, when selecting an outsourcing partner you should aim to find a company that values your brand and customers as much as you do. "Your customers are our customers," says Jablonski of TELUS International's mindset. A quality outsourcing partner should share your commitment to defending against threats, while also working to improve your customer experience.

Risk mitigation should be a top consideration when selecting an outsourcing partner. Learn what to look for to ensure your brand is protected.

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Protecting your customers and brand in an outsourced environment

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Survey results: Digital customer experience priorities for leaders in 2023

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Uncover how TELUS International’s business process consultants helped a leading financial services brand optimize its operations, enhance its customer experience (CX) and begin its digital transformation journey.

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Streamlining operations and kickstarting the digital transformation journey of a leading financial services brand

In the games industry, newer studios face a gauntlet of obstacles. There's stiff competition, a shortage of talent and a surplus of uncertainty — just to name a few.

To up the difficulty even further, help hasn't typically been easy to find. While industry behemoths have been able to form successful outsourcing partnerships to enhance and scale all aspects of their player experience, these arrangements have been impractical for start-ups and scale-ups. Too often, the contracts are too resource-intensive, too long and have terms too inflexible for studios building toward their breakthrough.

As a result, smaller studios can miss out on the guidance that comes from an experienced partner, as well as the means to scale in the event that their next title takes off. This can be detrimental to the player experience, which is nothing to brush aside. A TELUS International survey revealed nearly half (44%) of consumers said that nothing, not even price, convenience or if it's a brand they truly like — excuses a poor customer experience.

The challenges and consequences are daunting. The gauntlet awaits. Importantly, however, help is no longer out of reach. Learn why growing games companies are increasingly looking to player experience outsourcing in order to rise to the occasion.

Navigating the labor crunch in games customer service

Building out an in-house player support operation can be complex and expensive, especially for newer studios. There are countless questions and seemingly few answers. How many agents do you need? How many can you afford? What skills do they need to have? What languages do they need to speak?

It doesn't help that there's a shortage of talent. Montreal, Canada for example, has been an established hub for international games companies for some time, but the entire country has recently seen a surge. From 2019 to 2021, active video game studios operating in Canada increased by 35%. When it comes to talent in the games industry, however, the increase in demand has not been met by an equal increase in supply. And according to federal government reports, that shortage is predicted to remain for the next ten years.

That makes things particularly tricky when you need to scale quickly. If your latest title becomes a sensation, you're going to see a significant uptick in players and support queries. Without scaling your team, wait times will lengthen and frustration will rise. Let the problem fester and you might see loyalty and your player base dwindle.

The challenges don't stop at recruitment, either. As part of training and onboarding, games companies need to develop their support agents' understanding of their titles, culture and brand. When your players have an issue, they want to feel like the representative they're talking to gets it in an intuitive way that demonstrates first-hand experience playing the game.

The constant search for, and training of, games talent takes studios away from their product.

Benefits of customer support outsourcing for games

Faced with a myriad of challenges, games start-ups and scale-ups are turning to outsourcing and expecting providers to deliver right-sized, creative solutions. Here's what growing games companies can gain from outsourcing:

Your best weapon against the games industry's inherent uncertainty is agility.

A good outsourcing partner understands that. And by extension, they'll understand your current state and let rigid, long-term commitments become a thing of the past.

By helping you to forecast and scale your player support operation according to your needs, a top-tier partner will only enhance your ability to face whatever comes your way.

In order to truly offer flexibility, an outsourcing partner needs to be able to help you source and secure the talent you need — and quickly.

Their global infrastructure and network is your gain, helping you to strengthen your frontline despite labor shortages. And if your outsourcing partner has experience in the games industry, they'll also have specific, defined best practices and talent profiles to help you discover your next star performer.

Today, shared teams also provide a cost-effective option for growing studios. In this strategy, outsourced agents support your players on a part-time basis, lowering your cost while improving your player experience.

According to Grand View Research, the global video game market size will develop at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.9% until 2030. Without question, gaming is global.

But to bring your games to would-be players far and wide, you've got to make sure you have the support structure to deliver a consistent experience. Outsourcing can set your studio up with multilingual support, and even a local content moderation presence in key markets. Not only that, but through outsourcing, studios can gain the ability to maintain "always-on" support that can keep their players playing.

There are no shortcuts to experience. If you're a newer studio, you might not have the expertise that only comes from time. But when you have a partner, you're not stuck learning everything the hard way. Growing games companies can lean on the industry expertise of their partners' in times both good and bad.

Better still, studios that partner with customer experience providers with expertise beyond games can minimize their blind spots and generate new ideas through cross-vertical thinking.

Choosing to outsource aspects of your player experience is not as simple as paying X and getting Y. With the right partner, you'll get much more than what you pay for. That becomes abundantly clear when you consider co-innovation.

By teaming up with a company invested in acquiring and deploying the latest technologies, you gain access to innovative applications without having to make big investments yourself. The types of technologies available run the gamut, from customer-facing support channels like chatbots and intelligent FAQs to behind-the-scenes tech offering robust fraud detection, trust and security support. Getting a handle on those services puts your studio in a stronger position from which to innovate — and that helps not only your customers, but also your profit margins.

Over the course of our more than 12 years in the games industry, TELUS International has supported studios of all sizes with over 40 game launches. We've heard plenty of feedback and developed a deep sense of the challenges facing games companies today.

That's why we're bolstering our offering with adaptable support for growing games companies.

To offer the right type of support at the right cost, our adaptable solutions get the best out of shared resourcing. That means start-ups and scale-ups can access our global reach and infrastructure to scale according to their needs ⁠— without overpaying or overcommitting. And as an added benefit, they can rely on our earned industry expertise to help navigate uncertainty.

Get in touch with one of our games experts today.

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Discover TELUS International’s leading customer support solutions to help you build a loyal player base across the globe.

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Loyalty-building player support across the globe

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What growing games companies can gain from outsourcing

What growing games companies can gain from outsourcing

Adaptable support for growing games companies

Adaptable support for growing games companies

Loyalty-building player support across the globe

Loyalty-building player support across the globe

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