For the last five years, Ibex has experienced steady growth which means they are constantly hiring! The result is that the customer experience outsource company hosts new-hire classes all year long. A total onboarding and training, the classes give new employees information that they need to start with Ibex and their clients.
“When somebody joins our company, we give them a welcome bag with a ‘Mission Possible’ theme, complete with red sunglasses which have been our trademark,” says Rosemary Hanratty, Senior Director of Marketing. As an outsourced call center, the concept is that the Ibex employees are operating undercover for their clients. They are acting as secret agents and their goal is to deliver superior customer service—it is their mission possible. The welcome bag also includes fun items like earbuds and a lanyard for their security badge and is branded with red glasses. Recently, Ibex-branded protective face coverings were added.
As the company grew, keeping up with the welcome bags became a bit of a challenge. “We tried storing the bags and items at our call center sites,” recalls Hanratty. “In addition to taking up a lot of space, it took a lot of time.” Someone at each site kept track of everything. Coworkers chipped-in to assemble the bags. But when people changed roles, the process broke down. In addition, sometimes items were moved or lost, and a site could not make bags for an upcoming class—a costly inconvenience.
Over a year ago, Ibex gave Adform responsibility for its welcome bags. Adform orders and stocks all the items. “When a site needs bags for a class, we order directly from our Ibex web store which is created by Adform. We can also see inventory and add shipping and delivery instructions on the store,” says Hanratty. “It has worked out really well. It’s been a lifesaver!” Site employees are grateful to not have to touch the bags, other than to hand them out.
Ibex places 6- to 8-month orders with Adform to cover their anticipated classes. Last year the company sent over 7,000 bags to 7 different Ibex locations in the US! “Adform also updates us on inventory levels and recommends when we need to re-order items to ensure we never run out,” adds Hanratty. “The process has become seamless. That’s the beautiful part of fulfillment.”
“We were surprised to find out how much time stocking items and doing assembly actually took! Adform frees us up. People’s time is valuable,” says Hanratty. “Also, we are now ordering items in bulk which reduces costs. Every way you look at it, outsourcing fulfillment saves us money.” says Hanratty.