Hello, I’m Nadine Davis-Atma from Affordable Staff and I’m here doing a case study interview with Tim Kavanagh from Cape Finance.
Why did you decide to outsource?
Hello, I’m Nadine Davis-Atma from Affordable Staff and I’m here doing a case study interview with Tim Kavanagh from Cape Finance welcome Tim
Thank you.
All right let’s get right into it why did you decide to outsource?
I suppose primarily it’s to remove tasks from the broker’s day which just didn’t result in increased sales increased bottom line all your admin tasks all those bits and pieces which aren’t critical for a broker to be doing yeah so your repetitive time-consuming non-income generating tasks exactly just getting more time back to the brokers to focus on the things that actually grow the business.
Yeah okay fantastic.
Why is trust an important factor?
Why do you think trust is such an important factor in outsourcing?
well firstly the team members are going to be dealing with client sensitive data their financial situation so first, you need to be able to trust them with that kind of data and secondly, they’re going to be speaking with our stakeholders our clients our referral base even the banks and every time they do that they’re representing cape finance so we need to be able to trust that when they’re representing us they’re doing a good job of that yeah so they’re really representing your brand and you’re kind of making sure that that is strong and customer-focused
Exactly, fantastic.
What advice would you give to others who are looking to outsource?
What advice would that you give to others who are looking to outsource?
I think speak to the existing client base do your due diligence there’s a lot of offerings around you want to make sure that they do operate in industries in the correct industry have experience there one thing we really focused on was the actual recruitment process making sure that the staff members are going to be matched to us and our business correctly yeah so you really want to make sure that they’re placing members team members into your team that is actually going to be able to work within the other team members of your team yeah it’s one of them yeah um and of course it’s always important to get that right skill and ability right and the drive to do the job that’s correct yeah.
Do you think that outsourcing is taking away jobs from Australia?
Do you think that outsourcing is taking jobs away from Australians?
I don’t think so um I can only speak from our position um really what it’s allowed us to do is just have a larger team than what we would have been out to have um on onshore if anything once we’ve got a larger team it’s allowing us to grow faster um and get to a point where we’re now looking at you know bringing on some local help um so and that I just can’t see that that would have been possible if we’re just looking on shore for our first or second assistant.
What has outsourcing enabled you to do that you didn’t think you’d be able to before?
What has outsourcing enabled you to do that you didn’t think you would be able to before doing it?
The obvious one is obviously removing the admin um and I suppose those tasks that the broker doesn’t need to be doing um not broken critical tasks it’s allowed for increased sales um really focusing on um yeah business growth but also improving work-life balance um the amount of hours that a broker has now put in with the correct support in the background to actually process a deal from start to finish um is reduced quite significantly um so that allows for yeah higher numbers of sales and less hours per deal uh that’s going to result in a better work life balance as well yeah so yeah I really like that you said appropriately because meeting that criteria and compliance in a compliant manner is critical there’s so many layers of additional kind of work that’s been given to brokers I guess to prove I think that’s actually um improved as well with the admin because the broker if they’re doing everything from start to finish they have a lot on their plate um and when their sales there it’s very easy to get tunnel vision on the sales and what actually generates the income for the group so having the support there in the background to really make sure that those critical items which aren’t delivering on the bottom line are still being met.
Have you found that your conversion to settlement has increased since outsourcing?
Have you found that your conversion to settlement has increased since outsourcing?
I think it has and the other thing that it has done is just because there’s now admin in place with set processes and systems it’s improved um the client experience um so not only um not only conversion rates but if the client can’t proceed for whatever reason you know we’re getting more referrals from customers who aren’t proceeding or they’ll come back when their position is improved sometimes you know quite a long time down the track yeah because even though they may not be able to do a loan now you’re still nurturing them and giving them that customer care exactly and they’re comfortable with um with us as a business and their broker and the team as a whole because they’ve already been introduced to it and had a good experience, yeah I found that too you know you may not always be able to get a sale per se but if you help somebody they remember that you’ve helped them exactly and word of mouth is always going to be your best referral source so yeah that’s been a big improvement.
How have your local team found working with the offshore team?
How have your local team found working with the outsourced team do you find that it’s a nice blend are they working together well?
Yeah i think well first of all the staff members that we got through outsourcing um through that really robust recruitment process fit in really well um you know there’s a lot of effort there that you know that goes into actually matching um personalities and requirements um so yeah really they’ve it’s been really seamless um to the point where it’s just an additional layer of support and they’ve just become a team member of you know so the tech they’re growing the team is growing and they’re just becoming additional team members
Yeah and just while we’re on the same kind of topic um what measures what means are you using for communications are you using a lot of chat or video conference?
Both so there’s um we have some ongoing video conferences two or three per week with a set purpose to that and then there are ongoing chat lines um to you know for your day-to-day um discussion of deals and different parts of the business yeah
And are they using the same means to also do training and recording of that?
Yes absolutely so one of the weekly meetings we do have is um around training um and you know anything and it’s more personalized training to our business and that’s recorded um via video or a guide is written depending on what the task is and how in-depth it is so yeah definitely that’s come in handy with that and then as our team has grown we haven’t really had to touch on that again because there’s a resource there that um that the existing team members have been able to show the new team member.
Yeah, so you’ve gotten past that initial a little bit of extra training load that is required with a first like assistant whether they’re local or not because you’re then able to piggyback off that person’s knowledge base and they’re also then supporting the new team members as well as you.
Exactly the whole idea is that it’s you do it once and then it’s not so much dependent on the the person as such it’s more about um you know plug and play uh essentially new people can come in and pick up uh pick it up quite fast because of the resources that have been built.
Yeah because you’re building that resource around the role not the person, correct yeah because that’s what I can see that happens a lot in in other businesses they kind of build it around the person and not necessarily that person is even right for the role and it’s just it’s such an uphill battle explaining it that way
Yeah and it’s not it’s not in the person’s head they don’t take it with them when they leave it’s there on paper.
What measurable results have you found?
What measurable results have you found from outsourcing?
Obviously the increase in sales and the increase in data quality around compliance and all other aspects of the actual CRM side of things which obviously helps with ongoing marketing and things like that to our database um and increased uh work you know work-life balance has improved as well um just from really only having to focus on the income-generating side of things really the things that you got into broken to focus on you know helping people and gaining the sales, yeah so you’ve actually kind of hit the nail on the head in increasing your capacity your available capacity but not by your broker or your more expensive local staff by just having the admin tasks done by your outsourced people exactly yeah increased sales and reduced hours essentially for the broker.
So would you say that the quality of the data in your CRM is also improved?
Yeah absolutely it’s in line with the improved compliance is basically it’s not reliant purely on the broker to go in input and if the broker is in a busy patch where you know I’ll get back to that later and it never happens or it’s not as you know it’s rushed the fact that there’s you know defined roles for the admin staff to actually do these things as part of their processes means that it’s all input to the level that we want and consistent across all clients.
What advice would you have for others who are looking to outsource?
What advice would you give to others who are looking to outsource?
Yeah firstly i would highly recommend taking a good look at it it’s it’s really improved at a heap of different uh areas in our business um when looking at the providers um try and get personal testimonials from their from their customers speak with them interview them like we did with yourself look at things such as how they’re recruiting the staff members what processes they go through to make sure the personalities are matching with with the stakeholders of your business what on going support there is in terms of resourcing them with the the technology that they need and ongoing training to improve their education yeah so do you feel that our affordable staff does those things yeah we’ve been very happy with with that pretty much all of what i’ve just said there so um the additional yeah the initial resourcing has meant that the staff members we’ve got today have really fit in and just just basically gone off and assisted us with what we got them to do right away there’s been very minimal teething there or anything like that so and then the ongoing training and resourcing is um yeah that’s been very impressive thank you i feel like you know if you’re going to work with another company like yourselves in business you have to support each other you know and we need to actually always consider that in what we’re doing just providing a virtual assistant in my opinion is not enough you have to back the virtual assistant and you have to back your client absolutely yeah yeah i mean i think that’s that’s how we see it as an ongoing relationship with with you guys as well it’s not just a set and forget kind of thing.
How are things going on Cape Finance?
Nadine and the team from Affordable Staff have been fantastic with sourcing really high-quality admin staff for our business
their focus on actually the recruitment process and matching personalities to ensure that there’s seamless integration with the staff members into our team has been really impressed along with the ongoing resourcing and training of them of the staff members to make sure they’re constantly on the ball for us I’m Tim Kavanagh from Cape Finance.
