Beyond Borders Podcast Episode 003: Overview
In this interesting episode, we extend a warm welcome to Jesse Hahn from StraightSource. What distinguishes them is their pioneering Soundboard-based Avatar Call Center Service, an advanced platform that is reshaping the landscape of inbound-outbound call centers. The journey of conceiving and collaborating on this groundbreaking platform for the BPO sector stands as one of Jesse’s most notable accomplishments.
As one of the premier staffing organizations and leading Recruitment Process Outsourcers in the USA, StraightSource has empowered over 9000 companies worldwide to optimize virtually every aspect of their operations, from top-tier management to operational efficiency. Their disruptive approach grants them a significant competitive advantage in today’s demanding market.
Through the collective expertise of their team and the utilization of cutting-edge AI technology, they take pride in positively impacting the lives of call center proprietors, ranging from small and medium-sized enterprises to multinational corporations, on a daily basis.
Guest Bio
For nearly twenty years, Jesse Hahn has served as the Chief Knowledge Officer at StraightSource, a prominent figure in the global Outsourced Labor Services sector. StraightSource provides a diverse array of top-tier services to the Business Process Outsourcing industry, encompassing Mortgage & Insurance Processing & Underwriting, Software and User Experience Development, Workforce Process Optimization, and Lead Generation Services.
Interview Transcript
Neal: Hello and welcome to OutsourcingFit. I’m your host Neal Howard, thank you so much for joining us. We’re going to be speaking with Jesse Hahn this morning. He’s joining us here from StraightSource as the Chief Knowledge Officer. We’re going to show the benefits of outsourcing and provide some in-depth information on outsourcing. Welcome to OutsourcingFit Jesse. Thank you so much for joining us.
Jesse: The pleasure is all mine.
Neal: If you would tell our listeners why you’re excited about outsourcing.
Jesse: Well I’ve been in the outsource labor business going back to 1977 so I have a little bit of experience from the recruiting field. I was originally a management recruiter. I focused on sales recruiting and what I realized the more I was involved in recruiting is I got a better understanding of inside corporations and I saw the need for outsourced labor at the time all there was was a few companies like Adco and Manpower which were just doing basic labor but there were no real major outsource labor companies at the time so I moved over from the recruiting side and got more on the candidate sourcing side. In fact, my company was one of the first companies in the world that actually provide recruiters in Silicon Valley and because it used to be that the only way you could hire someone is the hire manager puts an ad in a local newspaper for about $5,000 like the LA Times. Post the ad, get the resumés via mail, read them and then call the candidate up, interview them and bring them in, hire them and then give them to the Human Resource Department. That’s the way it was done going back to the beginning of time and what happened was that I had started not just recruiting anymore but providing companies with qualified candidates. They get hired themselves and they pay a flat rate for these candidates. We’re called HTC research, we just sold qualified interested candidates for a flat rate and then somebody says well we love your people because we just hire your people instead of having a recruiter so instead we put on site recruiters and that’s how the staffing industry started which is contract labor which is what recruiters are. Globally every company in the world now has an in-department. I’m usually a contract recruiter and then I saw in 2008 after the financial crisis that nobody was hiring for several years so I realized I had to get into another field and I noticed in my research that every 10 years there is a catastrophe in the world. Whatever it may be it could be the old embargo in the 70s, it could be the real estate crisis in the 80s. It was just one after another every 8 to 10 years that Co hit in 2020 and I was prepared and we were big into mortgage process outsourcing. We provided a high quality individual that can do all the components of a mortgage process all the way from verification to review, pre and post closing, underwriting, all done offshore. Bangalore is kind of like Silicon Valley mortgage processing now. My company skyrocketed.
Neal: There is a huge difference between outsourcing and offshoring and I heard you mention basic labor. I guess I’m assuming that that’s where they send a person to a company to perform a service and then they go home after that. Explain the basic differences in what you do as opposed to basic labor.
Jesse: Absolutely. Well there’s basically you’re looking at two types. You’ve got companies that provide labor that go into your company so let’s say you’ve got an IT Department, you can outsource the entire IT Department to a big company. Those people, even though they’re in the same seats doing the same job don’t work for your ABC company anymore they work for an extent an IBM whatever it may be and the company just plays a flat rate for those hundred or a thousand individuals and they’re doing that work on site not unlike someone was cleaning an office, that’s outsourced labor. Anything where a person is working in the office but they’re only being paid, their benefits, their medical, everything to an outsourced labor company like a deco, a manpower etc., so that’s one type of outsourcing. The other type is as you said nearshore where for example it could be in Mexico, Canada or South America, that’s called nearshore. And then there’s offshore which can be obviously Asia, Europe, etc so that is where instead of your employees being upstairs or down the street or across the country. They’re offshore, they’re full-time individuals, working in very secure facilities. They’re being paid a flat hourly rate. The companies don’t pay for management, they don’t pay for the facilities, computers. If someone’s sick, they have another person ready to go. It’s an incredible service and all a company does is pay a flat rate. They don’t pay the taxes for the individual and it comes out of a different department and budget. It’s incredibly effective. In fact, an average company can cut their costs without cutting their quality of service or their production 50% on average, usually more. Outsourcing is the only way a company can truly cut costs effectively.
Neal: Tell us about StraightSource. I heard you mention financial services, mortgages and whatnot. What services does StraightSource offer and what is your geographical footprint today?
Jesse: Sure. Pretty much anywhere where a person doesn’t have to physically be in a chair, StraightSource can do. So we can do call center inbound, outbound, IT Support, software development, accounting, finance, mortgage processing, artificial intelligence development, software development, mobile applications, web applications, analytics, whatever a company needs for outsourced labor, even engineering. We do a railroad, several companies, the doors for the railroad, so we do custom designing. We do civil engineering, we do electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, anything that needs outsourced labor. Our major business though is call center, software engineering and mortgage processing.
Neal: Talk about how AI plays a major part in your business.
Jesse: Well we have a very unique service called Avatar. Avatar is basically pre-recorded components of the entire conversation of an outbound, inbound call and then our agents don’t speak. They’re just pressing buttons If you were to call I can’t mention the companies but we have companies major Fortune 500 companies that they’re using agents and the cost is incredible and the quality of the voice isn’t because it’s all pretty PR recorded like for one company on the Cancer Society. We say thank you so much for your donation. It’ll make such a difference to the Cancer Society and the people, that’s all pre-recorded. It’s all pre-recorded components of a conversation and you’re unable to differentiate between AI and actual human voice. It’s human assisted dialogue.
Neal: Okay, it’s a human being pressing the button on what the person is supposed to say.
Jesse: Artificial intelligence has been around for years with American Airlines and American Express using Genesis. It is good but everybody knows it’s a computer with avatars or soundboard you don’t know because it’s a live agent they they listen and they respond by pressing a button.
Neal: How can folks get in touch with you and learn much more about StraightSource and your outsourcing services?
Jesse: straightsource.com. It’s a phenomenal website that provides all our information. At the end of the day, the most effective way for a company to increase their net profit to people seem to think that when you outsource, you’re letting American workers go. It’s the reverse outsourcing, which gets rid of mundane labor, the labor where people are doing the same thing again and again and again and then those people who are trained to do better paying work, higher paying jobs. It’s really it’s moving to the next level this is a must it’s why every year outsourcing gets bigger and bigger. It’s a necessity for every company here, go small.
Neal: Jesse, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining us here on OutsourcingFit. It’s been a pleasure.
Jesse: My pleasure, thank you.
Neal: You’ve been listening to OutsourcingFit. I’m your host Neal Howard in conversation with the Jesse Hahn Chief knowledge officer at StraightSource. Find out more at straightoutsource.com and learn more about us at verticalinternetmedia.com and our BPO services at www.outsourcingfit.com
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