What works well for facility contact center 5CA can also work well for other companies, the initiators of Cocoroco.com thought. That company searches, finds and pays remote customer contact employees who work in all parts of the world.  

 

Cocoroco.com is a new branch on the tree of HR service providers for customer contact. The company with the remarkable name emerged as a buyout from facility contact center 5CA. Within that company, the necessary experience has been gained in the recruitment and selection of remote candidates over the past fifteen years. What works well for 5CA can also work well for other companies, the initiators of Cocoroco.com thought. The business model, platform and connecting the first customers took two years to build, and the company has been on its own since November last year.

Global potential

As a recruitment platform, the company is responding to the growing labor market shortage in the Netherlands and rising wage costs, he said Floor van Haaren, co-founder at Cocoroco.com (in the photo in the middle).

“Finding customer contact employees – not only for the Dutch language, but also for Swedish or German, for example – is becoming increasingly difficult. Candidates in the Netherlands increasingly turn their noses up at working in customer contact. The talent pool that employers tap into in customer contact with nearshore branches in Spain or Greece is also not large enough. Young people also have a wide choice of starter jobs. There is a lot of potential worldwide. Then you can think of Dutch or Germans living abroad who come from all over the world to work from home for Dutch companies. This group also often has a better work ethic.”

Pay in the country of the remote worker

Cocoroco.com focuses on inbound (service) and outbound (sales) specialists and in particular on employees who can be deployed permanently and flexibly. We work with longer and short-term contracts, for example for peak care, from two weeks to a year. Cocoroco.com takes care of recruitment, matching and remuneration in the employee's country on the basis of a contract in accordance with local labor legislation. Cocoroco.com pays employees in local salaries. Despite the margin (on an hourly or monthly basis) of 30% for Cocoroco.com, the total price still provides a significant advantage for the client - which can be up to 40% compared to employment agencies and is below the own wage costs in the Netherlands, says Van Haaren.

Working completely digitally

The company is currently working for various clients, including: Cygnific, Swapfiets, Picnic, Autoscout24, Riff and of course for 5CA. The client chooses the suitable candidate in the platform based on a composite profile and takes care of the onboarding. This does mean that clients must be at home in fully digital working. “A few years ago that was still an issue, but since corona it is hardly a problem anymore,” says Van Haaren.

With Cocoroco.com as a recruitment platform, 5CA has a competitor, you would say. “We are indeed both fishing in the same global pond, but it is big enough; 5CA is also looking for itself. We are an extension of the internal recruitment function,” says Van Haaren. “We find people through online marketing, local advertising, through the right channels per country, from local job boards to social media.”

Draw from a transparent card index

Cocoroco.com does not, as is usual in outsourced recruitment, present a candidate, but gives its clients access to the 'complete card index'. Van Haaren: “It is the client who chooses. The people in the card bank are extensively tested by us for general and specific customer service skills and language. We then provide people with a certain rating that can be matched to the needs of a company.”

There is a chance that with the further development of real-time speech translation, the added value of native speakers will fade into the background. Van Haaren responds to this: “As far as we are concerned, language skills are just one characteristic of someone. We look much more at other skills and potential. As for expectations about automated handling of customer contact: we think that about a third can be automated; a third can be optimized via agent assist such as Copilot and the rest really remains with human employees. I often miss that nuance in the predictions about the disappearance of customer contact jobs.”

“We also expect that the nature of the jobs will change, and our global talent pool allows us to respond to this. More automation will increase productivity and lower prices, which will also boost demand in the economy. In any case, the price will come under even further pressure.”

Employees are equipped with an AI tool

Van Haaren indicates that the employees who are selected will also receive an agent AI assist tool, for example loaded with the client's knowledge base. This would mean that employees would be trained more quickly and be more productive, because they would arrive at the right answer more quickly. Cocoroco.com is thus entering the field of process optimization – Van Haaren sees this as stretching services towards higher quality and productivity, with the help of smart AI tools. (Ziptone/Erik Bouwer)

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