Foundever rebrand makes life simpler for enterprise customers

Sitel Group’s 750-plus customers have a new name to get used to, intended to signal the difference between the call center business it was rooted in and the entrepreneurial, metaverse-embracing company it wants to be.

The Sitel name is a portmanteau of “site” and “telephone”—apt when that was core business. While call centers are still important to the new Foundever brand, the acquisition of the work-from-home leader SYKES in 2021 marked a clear switch away from in-center activities only. Today, 57% of the company’s 170,000 people work from home or in hybrid models.

Sitel’s and SYKES’ sub-brands are being tidied away

Both SYKES and Sitel had a host of sub-brands customers had to navigate, such as Sitel Group’s Learning Tribes and Sitel Group’s Insights. SYKES retained the Symphony automation sub-brand, acquired in 2018. All these capabilities remain, but they now sit under the Foundever brand.

While simply changing the name to Foundever is unlikely to set champagne corks popping among Sitel Group’s enterprise customer base, the reorganization will simplify contracts and invoicing, making life a little easier. Foundever has been working hard behind the scenes to prepare its customers for the change and minimize disruption.

The new name is a launch pad for growth plans

Foundever is third for revenue generation in the sector, behind Teleperformance and Concentrix. It handles nine million customer interactions daily. The re-org investment comes alongside plans to grow its footprint with new location options. It opened new operations in Peru and Turkey, offering access to new talent in Latin America and, in the case of Turkey, targeting one of the more challenging languages for coverage, German.

Within the next few months, Foundever will also open in new locations in multiple regions globally. The company prefers not to share exactly where just yet.

Customers will benefit from reinvigorated employees

A further benefit for customers is the rapid rise in the $4 billion revenue firm’s employee net promoter score (eNPS) from 27 to 52 in one year. Foundever leaders suggest the reorganization reenergized employees keen to get behind a more future-facing vision. A strong employee experience typically results in satisfied customers, hence the value in getting this right in the business-to-business-to-consumer space Foundever typically operates in.

Leaders claim Foundever retains long-held company values, reflecting a commitment to best-in-class customer experience (CX) rooted in human interactions. But they also see the rebrand as an opportunity to regain the company’s entrepreneurial roots and “simplify CX” for the brands it works with.

Another solid foundation Foundever can build on is its heritage in the pure-play home-based capability SYKES built via its Alpine Access acquisition well before the pandemic forced home-based strategies upon business process outsourcers. These capabilities have served as the cornerstone of remote expertise as a distinct market differentiator.

Foundever offers customer care, business optimization, sales and retention services, technical support, back-office support, collections, trust and safety, strategy and design, omnichannel CX, experience workflow orchestration, self-service and bots, analytics and artificial intelligence, social media CX, metaverse and Web3 coverage, and learning and development services.

The Bottom Line: Employee experience and culture will decide if Foundever is just a name change or a change for the better.

The new Foundever name is a clear break from the firm’s traditional call center heritage. The internal comms have done their job exciting employees to high eNPS. But keeping the excitement alive among employees will get tougher the further we get from the bright lights of the new brand launch. As Foundever grows its footprint, ensuring its culture lands everywhere will be increasingly difficult. Success in both will decide if this is just a name change or a change for the better.