Key highlights

  • Revenue growth and recovery: Achieved ROI exceeding 400%, with consistent recovery of lost revenue.
  • Sales pipeline development: Enhanced visibility, surfacing new sales opportunities alongside renewals and win-back revenue.
  • Go-To-Market efficiency: Streamlined processes and improved scalability, supported by Salesforce for their CRM and dashboard reporting and Amazon Connect for call recording and training.
  • Cost optimisation: A high-performing team of four Customer Recovery Specialists for less than $8,000 per month, as a fully-loaded cost.

Client overview

Seagull Scientific is a global leader in barcode and labelling solutions. Since 1985, its flagship product, BarTender, has helped businesses simplify and automate label printing, asset tracking, and inventory management. By offering innovative, customisable software, Seagull serves industries ranging from small businesses to large enterprises, ensuring compliance and precision in their operations.

Challenges faced by Seagull

Seagull faced significant operational challenges that hindered growth and Go-To-Market efficiency.

One major concern prior to outsourcing, as Chris Wygant, Global Renewals Manager at Seagull, explained, was the quality of candidates they might receive to join the team.

“Having never gone through this process before, I thought, are we really going to get candidates who are a good fit for this specific role and what we’re trying to accomplish?”

Other challenges consisted of:

  • Lack of capacity: Internal teams were stretched thin, unable to effectively follow up on expired client contracts, impacting both sales and revenue recovery.
  • Outsourcing hesitations: Seagull had never outsourced before and was concerned about:
    • Finding qualified candidates
    • Maintaining U.S.-level service quality
    • Client perceptions of an overseas team
  • Data security: Ensuring secure system access for a remote team was a priority
  • Longevity concerns: Questions arose about the long-term commitment and reliability of overseas hires.

These issues left Seagull unable to optimise revenue retention and recovery effectively while creating uncertainty about the feasibility of outsourcing.

The solution: Partnering with Flat Planet

To overcome these challenges, Seagull turned to Flat Planet who addressed Seagull’s concerns with a comprehensive solution:

  1. Streamlined hiring process
    • Pre-vetted pool of talent reduced recruitment time.
    • Only the most qualified candidates were presented for interviews, saving resources
  2. Effortless onboarding
    • Flat Planet managed the entire onboarding process, ensuring smooth integration.
    • Secure access to systems and credentials addressed data security concerns

“It was a very thorough process start to finish and a really great experience in terms of finding and vetting quality candidates, so by the time they’re going through the interview process with me, they were all very solid candidates to begin with. “ 

“The onboarding process was very seamless too. It took a lot of legwork away from the Seagull side, having Flat Planet manage everything from end-to-end.” – Chris Wygant, Global Renewals Manager.

  1. In-depth training
    • A combination of Flat Planet’s training and hands-on sessions in Manila enabled the new team to quickly understand Seagull’s:
      • Business model
      • Client interaction standards
      • Operational expectations

Furthermore, Flat Planet provided secure access to all necessary systems and credentials, mitigating Seagull’s concerns around data security, ensuring a seamless integration.

Within two months, the team was fully operational. This end-to-end service was a key part of the solution, as it took the burden of recruitment and training off Seagull’s plate, allowing them to focus on their core operations.

Results: Outsourcing that delivered

The collaboration between Seagull and Flat Planet yielded remarkable results:

  1. Financial gains
    • Over 400% ROI, with the entire team operating at less than $8,000 per month, and generating in excess of $32,000+ per month in win-back and recovered revenue.
    • Recovery of significant win-back revenue which consistently exceeded expectations, as well as continually surfacing sales opportunities, driving volume through resellers and building client relationships
  1. Operational excellence
    • Enhanced processes, including:
      • Database clean-up and optimisation
      • Finding and confirming new stakeholders within current customers, unlocking new avenues for revenue growth
    • Leveraging a sophisticated technology suite, like:
      • Salesforce dashboards: Real-time performance insights into sales pipeline performance and metrics, per person, over each time period
      • Amazon Connect: Seamless call recordings for coaching and quality assurance
  2. Team stability
    • Zero turnover, with the same team members remaining stable and dedicated, delivering consistent, high-quality results
    • Positive client feedback confirmed seamless integration and trust in the overseas team
  3. Scalability
    • A scalable model enabled Seagull to expand the team without additional international training costs

Why partnership with Flat Planet worked

Flat Planet’s outsourcing solution addressed Seagull’s capacity issues while significantly enhancing their Go-To-Market capabilities. The key success factors were:

  • Reliable, skilled candidates ensured seamless service continuity
  • Thoughtful onboarding and training, reducing the internal burden
  • Secure systems integration safeguarded sensitive data
  • Proactive processes that continuously improved sales pipeline visibility and drove revenue growth.

Conclusion

Flat Planet’s partnership with Seagull Scientific exemplifies the transformative power of outsourcing when paired with the right partner. By addressing capacity issues and unlocking new growth opportunities, Flat Planet delivered a tailored solution that exceeded expectations in operational efficiency, revenue recovery, and sales pipeline visibility. Acting as a seamless extension of Seagull’s business, the outsourced team not only provided consistent financial returns but also brought intangible improvements to processes and strategy. This collaboration highlights how innovation, efficiency, and scalability can redefine a company’s Go-To-Market strategy while maintaining top-tier service standards.