Client Overview
A music and public performance rights organization founded in the 1930s, SESAC Holdings licenses millions of music and performance rights in affiliation with writers, publishers, performers, music creators, and users in order to collect royalties in a manner that is timely, accurate, and efficient. As the second oldest performing rights company in the U.S., SESAC has a rich history and massive collection of music writers, publishers, performers, composers, music creators as well as digital and broadcast music rights operating across multiple locations globally.
To avoid infringement, clients acquire authorized licenses from SESAC to legally play music and share performances across multiple platforms such as TV, live formats, radio, etc. in restaurants, hotels, malls, clubs, bars, fitness studios, theme parks, at events, etc. SESAC fosters a collaborative and dynamic environment that focuses on commitment and inclusion consistent with their partnership with Premier, both in terms of excellence in execution as well as shared corporate cultural values.
Team Structure
QA manager
Team supervisor
Customer Support personnel
Sales team
Challenge
SESAC deploys Premier Professionals to contact prospects to discover and qualify leads for the sale of legal music licenses and, thereby, expand their customer base through intelligent and highly efficient sourcing and sales campaigns. They required a cost-efficient and flexible solution that would parallel their in-house quality solution for their pre-existing operations. Operating on a legacy system, SESAC’s operations were very slow during the transition period as they migrated to digital platforms, requiring additional support which they received from Premier, achieving substantial and significant enhancement of their existing program. Partnering with Premier, SESAC also required support to handle incoming queries and data verifications for their Customer Service department in a more efficient and effective manner.
Expectation
Initially, SESAC was to provide the Premier team with Radian 6 lead files to identify licensed and unlicensed businesses; and close deals where applicable. This was later enhanced by Premier as a value-added solution and increased through lead mining. Contacting businesses to validate for legal use of music in any public gathering establishments, they expected a high rise in sales while reducing overhead costs for single or blanket licenses. They also required the Premier personnel to manage all customer queries for pre-existing clients, maintaining the top standard of service.
The Premier Action Plan
Playing music lawfully in the US for a business establishment requires a valid, legal license from a performance rights license issuing authority such as SESAC. In early 2013, SESAC retained Premier Outsourced services and solutions for highly experienced, mostly university-educated, professionals. They were to perform the required services in a manner that could be efficiently and effectively scaled up or down, when and as required. An additional requirement of SESAC was to provide Customer Support professionals who would provide superior management of client queries as issues arose from time to time in relation to the licenses and associated services that SESAC provides for their multiple customers.
Functions Performed
Executing inquiries of businesses among RNTs and SESAC’s customer base businesses to ferret out unauthorized use of live and recorded performances in an unlicensed manner; and, in that process, politely, professionally, and diplomatically educating owners/managers regarding US copyright laws and; ultimately selling them a license(s) which will allow them to legally offer and use the performances in an authorized manner;
Making prospects aware of the benefits of having a legal certificate to offer and use licensed performances across the entertainment spectrum:
Rating usage from pre-existing customers in terms of the increase in size, space, seating, and updating license fees accordingly together with many other sub-services (flexible);
Validating business addresses to verify existing or duplicate accounts, entering business information and drafting and sending letters of introduction;
Completing licensing deals with said RNT business leads for legal use under the SESAC banner: Licensing consultant contacts the Prospect again in 7 to 20 business days and escalates complete information to SESAC to issue the license. This includes closing sales for single (one establishment) or blanket licenses (chain of restaurants etc.);
Contacting customers on the Premier provided dialer for outbound calls, as well as email, fax, and chat for management of contracts and validation of information;
Notifying and escalating, if necessary, any overflow calls to the in-house SESAC team;
Handling incoming customer queries for payments, credit card transactions, invoice information, etc. for pre-existing customers of SESAC through their Customer Support operations; processing on SESAC’s website or their phones;
Lead mining via Facebook and social media portals from events; and,
Moving/transferring ownership of the license to SESAC for clients that already have other authorizations.
SESAC did not have access to sufficient data lists, a potentially huge problem for them in terms of expanding their lead generation and other sales processes. To remedy this serious issue, Premier provided an ingenious approach to lead generation, allowing SESAC to not only keep their business flowing smoothly, but also enhance and grow their brand. Premier’s team focused on social media events at entities that qualified as licensees under SESAC’s business model. This requires extensive, professional, experienced research in tandem with constant follow-up of social events by Premier’s team of professionals to ensure that no opportunity is missed. Transitioning to electronic signature software expedited this process and SESAC’s operations substantially. SESAC authorized the Premier team to shift all systems accordingly and the results were significant and tellingly successful.
Moreover, the Premier billing plan, as customized for SESAC, allowed for a prospect-friendly, lower hourly rate than the previous pricing, enhancing the SESAC pricing success ratio. This Premier implemented process empowered both teams to effectively align goals and motivate both SESAC and Premier personnel to empirically measurable increased levels of performance.
Our Achievement
Acting as a true extension of the SESAC staff, Premier has creatively revamped and steadily increased SESAC’s operations through strategic thought processes that Premier brought to the partnership, outperforming their internal team. The cycle for a single call may be from 15 to 90 days, considering a multi-touch contact for verifications and documentation procedures. Operating on multiple dialers, Premier’s team handled both Customer Service and Lead Generation for SESAC with expertise, generating results impressively higher than their expectations. Despite the challenges faced to the business during the virus lockdown, SESAC and Premier remained partners, to ensure business continuity on all fronts operating remotely. Both partners showed the true metal of the relationship in their mutual concessions and agreements which allowed them to make the necessary and crucial adjustments to process delivery, and also allowed the SESAC-Premier Team to stand tall.
Our Impact
SESAC is one of Premier’s oldest clients with whom we have built an invaluable relationship of trust over the years. We are in the process of expanding services to other customer bases for SESAC such as hotels, fitness studios, internet cafés, etc., and any other prospect who incorporates licensable performances in their business model. Despite the challenges of the pandemic and SESAC’s urgent requirement for downscaling, SESAC and Premier maintained their co-sourcing partnership, sharing both risk and reward with the relationship becoming even stronger as a result thereof. Today, as SESAC returns to full form, they are once again, looking to Premier to expand their brand by expanding their sales processes and customer service operations; as the effective partner that we have been for nearly two decades.
Why Premier
Premier creates personalized solutions for its clients focusing on greater Customer Satisfaction, increased revenue, and better utilization of technology and high-quality manpower. We build trust over time, immersing ourselves within our client’s corporate image, understanding their business thoroughly to deliver value-added services.
