Global Outsourcing COO fosters a “family” environment amongst his multinational award-winning team

The Silicon Review

COO of the Month

Medical billing support is where ONQ began its journey. Two of ONQ’s founders had previously sold a medical billing business and were open to other business opportunities. They wanted to leverage their medical billing expertise while also meeting an unmet demand in the market. Medical billing companies increasingly outsource to countries like India and the Philippines. They recognized an opening in the market to provide near-shore medical billing outsourcing services. Initially, ONQ set up shop in Santiago de Veraguas in Panama and later expanded to Nyeri, Kenya, and Hyderabad, India, all locations where a large number of young, educated, and linguistically versatile individuals love their hometowns but are compelled to commute long distances to the capital city for work.

ONQ is a global labor healthcare outsourcing and technology company dedicated to the needs of physician groups, hospitals and billing companies. The company is headquartered in Panama with offices in the US, Kenya and India. ONQ’s contact center includes inbound and outbound call center services as well as front and backend billing operations. ONQ’s niche is advancing technology and labor solutions in healthcare, and its technology division offers robotic process automation (RPA) services as well as several proprietary business intelligence tools. At a conference in Malta in December 2022, Contact Center World named ONQ Chief Operating Officer Sean Hammerle as the world’s best contact center executive, for the second consecutive year.

We sat down with Chief Operating Officer, Sean D. Hammerle in the DFW airport lounge during a recent layover to learn more about the executive and his companies.

Q. What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful COO?

Everything begins and ends with communication. You simply must be able to get your point across – to your clients, to your employees, to the government officials in the countries in which you work. These days, it’s not enough to be able to articulate yourself. You must be able to do it as effectively in email as you do in person, and as convincingly in a white paper as you are in 280 characters.

I think integrity is a close second in terms of essential skills. Eloquence will only carry you so far. If the message isn’t sincere, if you aren’t a person of your word, no amount of wordsmithing will convince someone otherwise. I suppose a great speech might win someone over in the short term, but you will lose them in the end if you don’t deliver on your promises. For a COO, this means being consistently fair and open and honest with employees. It means being forthright with vendors, and it means always following through on commitments to clients.

Finally, if we have learned nothing else from the pandemic, we now know the importance of resilience. As a chief operating officer, we are ultimately responsible for remaining operational. Operational resilience requires certain flexibility – the ability to bend without breaking. The ability to adapt to whatever circumstances come at us and still find a way to operate and even thrive despite the challenge.

Q. How is ONQ different?

I am asked this question often, and my answer is always the same. ONQ is different because of our culture. I left my family and friends when I moved to Panama in 2013. I knew that this company would become my substitute family and decided that I needed to create a true family culture. In 2015, our employees (not the executives) came up with the phrase, “The Biggest Family in Santiago.” That told me I had succeeded, but I wanted to continue to grow and reinforce the family culture. That is where the “QFamily” came from. Now that we have expanded to two other continents, our teams use the phrase “The Biggest Global Family,” and they post to their own social media feeds with the hashtag: #ONQ4Life.

For several years after we started this company, my business partners wanted me to hire experienced managers. I told them that I preferred to mentor and grow the leadership from within. I held my ground, and now our operations team leadership is composed entirely of individuals who started as agents. We have three vice presidents on the executive team that started as entry-level employees in the early years of ONQ. It makes me feel like a proud papa…of almost 700 kids. But my method also reinforces our four core values: Value Creation, Can-Do Attitude, Commitment to Quality, and most importantly Elevate Others. By concentrating our operations in communities with few employment opportunities for youth and by growing and promoting our leaders from within, we genuinely elevate our employees, our clients, and the communities where we work.

Q. If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?

Put down the phone. If you are just starting out, you need to recognize and capitalize on your tremendous opportunity to learn from people who have walked the trail ahead of you. Talk to your coworkers. Talk to your supervisors. Be friendly and take the time to ask questions. Technology can be hugely helpful, but don’t let it stand in the way of developing genuine relationships.

Q. Do you have any new services ready to be launched?

ONQ’s sole focus remains healthcare, but after we won Best Customer Service in the World from Contact Center World, we recognized the opportunity to broaden our reach. Last year we launched KAPIM, LLC (kapimllc.com), our subsidiary company, to serve industries other than healthcare. KAPIM will bring our innovative technology and award-winning call center network to solve challenges in any industry.

Q. What does the future hold for your company and its customers? Are exciting things on the way?

We have a goal to have 10,000 employees on five continents elevating others through employment with ONQ companies by 2032. Expansion and growth are our future! We want to elevate more communities across the globe and grow our QFamily. With a talented, dynamic young workforce, I am confident that ONQ and KAPIM will make their marks in providing global solutions for our evolving world.

Let’s Connect: Website- onqoc.com Email- connect@onqoc.com

In December, Sean was named Best Contact Center Executive in the World for the second consecutive year. His company ONQ was honored as Best Customer Service in the World and Best Contact Center in the World.

Meet the leader behind the success of ONQ

Sean D. Hammerle is the Chief Operating Officer of ONQ and KAPIM, LLCs. Sean had more than two decades of experience in NGO fundraising and executive leadership development before relocating to Panama to launch ONQ in 2013. He is a graduate and diehard alum of Louisiana State University, which he attended on an opera performance scholarship. He is also a competitive racer with nearly 50 marathons and triathlons among his accomplishments. Sean is a graduate and former board chair of Leadership Houston, a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, Vistage, and several professional healthcare and medical billing associations.