How To Select The Best BPO Partner and Drive Business Growth
After deciding to outsource your company’s contact center services, the next biggest challenge is selecting a BPO partner. To make that decision, you are likely to consider factors such as your budget and the outsourcing company’s reputation. While those are absolutely important, you must consider a few other factors to ensure you are making a smart choice and investing in a strategy that will deliver.
Overall, to ensure positive results when outsourcing, you must do three things:
- Define and set clear expectations
- Know exactly what you will get
- Do your research and choose the right partner
While you may understand what you want to get out of a contact center company partnership and may feel good about clearly defining those expectations, outsourcing companies offer varying degrees of service. Knowing what you need and how to choose the right partner is the first step to ensuring a successful partnership.
To guide you through the process and help you choose a partner that will make you feel confident in your decision, we created an outsourcing partner questionnaire. The questionnaire offers valuable insights into what an ideal outsourcing partnership should look like in terms of capabilities and communication, and how each capability factors into overall success.
Questions to ask when evaluating potential contact center outsourcing partnerships
1. Does the outsourcing company have access to the latest technologies?
What they should offer: Speech analytics, TCPA Compliant Telephony Programs, PCI/SOC II Type II
Why this matters: Understanding what the company has to offer and if they are using the latest technologies will help you understand the efficacy and accuracy of their processes and output. Some of the most current technologies can increase the speed of calls and accuracy to ensure the communications meet the needs of customers. Newer technologies also focus on compliance and eliminate the risk of your practices violating new legislation or infringing on customer privacy. Ask about the technology, what it does, and how it contributes to success.
2. Do they have access to professional staff?
What they should offer: Dedicated front line employees, quality and compliance teams, and training teams
Why this matters: An outsourcing partner that offers dedicated staff is one that will protect and execute your company voice and brand. Because the team is dedicated to your business brand, it is top of mind for those professionals and therefore, they will be the best representatives of your company. When companies do not use dedicated staff for specific clients, issues with inadequate training, mediocre quality control, and knowledge transfer gaps are likely to occur.
3. Are they able to scale and meet seasonal needs?
What they should offer: Dedicated recruiting team, resources for and ability to scale up or down quickly.
Why this matters: While some businesses have a steady flow of call center traffic throughout the year, most businesses experience some degree of seasonality that leads to peaks and valleys in activity volume. An effective outsourcing partner should work with your company to understand your business, plan for seasonal changes, and be prepared to recruit and scale as needed. This includes being ready for a predicted influx of traffic and for more spontaneous spikes.
4. Do they offer global resources?
What they should offer: Ability to offer extended support hours and bilingual support
Why this matters: We live in a 24/7 world and oftentimes conduct business across borders. Therefore, it is important to ensure your call center services include answering services outside of your typical daytime hours and can provide support. By offering global resources, your call center company can manage calls at all times every day and should have the ability to offer bilingual support for any non-English speaking customers. Using global resources can also help control costs and provide more affordable BPO options that may be better suited for your business needs.
5. What are the company’s commitments and means of communicating?
What they should offer: Commitment to your business goals, clear and consistent communication with all stakeholders, and up-to-date with trends and technology
Why this matters: To ensure any level of success, you must be on the same page as the company you choose to work with and all parties should see the bigger vision. Therefore, your partner should understand how your business works, the overall goals, the brand voice and style, and how you want and need to communicate with customers. The company you choose to partner with should be clear, open, and consistently communicating with you. They should have a commitment to remain aware of any new industry technologies and be flexible enough to adapt to changes.
Choose Wisely and Be Confident
When weighing the benefits and outcomes versus your investment, it is likely that you will be able to clearly identify the advantages of using a capable and competent call center outsourcing company to help your company manage customer communications more efficiently.
About Radius Global Solutions
Radius Global Solutions is a trusted BPO partner and leading provider of customer relationship management solutions. With more than a century of experience in the industry, our team has the knowledge and expertise to provide reliable, consistent service. Every day, we deliver the results our partners expect and deserve.
Our mission is to work with partners to help them exceed customer expectations through a highly collaborative, secure, and compliant environment. To learn how Radius GS can help solve your outsourcing challenges, reach out and speak to a team member today.