Five Questions To Consider When Choosing A Strategic Outsourcing Partner
by Michael D. Mills, SVP, Call Center Solutions, CGS -
January 2, 2017
Five Questions to Consider When Choosing a Strategic Outsourcing Partner
By Michael D. Mills, SVP, Call Center Solutions, CGS
Many companies have determined that outsourcing is a viable option to realize cost reduction, standardization and consolidation and process maturity business objectives. However, those same companies are challenged with the multiple choices in outsourcing processes, tools and providers. Determining which outsourcing partner strategically aligns with the core business objectives, while providing a global solution to address the challenges of skills, languages and network security is not a simple task. In fact, it requires evaluating your business needs and then comparing the transition and implementation models, infrastructure and network requirements, security and compliancy standards and agent skills and capabilities, in identifying the best strategic outsourcing partner.
Outsourcing support services have evolved to be global in nature, thus whether onshore or offshore outsourcing support is preferred, it is imperative that the implementation components noted above regarding transition, skills, security and infrastructure are fully vetted. Language support requirements (EMEA, AP, SA) and specific skills/certifications (Microsoft/Oracle/AD/SDML) are mandating that companies seek onshore and offshore (hybrid) outsourcing models, but the cost of these types of models can be prohibitive. Finding an outsourcing partner that has global capabilities within a single, combined center will yield the cost benefits of consolidation and standardization, without compromising the quality of the services being delivered to the customers. How do you make the proper inquiries to identify the best strategic outsourcing partner in aligning with your company’s business objectives?
Here are five questions to consider when evaluating potential outsourcing partners:
1) What skill levels are required for technical and/or Customer Care services?
Companies require specific and complex levels of support from outsourcing partners, especially when it comes to technical support. For customer care support, companies require proficient communication and interpersonal skills when dealing with customer interactions. The company should ensure that the outsourcing partner has a detailed hiring and recruiting process, as well as an onsite training program that will promote continuity and consistency with the agent training process. Furthermore, the outsourcing partner should instill a work environment for the agents that will create an “extension” of that company’s brand within the contact center. Lastly, the outsourcing partner should have an integrated quality assurance and workforce management team to promote continuous process improvement initiatives within the contact center environment.
The specific skill sets you require will affect whether to utilize an onshore or offshore support model. When evaluating onshore, nearshore or offshore locations for advanced skills and certifications, companies should look to regions that have contact centers near major universities and technical schools. The U.S. market may be cost prohibitive for onshore projects particularly if bilingual agents are required, but may be the best option for highly regulated industries, such as healthcare or government, due to security requirements. Nearshore and offshore outsourcing can often deliver the same level of quality services at a reduced cost. When selecting these nearshore and offshore partners, look for countries that have governmental support for education programs and high success rates of educational attainment and literacy. Those outsourcing partners that have centers located near college campuses and technical schools will provide a deeper talent pool and will experience less attrition.
2) Do I need global support capabilities (multilingual)?
While emerging CRM technologies help to deliver greater collaboration with outsourced teams, barriers such as language and culture can inhibit the success of global outsourcing strategies. If your company supports a multinational client base, you’ll want to choose a business process outsourcing (BPO) location that can scale to support your needs globally.
Multichannel Customer Service Report, 60 percent of consumers have higher expectations for customer service now than they did just one year ago. Outsourcing in some offshore locations, for example in India, can pose cultural and language challenges that leave U.S.-based customers frustrated. Some nearshore and offshore locations including Romania and Chile tend to deliver much higher levels of customer satisfaction due to cultural similarities and language proficiencies. With an integrated workforce management process, issues such as non-U.S. holidays, time zone difficulties and other problems can be overcome in providing a seamless customer experience. This interactive infographic on finding the right outsourcing region provides additional considerations and can help to narrow down the best strategic outsourcing solution for your global support requirements.
3) What are my network infrastructure and technology requirements?
A resilient, secure and redundant network infrastructure is imperative for any BPO solution to be successful. When considering an offshore model, it’s important to gauge how reliable a country’s network and infrastructure may be and how much is being invested in improvements and advances with emerging technologies. Reviewing data such as the ICT Development Index, an index based on internationally agreed information and communication technologies indicators, can help inform which countries are likely to provide the best infrastructure.
In addition to what is happening at the country level, it’s important to analyze what resources potential partners have in place. For example, your IT team might want to know if the delivery centers are network redundant and if business continuity and disaster recovery procedures are documented. This could mitigate risk of an outage – for instance, in the event of a natural disaster – because calls can be routed seamlessly from one location to another.
4) Do I need a call center that is PCI compliant to protect customer data?
The importance of data security continues to increase in today’s business world, which is reliant on a highly connected cyber network. Onsite and network-ensured security is critical for industries where exchange of sensitive information (e.g., payments, social security number and bank account information) must be secured. Organizations looking to outsource transaction-focused work should ensure the BPO partner follows compliance for the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). It’s often difficult to determine if a BPO provider using agents working from home is adhering to these specific security and compliance requirements. For example, mobile devices with photo-taking capabilities are restricted in PCI-compliant facilities. However, this would be difficult to control in a work-at-home based model. Organizations should ensure that the selected BPO partner is PCI-compliant – guaranteeing that any customer or employee data that is being handled will be kept onsite in a supervised facility that is using a dedicated or private network.
5) What are the critical KPIs/SLAs that will be provided to my customers?
A successful BPO partnership must include clearly defined service level agreements (SLAs) and key performance indicators (KPIs). When deciding on the best strategic outsourcing partner, it’s important to determine the specific key performance metrics that you will measure to ensure you are maintaining a consistent level of productivity, efficiency and quality delivery to your customers and end users. KPIs should correlate with operational and financial goals that may include growing revenue, increasing customer satisfaction rates, building end-user productivity or reducing IT-related incidents. The best way to measure value and make adjustments as needed is to implement a quality management process to monitor these KPIs and SLAs on a consistent basis. Your outsourcing partner should implement a proactive quality management process that will drive continuous process improvement throughout the engagement, thus providing a return on investment to customers in the way of “success-based reductions.” As the outsourcing partner realizes agent and metric productivity and efficiency, those cost savings are passed back to the customer.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to determining the best outsourcing provider. The most-effective method to evaluate which combination of people, processes and tools are best to align with your business objectives is to engage with an outsourcing partner that is both consultative and collaborative. The considerations and questions outlined above should be used to guide that decision process in feeling confident that the business needs will be achieved to ensure the long-term success of the company.
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