A Pulse Check for Your Outsourcing Partner
Your organisation made the decision to outsource a part or all of it’s customer facing interactions, evaluating several potential outsourcing providers and selecting the best fit for your business’s needs at the time.
However, the answers to the questions you asked when you initially selected an outsourcing partner, may have changed.
Is Your Current Outsourcing Arrangement Still a Good Fit?
Business requirements can rapidly change in today’s era of digital disruption. As a result, an assessment of the outsourcer/client relationship and the alignment to your business’s strategy and customer expectations must be regularly reviewed. Points for consideration include:
The financial model you first agreed upon was, and still is, dependent on the level of operational responsibility and service level agreements (SLAs) borne by your outsourcing provider. Often this balance changes as your requirements evolve (your business either takes on more responsibility for these functions or relinquishes some control as the relationship progresses). A review is required to make sure you are getting what you are paying for.
Does your current outsourcing partner have the resources to cater for your future business needs? If you have grand plans to expand your outsourced team, does your current provider have the recruiting capability, available quality facilities and prior experience to allow this expansion?
Do you have the ability to capture your customer experience insights? What are you doing with this information?
Traditional outsourcing focuses on increasing or retaining the number of resources originally agreed. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) advancements are often not congruent with this model, the aim being to decrease reliance on human capital and in turn costs. Due to the fear of reducing revenue, outsourcing providers are yet to embrace RPA or AI.
In addition to the above outsourcing strategy watchpoints, using an experienced team to perform an external audit can uncover irregularities that are often not immediately apparent, such as:
Inefficient IVRs causing a poor customer experience, as well retaining superfluous resources to cope with the overflow.
Sharing of supposedly dedicated resources between the outsourcer’s other clients.
Data security risks and potential breaches.
An audit of the time spent managing and monitoring the performance of your outsourcing partner. Is the relationship really saving you the money that you first thought?
How Can a Third-Party Assist?
Exceed Global consultants have vast experience both working client side (working with an outsourcing provider to optimise customer experience) and vendor side (working with some the largest outsourcers in technology delivery, contract negotiation, project management and compliance among many other functions).
Using a consultancy to help improve your outsourcing relationship is no different to using a buyer’s advocate when purchasing a house. It pays dividends to have someone on your team that knows the market, potential pitfalls to look out for and will ensure that your customer’s interests are at the heart of negotiations.
Luke Cottom