Why is 2021 the time for outsourcing?
Because if you want to fly, you have to give up everything that weighs you down.
No, I didn’t steal this from a locker room bulletin board, but the aphorism is still true.
The most successful companies in history — and the most successful ones in 2021, for that matter — succeeded exponentially not because they did many things well, but because they did specific things great.
If your organization is ready to springboard to lofty success, you need to free your attention to the things that matter most (your expertise arena) and leave the rest to someone else.
The Elephant in Your Boardroom: Low Access to Labor
The problem with committing to a strategy that insists you focus only on what matters most, is the question of: “who will focus on everything else?”
Business leaders already know they can’t easily hire specialists because of the growing deficit in labor across the United States. It’s actually a unique paradox that has many leaders uncertain of how to proceed.
For instance, unemployment benefits in some states are more than twice the minimum wage, according to FT.com, which has taken a necessary pandemic-induced benefit and created a roadblock for businesses desperate for workers to return.
With reduced access to qualified workers, businesses are being forced to either a) overpay to fill vacancies or b) spread their existing teams to their limits, as they create ad hoc processes around the evolving demands of their business.
But both processes are untenable from a business perspective, as overpaying stifles the businesses’ ability to grow. Meanwhile, forcing employees to do more and more without relief creates lower employee morale, lower operational efficiency, and (ultimately) creates lower customer satisfaction and loyalty.
So, without the benefit of local, cost-effective candidates, what can a business do to scale quickly, manage higher demand, and deliver exceptional customer experiences?
Turns out, BPO vendors are well suited to step in and rapidly assist businesses with these challenges, delivering benefits that you simply can’t achieve with internal teams.
For business leaders, this effort to partner with a reliable BPO vendor frees them to focus on their expertise area, as they keep the things they’re best at in-house while outsourcing the rest to experts in that particular arena.
A mobile app developer knows a lot about mobile app development. Their focus should be on feature additions and UI improvements, not on hiring and training agents to handle customer service, and handling the inevitable complexities that go along with running a call center. A BPO provider, on the other hand, is an expert in call center management and can focus on elevating its operations.
Or consider a retailer with a particularly seasonal buying cycle, or a tax services provider who sees the bulk of their inquiries early in the year. Instead of sacrificing the time and money to hire and train temporary employees for your high-volume season, a BPO agency gives you the flexibility to scale or reduce coverage on-demand.
With peak season flexibility and outsourced expertise, you’re increasing your ROI and delivering a better customer experience across all your business channels.
What Experts Say About Outsourcing for Growth
8 in 10 small businesses (80%) plan to outsource in 2021, according to Clutch, a leading B2B research firm. The main reasons: save time, save money, and leverage BPO expertise.
It makes intuitive sense why outsourcing works – yet some business leaders still resist. Just consider the Pareto Principle, where 80% of the returns on your effort are produced by 20% of the actions. That means the other 80% of your business activity, fueled in time and resources, produces a fraction of the results.
Why not just hand off those tasks to experts that can elevate efficiency and ROI across those key business processes?
Doing so will unburden your central teams, allowing them to focus on the areas of greatest priority, adding speed, optimization, and (likely) lowering overall costs.
The Benefits of Outsourcing for Growth-Minded Companies
Why do growing companies turn to outsource call center partners to outsource key business processes?
Increased flexibility for growth
Whether through one BPO provider or multiple, business process outsourcing gives your key leaders and business units the freedom to aggressively capitalize on opportunities they couldn’t previously achieve.
Instead of a company of employees constantly on their heels struggling to get everything done, you can transform your team into creative, forward-thinking business units.
Bottom-line costs
Instead of hiring and training new staff to tackle low-priority processes, leaders can entrust key BPO activities to a vendor at a fraction of the cost.
What’s more, they serve your needs as an outsourcing expert, so you can be confident the services being outsourced are being processed at a high industry standard.
Higher NPS/CSAT
Customers have increasingly high expectations at every stage of the journey, from the first engagement to the final conversion point.
No matter your product or service offering, outsourcing allows you to curate elevated experiences at every stage of your customer journey (and every process) without having to manage them individually.
Think of your business as a summer BBQ: you might have the most skill at running the grill, but by deploying others to bring their best dish to share, you’re elevating the overall experience, limiting your responsibilities, and focusing on your area of expertise.
Ease of Expansion
BPO vendors offer business leaders the freedom to quickly and skillfully capitalize on new opportunities:
Looking to enter into new geographic markets? BPO vendors can provide multilingual agents to serve your customers.
Hoping to modernize your tech stack? BPOs stay on the cutting edge of contact center technology to compete for their clients’ business, which means the latest machine learning and artificially intelligent features are at your disposal.
Is Outsourcing Right for Your Business?
If your business is currently struggling with specific tasks, outsourcing with a BPO company offers real solutions. Business process outsourcing allows organizations to maximize capabilities and optimize efficiency while keeping operational costs low.
Outsourcing is not for everyone in every situation. If, for instance, you’re running only 2-3 agents per hour, then you’re probably not at the scale to overhaul your services to a BPO vendor. That said, if your internal agents are treading water with the work equivalent of many, many more agents — then you should move fast!
There are plenty of reasons why a company would choose BPO outsourcing to kick off higher growth — but, if any of the following statements are true for your organization, the timing might be perfect:
- “Cost control and reduction have us thinking outside the box.”
- “We’ve outgrown our old approach to business processes.”
- “Many of our essential tasks are falling through the cracks.”
- “Modernizing our tech stack is a priority.”
- “We want to focus more attention on key areas of our business.”
I Want to Outsource Services for Growth. How Do I Get Started?
There are hundreds of top-performing outsourcing partners all across the globe —and they’re all ready to expertly tackle your growth objectives.
But how can you tell which partner is the best fit for your business?
With decades of experience working with outsource contact centers and their clients, the expert team at Outsource Consultants provides a simple, risk-free approach to connecting you with a contact center partner that can help grow your business and exceed key goals.
Interested? Let’s chat during a no-risk, no-cost consultation.
