Call Center Search & Selection
Simplify Your Call Center Search
Selecting the right outsource call center is one of the most important decisions you can make for your business. Your call center is an extension of your brand, so it’s critically important that your vendor understands your company and provides the level of service your customers have come to expect.
In such a complex and rapidly-changing marketplace, it’s almost impossible for a company to stay current on the latest trends and provider performance. Most companies go direct to a BPO or hire a big consultancy. Both are slow, expensive, and conflicted. The alternative is an independent advisor with a live read on the BPO market and no financial stake in which provider you choose.
Here are the steps in the call center selection process:
- Evaluation of Needs
- Identification of Key Requirements
- Extensive Call Center Vendor Search
- Develop a List of Finalists
- Evaluation of Needs Call Center Site Visits and Due Diligence
- Call Center Site Visits and Due Diligence
- Final Selection
Finding the right outsource
call center partner is no easy task.
You’re probably facing several challenges, such as:
● Incomplete BPO Vendor List
Relying on search engines, colleague suggestions, and cold calls from BPO salesmen to populate your shortlist means you are restricting yourself to just a fraction of available BPO providers.
● Limited Time & Resources
You have limited time and resources, so you can’t possibly perform a deep analysis on more than a handful of providers, increasing the likelihood of missing out on a great potential partner.
● Slanted Information
You’re largely relying on information provided by the call center sales representatives, so you often don’t know what to expect in terms of everyday performance for your campaigns.
That’s where we come in. Outsource Consultants simplifies your call center search and takes the guesswork out of the BPO selection process. We’ll do the heavy lifting, so all you need to do is select a partner from a heavily vetted list of top-performing vendors. And we do it at zero cost to you, on a contingency model, earning only when we find you the right fit.
Here’s how it works:
1) Evaluation of Needs
Knowing exactly what you need is the key to finding the right outsource call center partner. Our meticulous approach to your needs evaluation allows us to consistently match companies to providers with a proven track record in their industry, not just the ones that look good on paper.
Thirteen years vetting the mid-market BPO space, backed by a leadership team with 15 to 30 years of hands-on CX, BPO, and sourcing experience, have helped us create a rigorous requirements gathering process.
We start the process with in-depth discussions to gain a complete understanding of your business, your culture, and what you need in an outsource call center.
We’ll evaluate pain points in your existing outsourcing strategy, review the pros and cons of global outsourcing locations, and examine both geo- and vendor-redundancy strategies. We also review your compliance and call center technology needs.
To maximize your budget, we’ll discuss budgetary requirements, call center pricing methodologies, and cost reduction strategies. The savings we typically find, 30-50% and sometimes over 60%, come out of your existing spend. That isn’t a smaller budget, it’s budget freed up to fund AI-enabled CX and performance gains.
2) Identification of Key Requirements
We work with you to identify your key outsourcing requirements, including:
- Budget
- Number of agents
- Flexibility and ability to scale
- Service type performance
- Channel performance
- Languages
- Relevant industry experience
- Geographic location
- Certifications
- Security requirements
- And more!
3) Extensive Call Center Vendor Search
We’ve spent years researching and screening outsource call centers to develop a database of over 1000 US-based, nearshore, offshore, and at-home BPO locations – including hundreds that wouldn’t have otherwise been on your radar. These outsource call centers go through a rigorous vetting process, and our analysts are continually receiving reporting data from them to update our database with current pricing, experience, and KPI performance.
Using our proprietary matching algorithm, we score providers on over 100 performance data points, including AI-readiness, to develop a shortlist that meets your exact requirements. Hours, not weeks.
Every BPO in our network operates under identical commercial terms, so there’s no financial reason for us to prefer one over another. Our bias is to the ones that perform. And because we know true global BPO market pricing, you’ll pay labor rates under retail.
4) In-Depth Comparison of Vendor Finalists
Once we’ve narrowed down your BPO options we provide proposals from the vendors and present your key requirements and pricing to you in a side-by-side comparative matrix so you can easily evaluate all your vendor options in a clear, concise fashion.
Our side-by-side comparative analysis allows you to review these finalists at a glance. All of the call centers included in this list will match your key requirements, so you can easily focus on the “extras” or unique offerings provided by the vendors.
5) Call Center Site Visits and Due Diligence
We understand how time-consuming this phase of the process can be, so we take the burden off of you by:
- Coordinating initial conference calls with vendors to discuss cultural alignment
- Arranging site visits with key stakeholders
- Offering advice on performing thorough reference checks
- Equipping our clients with negotiation tactics and providing guidance on key agreement points
6) Final Selection
Our mission is to arm you with all the information you need to make the right decision. While we’re certainly here to answer any questions you may have regarding the final selection, we intentionally take a step back during this phase.
We’re confident the options we’ve provided will suit your needs, and because every provider in our network operates under identical terms, we’ve got no stake in which one you pick. If you’d rather prove it before committing, our Champion/Challenger approach lets you pilot a challenger BPO on a small agent pool, prove the thesis on real performance data, then scale. It’s reversible, low cost, and costs less than what a large consultancy charges just to scope the project.
7) Ongoing Monitoring
Most outsourcing doesn’t fail in the selection. It fails in the first 180 days. Once you select an Outsource Consultants partner, our work is just beginning. Our Vendor Management Office stays engaged post-contract, managing BPOs under their SLAs and SOWs and benchmarking your KPIs month over month against the broader market.
Our relationships with our clients are long-term and ongoing, so we maintain a position as your advocate for the length of your partnership with your call center. We’ll continue to monitor your call center’s performance to ensure they keep meeting and exceeding your expectations. As customer expectations shift, we recommend adjustments to the balance between human agents and AI, because the mix that’s right today won’t be right in 18 months
- Monitoring program performance monthly to include Key Performance Indicators (KPI), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), and other measurements as deemed necessary.
- Provide feedback and guidance to the BPO provider as needed to assure the program quality and performance meets the expected standards.
- Source additional BPO Providers as requested or needed.
- Maintain communication with the BPO Partner.
- Facilitate monthly KPI review to determine BPO partner CSAT.
- Keep you up to date on call center industry best practices.
Our services come at zero cost to you. We work on a contingency model, earning only when we find you the right fit. There’s no obligation to select one of our recommended partners.
Working with Outsource Consultants vs. Searching on Your Own
Scores 300+ vetted providers on 100+ performance data points each, matched to your industry, compliance requirements, agent profile, and growth plans.
Your search is limited to vendors you’ve found and researched on your own or recommended by colleagues, that may not fit all of your requirements.
We provide cost proposals and an objective, side by side comparison of heavily vetted call center partners.
Call center sales representatives will typically only present positive information while glossing over data that may make them seem less desirable.
Call centers of all sizes are evaluated to see if they’ll fit your needs. Our expertise with middle-market providers means finding true strategic partners at lower cost. Billion-dollar BPOs answer to shareholders first. A vetted mid-market provider treats you like a key account: proactive management, stronger QA, faster adaptation.
Self-guided searches are often limited to only major BPO providers due to their considerably higher advertising budget and inherent name recognition.
With 13 years vetting the global BPO market, we have an acute understanding of quality and trends within each country. We’re often able to recommend additional locations that may better suit your needs.
You may be missing out on high-quality call centers that wouldn’t have otherwise been on your radar.
With Outsource Consultants, the goal is to find you the call center that perfectly matches your needs at a competitive price. We’re financially agnostic, and every provider in our network operates under identical terms.
The vendor sales representative will understandably focus only on convincing you to choose their call center.
We handle the research and vetting process, allowing you to skip to the shortlist and make a decision from a list of call centers that are pre-qualified to meet your requirements.
You’ll spend considerable time and energy on an expensive RFP process that may not even produce quality candidates.
Unlock Your Success: How CX Leaders Win with Outsource Consultants
Many CX strategies fail because they treat contact center labor and technology as isolated elements, missing the chance to leverage the full potential of CX. We help you unlock a clear advantage by combining strategic CX labor outsourcing with top-performing global BPO providers coupled with the perfect-fit technology to achieve your tailored CX Dream Path™.
