As a business process outsourcer (BPO) your people, processes, and technology practices set you apart. Whatever defines your secret sauce, it will rely on some combination of those key elements. Of the three, people are the most expensive to replace, so to truly excel as a BPO, firms must prioritize new methods of upskilling and preparing their workforce. Luckily technology can help.
By incorporating cutting-edge approaches, BPOs can differentiate themselves from competitors and stay ahead of the curve. When you invest in tools that empower agents to advance their skills, foster unwavering confidence, and propel them towards exceptional performance, you create a moat around your services that will prove difficult for your competition to penetrate. (Not to mention improve your margins.)
Failing to prioritize this change can pose significant risks to your business. Without innovative approaches, your BPO may encounter several detrimental consequences, including:
- Decreased agent performance and productivity, leading to compressed margins and client churn.
- Higher attrition rates as frustrated agents who feel ill-equipped to handle complex customer interactions often quit.
- Inefficient training processes that consume valuable time, force a higher-than-necessary supervisor-to-agent ratio, and fail to yield the desired results.
- Inability to ramp new client clients quickly, resulting in lost business opportunities.
The Main Challenges of BPOs Today
1. Higher Operating Costs Due to Low First Call Resolution
According to the SQM Group, the resolution rate on the first touch has an industry benchmark average of 70%. Meaning 30% of customers need to contact the organization again regarding the same issue.
When 30% of customers have to call back about the same inquiry, it often indicates a lack of competency on the first interaction.
This challenge poses several setbacks.
- Firstly, it jeopardizes the service level agreements you might have with your clients.
- Next, repeat calls increase stress and workload for the most experienced agents, as they need to resolve escalated issues. This can lead to agent fatigue and decreased productivity.
- Thirdly, it negatively impacts CSAT, as customers may experience frustration when their issues are not resolved promptly.
- And last but not least, multiple interactions for a single inquiry result in increased operational costs for the contact center, as it requires more resources and extends handling time per customer.
As agents spend more time on each interaction, their capacity to handle a larger volume of calls reduces. This forces BPOs to employ additional agents to manage the same number of customer inquiries, causing you to be seen as a more expensive choice than your competition.
Overall, this places a burden on operations by:
- Increasing labor costs
- Extending handling times
- Incurring in additional telecommunication expenses
- Potentially reducing clien retention
Therefore, improving the First Call Resolution (FCR) rate becomes essential for contact centers to mitigate these higher operating costs and enhance efficiency.
2. Inability to Ramp New Clients Quickly
Hiring agents is quite expensive. According to McKinsey, each new agent hire is estimated to cost the contact centers between $10,000 and $20,000 in training, direct recruiting costs, and lost productivity during ramp up. This shows that rapidly onboarding and scaling operations for new clients is crucial for contact centers to meet increasing demand and to allocate resources effectively.
Insufficient staffing and infrastructure limitations are creating resource constraints, leading to longer wait times for customers, increased call abandonment rates, and a decline in customer satisfaction. Delayed onboarding of new clients hampers the contact center’s ability to adapt to evolving business needs and market dynamics, hindering necessary technological upgrades, training programs, and process improvements.
The inability to ramp up quickly strains existing client relationships, affecting service levels and response times, potentially resulting in dissatisfaction and the loss of current clients. Furthermore, BPOs may miss out on business opportunities and potential revenue growth if they cannot efficiently accommodate new accounts. Rapidly ramping up is vital for maintaining operational agility and seizing growth prospects in the competitive contact center industry.
Turning Hurdles into a Stairway to Profits
Leading companies in the industry have already recognized the significance of simulated training and coaching to reduce these issues, and they have found the path to success.
By implementing these innovative approaches, they have overcome the risks and reaped remarkable benefits. They have witnessed improved agent performance, enhanced customer satisfaction, reduced attrition rates, streamlined training processes, and a competitive edge in the market.
Transforming Employee Training in BPOs with SymTrain
SymTrain Works for Pre-Hiring, Coaching and Upskilling
With SymTrain you can hire 22% quicker and save a 5,000-seat BPO $32K a day. This means substantial improvements to critical areas:
- Candidate screening: SymTrain enables companies to screen candidates seamlessly using automated role-play simulations for contact centers, ensuring alignment with the brand’s vision and values for a strong cultural fit.
- Streamlined onboarding and training: SymTrain facilitates employee onboarding and training by providing realistic customer interaction simulations tailored to each agent’s training exercise.
- Better FCR: SymTrain equips agents with the necessary skills to resolve customer inquiries on the first call, reducing escalations and enhancing customer satisfaction.
- AI-powered coaching and feedback: Coach Sym offers timely feedback and guidance based on quality assurance evaluations, effectively addressing skill gaps and improving agents’ FCR performance.
- Optimize hiring processes: SymTrain’s comprehensive capabilities optimize your contact center hiring processes, ensuring the right candidates are selected and equipped for success.
- Empower agents for success: SymTrain empowers agents to achieve higher FCR rates and deliver exceptional customer experiences for your clients.
SymTrain Achieves Agent Proficiency 50% Faster
With SymTrain, contact centers reduce agent speed to proficiency from weeks to days, by:
- Turning the conceptual into the tangible: Most adults learn best by doing; SymTrain gets them hands on experience as quickly as day one.
- Rapidly acquiring knowledge and skills: Agents can quickly acquire the necessary knowledge to handle customer inquiries effectively.
- Driving better engagement in learning: SymTrain provides an engaging learning environment that lowers agents defenses making them more receptive to the lessons, enabling agents to become proficient in a shorter time frame.
- Supporting efficient resource allocation: With automated training and coaching, BPO contact centers can allocate resources more efficiently, and focus on the agents that need the extra help.
It’s time to differentiate your services with automated coaching and role-play and [continue to] deliver top-quality BPO services with SymTrain.
