Common Characteristics of BPO Success

Entering into a BPO engagement is a serious, often monumental strategic decision. This decision hinges not just whether or not to outsource critical services but just as importantly, which BPO provider to select. This is never a decision that an astute executive would take lightly. To paraphrase Leo Tolstoy as he opens the novel Anna Karenina, “Happy BPO engagements are all the same, but unhappy BPO engagements are all unhappy in their own way.” Here are some characteristics of successful BPO engagements, and in a subsequent article we will cover characteristics shared by failed engagements.

Doing the Advance Work
One of the primary keys to a successful BPO engagement is doing the appropriate due diligence prior to selecting a provider. In a successful engagement, the two parties have already established some level of a relationship prior to closing the deal. The key people on both sides involved in the process already know one another – in person, if possible.

Even if they are located across the globe, you should know the facilities – not just the headquarters but the actual facilities that will be delivering services. This requires a careful analysis on the buy side of just what deliverables are desired from the engagement; lack of planning and lack of specific and clear objectives will lead to failure not only in execution, but in selecting the provider most capable and able to match the buyer’s needs. Not only must the corporate cultures be a good match, but the provider must be a good match for the specific processes to be outsourced.

Going Above and Beyond
One hallmark of a successful engagement is a consistent pattern of the provider giving that little extra. Not giving away services for free, but displaying the proper attitude as demonstrated by actions – getting the follow-up call to make sure that the problem was solved, actions that demonstrate a proactive rather than reactive attitude. There is a qualitative difference between a provider complying with the wording of a contract and a provider doing their best to keep a happy, satisfied customer over the long term.

Metrics
All the warm feelings aside, a successful BPO engagement is the result of sound business reasoning. The engagement consistently demonstrates results that meet or exceed the business objectives that precipitated the engagement in the first place. Of course, this means that those objectives were set out in a clear and quantifiable way in the first place! Proper planning means that cost benefit analyses are done and they justify a clear need for BPO services, based either in cost savings, focusing on core competencies, improvements in customer service, strategic advantage, or most likely, all of the above.

Relationships
A sure sign of BPO success is a close, amicable working relationship between the people at all levels of the engagement, on both the buy side and the sell side. Are those calls, trips and meetings with your BPO provider a source or remedy of stress? At the end of the day, corporations and agencies are groups of people and those groups of people are successful when they work well together.

In a successful BPO engagement, the provider feels like an integral department of the buy-side organization. Different steps in workflows are seamless, especially to the third party customer, meaning the customers of the buy side company. A consumer calling into a call center should not feel she is calling a third party. Financial services customers should never feel like they are dealing with more than one entity.

Find the original press release by following the link on: http://bpooutcomes.com/characteristics-bpo-success/