The burning question: do you outsource your contact centre and back office process functions, be it B2B or B2C telemarketing, inbound customer services or outbound call centre services, or do you build your own in-house teams?

Growing companies are learning what their multi-national and larger counterparts already know – outsourcing contact centre and back office services can improve efficiencies, reduce costs and done right improve customer satisfaction.

Here’s the usual scenario. Businesses have at its core staff who know its products or services inside out. So when it comes to customers calling in wanting a fix to a problem, or seeking information, employees are brilliantly positioned to help them.

Thing is, there are more and more customer calls, emails and information requests coming in. That’s a great thing because it means you are attracting more customers, but a not-so-good thing in that it is pulling your people away from their primary responsibilities, which is to focus on the core business of making the product or delivering the service.

So, there’s a decision to be made, as telemarketing and customer service now need their very own department (again, a good thing, because it means business is growing). There’s a choice to be made, do you gear up and manage this function in-house or, like other products you may source and buy in, do you outsource the contact centre function. Like most choices, there are the pros and cons but in balance, business process outsourcing (BPO) comes up on top.

Here’s why. First off, at a BPO centre like Boomerang, in the words of CEO Rob Joubert: “Contact centre, telemarketing and customer services – that’s our core business and it’s what we do really well. We know all the ins and outs, so when it comes to these services, we can be more effective than companies who do not have these functions as core business. We have spent years learning the art of delivering professional contact centre services and we have invested in the people, process and technologies required to deliver great customer experience”.

Like other specialist services you might outsource, pay point management for example, contact centre management and staff have honed the service to a fine point. There is the capital investment in appropriate technologies and the associated maintenance costs of running a contact centre that has already been footed by the outsource partner, and there is little reason for your business to reinvent the wheel as it were. In the choice to outsource, your business has immediate access to trained staff and dedicated specialist management resources and your staff can focus on increasing productivity in your core business.

Rob adds: “Not only do we match or exceed the quality of in-house off-shore contact centres, but we are able to do this regularly at a better price point.”

But what about the concern: “My staff know my business best and call centre agents are just not going to have that same passion?” After all, brand loyalty is seen as being strongest in the founding company itself.

Quality outsource services providers will be cognisant of this bias and take active steps to counter it by creating dedicated teams of people who are immersed in the client company culture, people that embody its values and receive ongoing training to keep them up to date with products and services offered. Employees dedicated to a client strongly associate with the client brand.

As a growing business, ever aware of mounting costs in a changeable environment, there emerges a need for flexibility. As business volumes change, you will need to ramp up or scale down the number of call centre or telemarketing agents to meet this change. Here’s where outsourcing really comes into its own, as this risk is passed directly to your BPO partner, and there is no call to suddenly find a budget to meet increased costs.

Rob gives a real time example: “At Boomerang we are geared for short notice scalability. We serve a retailer, for example, in the UK that has demand variations impacted by Covid, where they provide essential services. We doubled up our agents in a month to provide uninterrupted services to them.”

Robert Joubert

Boomerang BPO

www.boomerangbpo.com

The Corona virus has come in like a wrecking ball, demolishing almost everything in its path. From personal lives to the business world, nothing and nobody across the globe has been able to dodge its swing. It has devastated the already fragile economy, and has forced business owners to make very tough decisions, specifically regarding closing their doors or integrating to a remote working environment solution.

To the benefit of some, the government has begun implementing lockdown levels in an attempt to phase the re-opening of the economy while simultaneously trying to stop the spread; but the reality remains that the virus is still present and will be for the foreseeable future. Therefore, it begs the question: “Is it not more beneficial to embrace the new future of the remote working business world?”

By now, business owners have managed to weigh up the pros and cons, consider all variables, and make educated guesses to ease their decision-making. Although there are many teething issues that accompany the implementation of remote working, and despite it being a learn-as-you-go process, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Contrary to our initial doubts and concerns, our efforts have been (and still are) paying off. Not only do we have a massively impressive success story of our current international campaign soaring beyond expectations and producing excellent results, but the real success lies with the people. Everybody within the business has come on board and are committed to ensuring that we continue to produce top quality service as usual, regardless of the surrounding circumstances.

It is an on-going process to fully perfect all aspects of successful home working, but having such a dedicated and effective team pulling together is a breath of fresh air. There is no easy quick fix, especially if remote working would never have been a consideration in “normal life”, but closing our doors will never be an option.

Part of adapting to the “new” world of business, specifically for those businesses who do not have the means or resources to continue work as usual from home, is seeing the benefits in outsourcing services to a third party organization. During these unprecedented circumstances, and because of all the uncertainty, it would make sense to form a collaborative with a company who already has a rising success rate, specifically regarding remote working; thus benefiting both parties, and ensuring the continuation of productivity on both sides.

Our challenges are by no means over. We are still learning and adapting, finding what works and what doesn’t; but our commitment, dedication, quality of service and success rate (past and present, local and international) is a clear indication of our capabilities and is not an opportunity to be missed by companies looking to outsource.

Embrace the change. Stop the spread.

If we could take a step back in time, we would realize that we had a very different idea of how we envisaged 2020 to be. Some thought that we would have flying cars, others thought that robots would be taking over. Some had the more realistic approach of it simply being a better year, whether in the personal, financial, or business sector.

It is no secret that the world has faced many crises ranging from narrowly avoiding a third world war, to droughts, to a devastating Australian fire, and everything in between; but I think I can fairly say that we did not envision ending up in the middle of a global pandemic, resulting in nation-wide lockdowns across the globe. For this we were not prepared.

However, despite the challenges that come with this learn-as-we-go experience, and with guidance from the past pandemics, such as the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, many are able to embrace the changes and start putting in place procedures that will ultimately assist with easing into the uncertain yet inevitable future.

Perhaps the theory of robots taking over may not seem so far-fetched if we consider how heavily we are starting to rely and depend on technology and geo-redundancy in order to keep our company doors (virtually) open and continue to provide top quality services, while simultaneously ensuring the safety of our employees. In fact, we as Boomerang SA have a number of success stories in this regard.

What is my point? Well it’s simple. Despite the looming economic crisis, and the challenges that we are facing as our world is turned upside down due to COVID-19, it is imperative that we, businesses and people in general, accept and embrace the inevitable changes and do all that we can do to play our parts both in society and in the business world. Not only do we want to save our economy, but we would also like to restore our faith in humanity as these unprecedented times hopefully bring unity among the nations. Together we can make a difference.

Stay home. Stay safe.