Although you must prize the connections you’ve built over the years, there comes a time when you have to free yourself from unproductive partnerships.
Cutting ties with a customer service provider is never easy. Chances are you’ve already devoted a lot of time, money, and effort into nurturing your relationship with them, and replicating all of these with a new organization can be difficult.
But there are times when you have to do so, especially if it’s negatively affecting your brand’s performance. As a business owner, you’re responsible for making the best decisions that uphold the interests of your company and your people. Part of this is ensuring that all the connections you buildโespecially those with outsourcing companiesโare helping you reach your goals.
Below, we listed down a handful of reasons why it’s okay for brands to switch to a new customer service call center.
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Your Provider Lacks Flexibility
As outsourcing grew explosively over the past decade, the relationship between brands and third-party service providers has also been changing. The buyer-vendor setup is largely transforming into a more collaborative one, as companies treat outsourcing firms as their partners for growth.
This evolving relationship is prompting contact centers to provide more flexible terms so they can meet the demands of their clients. Some of them, however, are still reluctant about changing their business models.
What brand managers now want is to gain more control over their outsourced customer service packages. This way, they can calibrate the quality of their customer service and ensure that its aspects reflect their brand’s image. For call centers, this means giving clients the freedom to:
- customize outsourcing packages
- re-scale workforce size easily
- specify the recruitment process
- decide on how performance will be assessed
If your current provider isn’t letting you do these, you might want to consider finding someone who will. You must find a provider who will let you manage your outsourced programs in a more hands-on way so you can grow toward the trajectory you’ve envisioned. A restrictive arrangement may hinder you from implementing innovations that could otherwise improve customer relationships.
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The Provider’s Location Isn’t Ideal
Identifying the outsourcing location that will give you the best benefits is crucial. This means you must consider many factors at once, including:
- business environment;
- expenses;
- availability of infrastructure; and
- the people’s culture.
Usually, entrepreneurs outsource to top locations such as the Philippines and India, both of which have a spotless track record when it comes to outsourcing customer service.
There are, however, instances when you need to think about moving to other locations. Some of them are the following:
- Change in Business or Labor Policies
Naturally, you must study all the policies in your call center’s location before you finally decide to hand over your services to them. This includes labor laws and business regulations. More importantly, however, you should stay updated about future policy changes and continue assessing how these may affect your outsourced processes.
If some of these changes may harm your outsourced program and its aspects, including recruitment, pricing, and others, you may need to explore the possibility of moving to another location.
- Lack of Skilled Workforce
If your customer service provider can’t supply your workforce needs, it may be worth looking at another location that regularly produces qualified professionals.
All the best outsourcing locations have unique assets that they’re proud of. In the Philippines, for example, there’s a wide talent pool of English-proficient customer service reps. They’re lauded for speaking English using a neutral accent, which is what many Western consumers prefer. India, on the other hand, is known for their IT services.
- Business Disruptions
Some call centers set up multiple facilities in various areas, use cloud computing for storage, data backup, and software hosting, or hire remote employees so they can continue operating despite these disruptions.
Every brand in every industry aims to provide 24/7 uninterrupted customer service to their clientele. Your provider must therefore be capable of recovering swiftly from business disruptions such as natural disasters, data security breaches, IT infrastructure breakdown, and others.
- Weak Government Support
Government agencies are at the forefront of creating fair and beneficial business policies both for foreign and local investors. Some countries, such as the Philippines, have built departments that are solely for managing the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector. This lets investors maximize the advantages of working with outsourcing companies.
Weak government support, on the other hand, can give rise to a lot of issues such as unjust policies, abusive pricing, and poor tech infrastructure.
Check out the second part of this article to discover more instances wherein you need to consider replacing your customer service provider.
Open Access BPO offers 27/4 customer service, technical support, content moderation, back office services, and knowledge process support for companies of all sizes and industries. Offered in over 30 languages, these business solutions are hyper-customized for each of our partners to help them attain their goals.
Contact us today and speak to one of our program development experts. Let’s get your customer service program started and help further your growth.