Strategic Frameworks for Effective Contact Centre Outsourcing Partnerships
Contact Centre outsourcing can be particularly daunting if you are doing it for the first time or looking to reshape an existing outsourced landscape. In both cases, the essence of success lies in making a savvy choice. Identifying your core requirements is the foundational step. Think about how satisfied you would be after receiving the house of your dreams from the hands of your builder, whose only direction in building the project was, “I want a big house with a pool.” Probably not very satisfied, right? The house will most certainly be big and have a pool, but it likely will not match the image you had in your head.
You may have wanted an open floor plan and a contemporary style, but you might get a traditional house. Like any construction project, identifying and building your core requirements requires you to think hard about what you want your outsourcing relationships to achieve. Start by asking the big questions: Are you chasing cost efficiency or a boost in quality, moving a function that is not a core competency to an expert third party or updating your capabilities to match the latest technology? This initial step, critical yet often overlooked, sets the direction for your entire selection process.
Best-performing organisations rarely leverage their supplier contracts to drive performance. They set expectations from the beginning, and a robust governance process is implemented and followed to avoid tapping into preventive clauses. There is a strong correlation between these steps and the effort that organisations put into building the requirements for their suppliers at the beginning of the process. Document your requirements with the same thoroughness and precision as those critical for internal processes driving customer success. Apply the same level of detail when preparing forms for your Contact Centre’s quality monitoring programme.
When you go to market with a request for proposal (RFP), the more complete and accurate information you include, the better the supplier’s proposed solutions and pricing will match what you are looking for. A common mistake organisations make is communicating only contractual requirements. However, non-contractual requirements are equally relevant, as they help you better match supplier capabilities with your needs, and suppliers will be more informed in their responses. For example, you likely have contractual requirements for roles and responsibilities in your workforce management process. However, potential suppliers must also understand your historical volumes, handle times and occupancy to size and price your work.
Your request for proposal (RFP) is more than a mere formality; it is a strategic tool, a beacon that guides potential partners toward your precise needs. It is also a phase where you start collecting a lot of information from potential suppliers and sharing many details with them. Therefore, a structured approach is desirable and mandatory for success. A successful RFP will have five main sections: informational content aimed at outlining the RFP response guidelines and the supplier selection process; non-contractual requirements; a master service agreement (MSA) template; a statement of work (SOW) template with contractual business requirements; and supplier capability questions. Ultimately, you want to ensure that whatever you are outsourcing to them is a core piece of their business.
Structured Approaches for Evaluation and Alignment
As responses arrive, a discerning approach is key. The best way to approach this phase is to look beyond the surface. Review performance data by reviewing the candidate’s history of managing similar programmes. A proven track record can predict future performance. As all the suppliers’ responses start to reveal their true selves, you must have an effective evaluation criterion to measure and rank each response. A criterion is key for ensuring the actual (and perceived) integrity of the selection process. The document does not have to be fancy; a spreadsheet will do if it lists all the requirements, scoring criteria and weights for each area. Above everything else, this is where all the work you did at the beginning starts to pay off.
Do your best to evaluate pricing separately from the rest of the responses. Many organisations make the mistake of filtering out suppliers too early in the process, only by pricing criteria, but they forget this is negotiable. At this stage, you are still focusing on understanding the best match of supplier capabilities and your needs. As you establish quantifiable mechanisms to score suppliers, always note which components or areas matter most. Assign higher weights to develop an effective and good-scoring set of metrics. Consider any critical flaws that will automatically exclude a supplier from moving forward in the process. An example would be a supplier unable to support outbound capabilities when one of your programmes is sales-focused. Label this as non-negotiable.
References are a great way to understand if a supplier can deliver what it claims. As you collect them, leverage professional networks to find out who you know in common with the supplier’s salespeople. The references should be able to provide unbiased feedback from their experience with the supplier. After you have shortlisted the candidates for potential visits, it is time to make sure that the money you have set aside for travel yields a worthwhile return on investment. When your evaluation committee arrives at the different sites, they will face agendas the suppliers have set up. Perhaps socialisation plans for lunch and dinner, and many generalisations about their capabilities. At this point, you need to take back control and ensure that every penny spent on visiting the site complements what you already know of this supplier.
Time is money. Build a detailed schedule for the visit with all the activities. Focus on value-added activities that will likely provide insights into the BPO’s way of doing things. Success has been seen from organisations that exclude social events or activities aimed at “getting to know” the people who work at the site from their schedules. They achieve the same goal but do it organically by meeting with individuals to discuss performance. Do not stop at the management level. Make sure you are scheduling time with frontline and support staff. Doing so will increase your chances of revealing how much of what the organisation reports on the high-level assessment is accurate and get a first-hand glimpse of the site’s culture and morale.
During the assessment, avoid socialising as much as possible. Achieve this by maximising the evaluators’ time in those value-added activities scheduled in advance. Avoid data-empty and opinion-based claims. When a manager asserts to have achieved any level of performance, ask for the data backing that up. Do not be afraid to challenge them if that data is unavailable or shows the contrary. Be flexible. Time invested when it makes sense is beneficial, particularly when meeting with agents and team leads. Agents tend to shut down initially, but once they open up, they become a treasure trove of insights into how the BPO operates.
After the assessment, remember that the purpose of an RFP site visit and assessment is not only to find out what is incompatible with your requirements but also to seek out and find the good things that the evaluation criterion did not reveal until this stage. With your shortlist in hand, the negotiation phase begins. This stage is more than striking a deal; it is about forging a partnership. While it is essential to understand your needs clearly, be open to suggestions and innovative solutions if they help the supplier accommodate pricing requirements. A successful negotiation culminates in a partnership that benefits both parties, paving the way for long-term collaboration.
It is recommended that negotiations happen with a firm structure behind them and that conversations occur effectively and controlled. Have a process for responding to supplier inquiries on contract-related matters in a timely fashion. This final stage is vital for suppliers, so respect their eagerness to finish. Be prepared to draft, revise and finalise the required contracts and supporting documents. If vendor managers are leading this, ensure they have enough capacity to prioritise these tasks and set expectations for those departments that facilitate them, like legal and procurement. Obtain all required approvals. Nothing screams “unprepared” more than a process that needs to backtrack because someone decided that the company was not ready to move forward with contracting. Ensure you bring everyone in from the beginning and keep them updated. Doing so will help you fly through the final stages of the process.
Finding the right Contact Centre outsourcing partner is strategic and fraught with complexities and opportunities. By adhering to these best practices, maintaining a structured approach and keeping an eye on the minutiae and the big picture, you are well on your way to forming a partnership that will meet your current needs and propel you towards future success.
