Technology vs BPO - who will win?

Hi LinkedIn,

Hope y'all are having a productive day :)

I am going to start using this platform to share my thoughts and views on many topics related to customer experience, process automation, digital agents, and low-code . Yes, these topics are going to be biased towards my personal beliefs as well as what we are doing at Avertra … but they also reflect the realities of technology and the marketplace today, love them or hate them.

The first topic I want to cover is: Is there a future for business process outsourcing (BPO) providers? I know I am going to aggravate a lot of my buddies that currently work for large multinational BPO providers, but hey someone has to ask the hard questions. To be very clear the BPO segments in this piece refer to: Backoffice , Accounting/Bookkeeping, and Customer Service (Front Office).??

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In this day and age, it amazes me when I hear of utilities, telecoms, airlines and logistics companies discussing the archaic concept of human labor based business process outsourcing. I can’t help but ask myself - how is this industry still alive? Yes, BPOs might have a lifeline of 5-10 more years, but then what? What do they do once self-services are established as a true cross-channel and cross-persona??

Let's be real, we all love to save money and maximize our company’s value … but at what cost?? BPOs fail to measure the impact on user experience. Other than a failed user experience, the consequences include endless mistakes that will lead to financial impact and customer churn.?

Sure there are SLAs that need to be met or else penalties may kick in, but organizations don’t really have time to deal with this appropriately as they could be using that time more efficiently to focus on brand growth and operational excellence. This is why I am pushing my team to build as many context-based conversational and process execution digital agents as possible.

I truly believe digital agents are the future workforce of the world, and they are already here.?

At Avertra, we have proven that our digital agents can handle complex business process execution/orchestration like starting/ending utility service, resolving high bill complaints, resolving complex billing outsorts, correcting asset placement and others ... all without the support of a human. Our technology uses the tribal knowledge of our customers processes to teach itself how to solve a problem.?

Arguments against digital agents, and I am sure there are more, include:?

• They sound like crap when deployed as voice based conversational agents + they don’t cover enough languages fluently?
• Their Intents needs to continuously be updated?
• Not loved by the labor unions
• They displace humans
• You can never automate 100% of the interactions!?

Let's dig deeper into these arguments:

1. They sound like crap when deployed as voice based conversational agents + they don’t cover enough languages fluently?

While both of these points are very true today, without companies taking the first steps towards improving the capability of these services via using them they will never improve.

Covering enough languages fluently and localization go hand in hand. Localization is the key to success. While everyone focuses on the US and EU markets, this leaves lots of opportunity to focus on Mid-East, Africa, and Asia localization. It will happen while everyone is looking the other way!

Technology is always changing and moving forward. The quality of voice and human-like interaction will increase in maturity as we keep utilizing conversational AI and continue to evolve its capabilities.

Once evolved, what is the point of a call center? Integration of conversation AI with virtual humanoids will be a huge threat to the contact center as a service (BPO) market.?

2. Their intents and context need to continuously be updated

This argument is for those who really don’t understand data sciences or the power of Natural Language Processing and Understanding and Machine Learning. Machines are now able to perform syntax and semantic analysis to better understand what users are looking to achieve out of the interaction with the digital agent. Utilizing different ML techniques you can have your models run in supervised and unsupervised manners that would act as a continuous learning / training of the model. Machines today can also perform rule based pattern matching, classifications, decision trees, and deployment of neural networks enabling intelligent decision making and context creation.

3. Not loved by the labor unions.

The classic example of how unions + innovation + process improvements don't really see eye to eyes. In Detroit, unions at automobile manufactures blocked the deployment of the Toyota Lean Production system, as it was marketed as a way to hire fewer workers to accomplish the same output with higher quality. By blocking innovation, the unions will be a major factor in destroying entire industries which have now been built elsewhere. We must work with the unions to show them how we can improve the lives of each member and augment them where needed while focusing on upskilling their? members which fits right into point #4 below..?

4. They displace humans.

Easy answer, repurpose your humans! Train them, groom them, and build them into high caliber professionals that can now act as governing and monitoring agents ensuring the digital workforce is performing per expectation.?

5. You can never automate 100% of the interactions!?

Really? Why not? The answer can’t be, “Well, not all processes are digital ...” because if it were then the next question would be: what is preventing all processes from becoming digital?? If you have proper segmentation engines, personas, rules, tolerance and approval limits then there’s nothing standing in the way!. Some argue that the “human factor” would be missed from customer interactions, but that doesn’t carry any water either.? We know that call center agents and supervisors are only allowed to execute requests that are within their approved limits based on the persona of the customer calling in.?

Let's be real here, customers just want to be served and served efficiently. They want the fastest, most accurate data without having to wait. For those reading this, when was the last time you called your utility? Was there a digital option to solve the issue?

So, let’s get back to the future … a future where I argue BPOs no longer exist and a new market called D(igital)BPO will be born. BPO’s that are smart should be dipping their toe in this market now so they have a place in the digital revolution rather than being pushed to the side. But, for those that don’t get the message: eat or be eaten. Avertra is hungry for automation .?

We have been able to automate extremely complex business decisions and aspects of our software development process.. there is a lot that can be done.

Revolutions are by their very nature challenging. Switching gears to a partner like Avertra that can help automate business can be daunting for those organizations that have heavily invested in traditional business process outsourcing. It doesn’t need to be.?

Cheers,?

Bashir