"Be Your Customer's Customer: Elevating CX from the Customer's Perspective"

In the dynamic world of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), I've come to appreciate the value of truly understanding our clients' Customer Experience (CX) journeys. On a client RFP site visit the VP of Customer Experience said to me, "Have you contacted into our call center and tested out our current solution?"

I was still new in sales but this was a life lesson to think differently when approaching discussions with CX leaders.

Now one of my favorite approaches to prospecting is seeking out clients who offer outstanding products or services that I actually love and use! If I currently don't use their product I simply become a customer.

When you use a client's product or service, you gain firsthand insight into what makes it exceptional (or where it might need improvement). This allows you to relate to their challenges and successes on a deeper level especially if you need to contact customer support for any reason.

Testing your client's customer support strategy is crucial in BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) sales for several significant reasons:

• Tailored Solutions: Understanding your client's current customer support strategy allows you to offer tailored solutions. You can identify pain points and areas for improvement, demonstrating that you're committed to meeting their specific needs.Example: After testing a client's existing customer support strategy, you discover that they struggle with handling peak call volumes during product launches. You can propose a tailored solution involving scalable on-demand support during such events.
• Identifying Gaps: Testing their existing strategy helps you pinpoint gaps or weaknesses in their customer support. This information can be invaluable in proposing solutions that address these shortcomings effectively.Example: Through testing, you identify that the client lacks a multilingual support option, limiting their ability to serve a diverse customer base. You can recommend adding multilingual support to bridge this gap.
• Efficiency Improvements: By assessing the efficiency of their customer support operations, you can suggest process optimizations and technology upgrades that can lead to cost savings and improved service quality.Example: Testing reveals that the client's support agents spend a significant amount of time on repetitive tasks. You suggest implementing chatbots and automation tools to improve efficiency and reduce operational costs.
• Enhancing Customer Experience: Testing the customer support strategy allows you to evaluate the customer experience from the end user's perspective. This insight helps in making recommendations to enhance the overall customer journey.Example: Testing their customer support process uncovers long response times and inconsistent service quality. You propose a revamped support strategy that includes quicker response times, personalized interactions, and improved issue resolution.
• Measuring KPIs: You can benchmark their customer support against industry standards and key performance indicators (KPIs). This helps set realistic expectations and goals for the outsourcing partnership.Example: During the testing phase, you analyze the client's customer support performance and uncover that their average response time to customer inquiries is 48 hours, which is significantly higher than industry benchmarks. You also find that their first-call resolution rate is at 35%, below the industry standard of 60%. By identifying these KPI gaps, you can present a clear plan for improving response times and increasing first-call resolution rates with your BPO services. This could include offering round-the-clock support, implementing a robust ticketing system, and providing agent training programs to enhance issue resolution skills. The aim is to demonstrate how partnering with your BPO company can lead to measurable improvements in their customer support KPIs, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and retention rates.
• Cost-Benefit Analysis: Understanding the client's current support costs and ROI enables you to present a clear cost-benefit analysis of outsourcing. You can demonstrate how your services can provide a positive return on investment.
• Example: By analyzing the client's existing support costs and the potential savings from outsourcing, you provide a cost-benefit analysis that shows how partnering with your BPO company can result in a 20% reduction in support costs within the first year. Does it make sense to do Chat support onshore?
• Technology Integration: If your BPO services involve implementing new technology, testing their existing infrastructure is vital. This ensures compatibility and a smooth transition to the new system.Example: Upon examining the client's existing technology stack during the testing phase, you discover that their customer relationship management (CRM) system is outdated and lacks compatibility with modern communication channels such as social media and live chat. This integration gap hinders their ability to provide multi-channel support, leading to missed customer inquiries and delays in issue resolution. In response, you recommend upgrading their CRM system and integrating it with advanced customer engagement tools. This technology integration will enable seamless omnichannel support, allowing customers to reach out via their preferred channels, including email, social media, and live chat. By addressing this technology gap, you can present a solution that not only streamlines support operations but also enhances the overall customer experience. This demonstrates how partnering with your BPO company can bring about technological improvements that align with current customer expectations and industry standards.
• Compliance and Regulation: Some industries have specific compliance and regulatory requirements for customer support. Testing helps identify any potential compliance issues that need to be addressed.Example: You discover that the client's customer support lacks proper data security measures when testing. You outline the necessary compliance steps and data protection protocols to ensure they meet industry regulations.
• Optimizing Resources: You can assess whether the client's resources are allocated effectively in their customer support strategy. This can involve evaluating staffing levels, skill sets, and workload distribution.Example: Testing their staffing levels and workload distribution reveals that they have overstaffed during off-peak hours. You suggest a more balanced resource allocation plan to optimize costs and employee efficiency. Client A had the need to flex up staffing by 20% on Monday's due to the product they support. No technology was offered to the client only a simple recommendation. Can your IT teams remove the phone option on your website at certain times of the day? This solution was a simple fix but pushed clients needing support on Monday's into their Chat Que where you could run concurrency with the associates.
• Building Trust: Demonstrating that you are invested in understanding and improving their customer support strategy builds trust. Clients are more likely to partner with a BPO provider who takes their needs seriously.
• Customized Proposals: Armed with insights from testing, you can create customized proposals that showcase how your BPO services will specifically address the client's pain points and goals.
• Competitive Advantage: Offering a comprehensive assessment of their current strategy sets you apart from competitors who may not invest as much effort in understanding the client's business.