BPOs: The Veritas of Volume is Vanilla

Craig Rich
Aug 23, 2017 · 3 min read

Want the ugly truth ? Big outsourcers will not deal with the support needs of the smaller business. They can’t.

History has dictated that they need to sell high volumes of “butts on seats” (as it’s often referred to). Why ? Because they have a tremendous cost-base that inherently drives the behaviours of the shareholders, execs and subsequently sales teams. The cost comes from years of capital investment in infrastructure, in real-estate, in layer upon layer of management. As these businesses grow, so does the internal fat, clogging the arteries, slowing the opportunity to innovate.

At the same time, the brands they look to serve, often use a multi-vendor strategy. They have the need to drive down cost, and therefore using 3, 4, 5 different BPOs will allow them to face one off against the other. Savvy procurement teams use the excuse of “we don’t want all our eggs in one basket”, yet really mean “we can use your price to beat up the next guy”. And you can’t blame them. This squeezes margin, but the BPO needs the seats in order to justify the cost-base.

So how does a BPO that is under pressure to perform react ?

  1. Offshore: Move the calls to a lower cost part of the world
  2. Lower cost channels: do it by email, do it by chat
  3. Consolidate sites, lose people, cull investments, tighten the corporate belts

The challenge with these options is that they all inevitably lead to a short term gain. They fix the problem right now, but once they’ve gone to the cheapest location for educated people (and so have your competitors), where do they go next ?

So they have to innovate, right ? They have to invest in next-generation technologies such as chatbots, AI, robotic process automation, advanced analytics. But CAN they invest ? With the weight of quarterly performance targets on their backs, often the innovation budgets are quick to get slashed.

In real terms, there is only one choice. They offer the most vanilla service possible, something that is easily repeatable, something that just gets them over the SLA thresholds that their customers hold them to, and no more. They cannot afford to offer extra value, even if they wanted to.

The knock-on effects ?

  1. Large BPOs can technically deal with smaller customers, but it’s just not worth their time, effort or money to do so.
  2. They do not innovate as much as they would like (or need to).
  3. They typically do not offer real value to their client base, other than what amounts to a human resource management process.
  4. They cannot easily offer anything other than a vanilla service, so things like a white-glove “concierge” style service offering, or a service that is tightly integrated with a product management organization, are left to more specialist niche players.

Conclusion

There absolutely is a place for these big BPOs. There are businesses that outsource thousands of seats on a regular basis. There are whole country-based economies that have been built off the growth of this sector. However, the big guys are great for the big guys. If you are smaller, or simply want something other than vanilla, talk to a specialist.

Craig Rich
craig@threedotzerostudios.com
www.threedotzerostudios.com

)

Written by

Co-founder of ThreeDotZero Studios, LLC. Customer experiences for tech brands that really, truly, love their customer.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade