The Right Business Process Outsourcing Partner

**cassey** · 12-05-2011 05:13 AM

What guidelines can we use to hire the right outsourcing partner? I'm having a hard time convincing myself why we should outsource our customer service offshore. My boss, a senior and the owner of the company, is not a big fan of this move. He thinks it is much cheaper if we do it ourselves. Can someone give me ideas on how to persuade him? Thank you.

Cassey,
Operation Manager of a manufacturing company based in Pennsylvania

**fred.chua** · 12-05-2011 05:19 AM

Originally Posted by cassey

What guidelines can we use to hire the right outsourcing partner? I'm having a hard time convincing myself why we should outsource our customer service offshore. My boss, a senior and the owner of the company, is not a big fan of this move. He thinks it is much cheaper if we do it ourselves. Can someone give me ideas on how to persuade him? Thank you.

Cassey,
Operation Manager of a manufacturing company based in Pennsylvania

Hi Cassey

In selecting the right call center outsourcing partner, it is critical to gauge the competency of the people representing the outsourcing center. As outsourcing is very broad in scope of work, it is essential for the outsourcing partner to first understand the concerns and challenges facing your company.

Aside from the obvious reasons of cost, the effective streamlining of the operational customer service processes is another major reason in looking for an outsourcing partner. As outsourcing contact centers are experts on process efficiencies, and improvements, your customer satisfaction increases in regularity with clearly defined metrices and processes that are essential in running the operations.

On top of that, a strong outsourcing partner usually has a support group of trainers, QA specialists and team leaders that are equally essential in managing the operations. A certain company that doesn't want to outsource, will need to provide such support groups to effectively manage the operations. On an infrastructure standpoint, outsourced contact centers have much more flexibility and capability to incorporate voice, chat, data email, data management requirements that are needed by most companies.

The easiest way to convince the owner of a company to outsource, is to simply try out a pilot team and see the results from a cost, performance, and quality perspective. A small operation handling a small percentage of the workload would allow one's boss to mitigate the risks while assessing the effectiveness of an outsourcing project. Companies in the 21st century focus more on their key core competencies. If your organization's key competency is not in the running of a call center operation, it is best to outsource this to the experts. The experts can drive the right results and make sure that the return of investment is realized.

Fred Chua
CEO - Magellan-Solutions.com