What comes to mind when you hear BPO, Business Process Outsourcing, or Bad Practice Only?
Negative stereotypes often tail BPO outsourcing companies, and we’re aware of that. They’re sometimes thought of as businesses that will lead a company to lose its credibility and effectiveness. It’s also common to hear that it can come to sales mistakes, lower conversion rates, and even that outsourcing influences the employee churn rate in a company.
According to Clutch, Morph is one of the top BPO companies in Serbia for 2022. Therefore, we decided to break the negative stigma around this business practice. Read on to find out how.
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies are partners that organizations hire to fill their gaps and ensure that their business runs smoothly. BPOs can assist with specific tasks, processes, or services. They can do the job better or cheaper, and depending on the company’s needs, they will help the service seeker.
Once a company decides that it’s the right time to outsource some of its work, BPO companies come to the spotlight as third-party vendors. They can cover an entire department because of the lack of expertise in the original team or cover just some specific functions to prevent burnout.
Outsourcing also helps if learning how to handle customer complaints is considered a hassle or simply because a company doesn’t have enough time for that. It can also happen that a company opts for software development outsourcing instead of in-house. That would mean it can’t afford or doesn’t need in-house development. Then, high-profile subcontractors take that responsibility.
Just like every other business process, outsourcing comes with risks and challenges. Some companies are torn in a debate called in-house vs. outsourcing because of the risks that gave BPO outsourcing companies a bad name. The main reasons why someone would weigh outsourcing vs. hiring and decide to hire is that they’re afraid of some of the following:
BPOs are controversial sometimes because they’re considered a synonym for a company’s irresponsibility. BPO outsourcing companies are criticized for unethical or bad business practices in developing countries and lower quality standards. This problem also reflects poor labor conditions, bad employee treatment, and low wages. Companies that use third-party vendors are also scrutinized for lower domestic employment market contributions.
Not choosing the right subcontractor isn’t a naive mistake. A bad BPO company is something that can take your business into a vortex of adverse events that can completely destroy your name and reputation. This goes for both well-established businesses and start-ups. A more considerable number of consecutive bad customer experiences can mean bankruptcy for the company.
However, here at Morph, we like to do things the best way possible, which is why our partners thrive after choosing us.
Aside from the obvious answers to why companies outsource, such as cutting costs and increasing efficiency, there’s more a BPO outsourcing company can do for you. After years of good practice, we discovered that asking strategic questions to understand the current challenges fully is crucial. Every business that’s looking for an external partner is facing some sort of obstacle that they can’t find a way to manage by themselves. That is where a third-party vendor comes out of a phone booth wearing a red cape. Or, in our case, purple. However, the only way we can justify that cape is to actually solve the problem for our partner, and we do that by getting familiar with all the challenges they’re facing – in depth. With a spotless image of what’s an issue, we practically become a strategic partner.
Once you reach out to us for help, we won’t be there just to complete the tasks and leave you stranded. We’re here to provide you with a team that knows what they’re doing. For real. We’ll take care of all the responsibilities of a project manager; we know how to attract returning customers and reach customer success. With our team of motivated and talented employees, your business will flourish.
The importance of teamwork is undeniable, but BPO outsourcing companies often struggle with that. As a result, employees are struggling with incompetent management, low salaries, and burnout. That’s the perfect recipe for losing a healthy company culture and creating a negative stigma around this business process.
However, it’s possible to break the cycle. Showing employees we care about them and providing them the security they need, we manage to keep a firm team, even in unstable economic times such as these. Our turnover rate is very low – we still have a large number of employees that have been here since day one.
B2C companies can have difficulty laying hands on sales agents that have impeccable interaction with customers. Finding talented and motivated people is a tedious process that can take months, which slows down the whole process of receiving the help you need. With us, you hit fast forward – our hiring process takes two to five weeks. We can assemble a team of professionals in less than two months, while you don’t have to lift a finger. After that period, a team of highly-skilled professionals is at your disposal.
People who are natural problem solvers and team players are a perfect fit for our company. If we interview someone who’s willing to go above and beyond, we’ll know we’ve found a match. This person will afterward become an irreplaceable part of a team that brings high revenues, knows how to solve problems, and has the back of their colleagues. That is something that will benefit both the partner and us as the employer.
Underperforming sales reps can be a big problem in BPO outsourcing companies. The reason for that can be the fact that the sales team isn’t working exclusively for one particular company. If a team handles customers for several companies, it can lead to bad performance, burnout, low morale, and in the end, leaving the company. All of the recruitment, training and development go to waste at that moment.
However, our practice is that one sales or customer care agent works for one company exclusively. That person knows their responsibilities, they can have a healthy work-life balance and a lower stress level.
The answer to the question of which company is best in BPO will probably depend on the cost and quality ratio. There’s a common misconception that outsourcing whole departments to a third party is expensive and that you should avoid it, but the reality is different – an average sales agent in the US earns between $50,000 and $200,000, and customer care agents make between $50,000 to $100,000 annually.
If you outsource, you can decrease those costs by 50% (sometimes even by 70%) while getting a professional and dedicated team of specialists who will handle your business just the way you prefer. This also goes for back-office costs, HR, management, and other roles for outsourcing.
Our practice is to propose an offer and cover all of the needed positions and costs, while the partner has to cover a single invoice. And that’s it.
One of the main points of hiring a BPO partner is to achieve a lower stress level. Having someone trustworthy to look after your business will lead to having the work done and being proud of it. This is especially true if you’re upsizing or downsizing your company. Your subcontractor should be an extension of your team, someone with whom you will have a stable long-term relationship and transparent communication. One of the ways to improve outsourcing services with your BPO partner is to find a common language and set clear goals. That way, you’ll get to experience how having fewer responsibilities and more flexibility feels like while your business is growing.
We’re the Chefs in the kitchen, and we love to cook with simplicity. Our recipe for a successful collaboration with a partner has only five ingredients:
We start by placing all the ingredients on the table – learning who our partner is, and what are their main values, business goals, and pain points. We also love to hear what are the expectations that a partner has for their company and what they want us to do. Asking our partner strategic questions to learn more about the challenges that the company is facing is also a must.
Now that we have all the data we need, we can start cooking. Our HR, recruitment teams, and management gather to analyze all the resources we have now and the ones we can acquire in less than two months. When that’s finished, we can make a proposal that will consolidate our offer.
The meal is almost finished – it’s time for a final touch. We contact our future partners to go through all the details of our proposal and make sure that we covered everything that was mentioned in the first step. Together, we go into detail when defining the scope of work and ensure that we’re on the same track.
Now, there’s no analogy with cooking, this is just paperwork. Everything that is agreed on is confirmed and made official. Boring, but necessary for legal coverage for both sides.
It’s time to savor the carefully prepared meal with love, time and patience invested. Our new team is ready to begin onboarding and integrating with your existing team and systems.
We’re not trying to convince anyone of anything. The facts speak for themselves. We would just like to emphasize that the negative stigma around BPO outsourcing companies should be broken, and it all starts with finding the right outsourcing company. Find the one that has great team culture and an effective strategy, that can offer you e-commerce customer service of any kind or some other assistance. If you feel that Morph is the right match for you, we’d love for you to contact us and find our customer support services or outsourced inbound sales.
