What Drove the Need
During the peak of COVID-19, this Hospitality client had a line of business go down completely. Many of their other global partners were battling the logistics of working from home and were scrambling due to government restrictions related to COVID-19.

The World Connection Advantage
World Connection had already transitioned our workforce to a work-from-home model prior to government restrictions and stood as an immediate solution for them.

We were asked to assemble a team of 20 FTEs to go through a quick, three-day virtual training to provide support and answer member-services calls.

World Connection recruited and put into training all 20 FTEs within two days of notification.

Our ability to be forward-thinking and agile with our business enabled us to help a customer in a time of need. We exercise flexibility in serving our clients and pivot very quickly to meet their needs. We are not bogged down by bureaucracy. We do what is right!  Learn more.

Quick Results:

• 2 days – Recruitment time for 20 FTE

• 600 FTEs transitioned to a work-at-home environment

• 3 days – Total transition time

• 0 interruptions to daily workflow for clients

The post CASE STUDY: Amid COVID-19, Hospitality Client Needed a Team to Stand Up Fast first appeared on World Connection.

How the Relationship Started
This client was looking for a partner offering contact center and back-office support. As a start-up company, standing up and running a call center was not a core competency of theirs. As they explored various BPOs and locations, they struggled to find a BPO that would take their business, as they were looking for only 4 FTEs to start. World Connection’s flexibility-based business model allows us to take on projects of that size, and we were ready to help them grow!

The World Connection Advantage
Once the initial inbound customer service and email operations were established via 4 FTEs, World Connection noticed upsell and cross-sell opportunities in the customer service and support channels. We presented the ideas to the client and helped them create training materials and guidelines for these new sales opportunities, netting an additional €50,000 per month. As the program tripled in size to 12 FTEs, World Connection also added Spanish, French, and German language support. They was delighted with the increased revenue!

We understand the unique challenges start-up companies often face. Our philosophy is simple: We are here to help our clients grow, regardless of their size. In return, World Connection will grow with them.

• €50,000 in monthly new revenues

• 4 additional languages added: Spanish, French, and German (in addition to English)

• 3x growth from 4 FTE to 12

“Thank you, a lot, for all your help and effort. I know you are working hard for [our] success and I really appreciate your partnership.”

– Head of Customer Experience

The post CASE STUDY: Creating Upsell Opportunities And Language Support For Hospitality Client first appeared on World Connection.

How the Relationship Started
Our client was frustrated with their relationship and lack of attention from their large contact center partner. They decided to give a smaller partner a try, so they started a pilot with World Connection. After our initial, 20-person pilot program was successful, our client ramped up the headcount to 120 agents in under three months. World Connection is now their sole provider of services with over 400 agents in our Boise, Idaho and Guatemala City locations.

The World Connection Advantage
At the onset, World Connection proactively partnered with the client to redesign its 4-week training program methodology, which resulted in quicker agent proficiency. This shortened learning curve resulted in zero disruptions in service and performance when ramping to 120 agents. Our client also leveraged World Connection’s onshore and nearshore locations for a blended customer service experience. This blended approach has enabled them to provide a white-glove customer service program to its customers without exhausting its budget.

• 75% – Net Promoter Score (goal: 70%)

• 91.8% – Contact Resolution (goal: 90%)

• 400 FTE after initial, successful pilot of 20 FTE, the client made World Connection their sole provider of services

“I can’t say enough good things about our great call center partner, World Connection. If you need a world-class provider that will make your company shine, look no further than World Connection.”

– Chief Financial Officer

The post CASE STUDY: After Successful Pilot, WC Becomes Sole Provider Of Services first appeared on World Connection.

In this three-part article we will go through everything you need to know about business process outsourcing: the basic concept, the types of processes and functions BPO partners can support, the future outlook of the industry, and how to choose the right BPO partner for your company. 

Business Process Outsourcing

Business process outsourcing is the practice of hiring a partner to execute a specific work process or processes in your company. 

The services a BPO partner can provide go from payroll, accounting, telemarketing, data recording, marketing, customer support, and many more. 

BPO usually executes supplementary business functions. These services could be either technical or nontechnical.

Businesses of all sizes outsource processes and the demand keeps growing as new and innovative services are introduced and all the companies are looking for advantages to get ahead of the competition.

BPO can be an alternative to labor migration, allowing the labor force to remain in their home country while contributing with their skills in job positions abroad.

BPO is often divided into two main types of services:

Back office

Back-office services include internal business processes, like billing or purchasing. It includes all the administrative work done in a company like clearances, settlements, record maintenance, accounting and IT services.  All back office activities are non client-facing. 

Front-office 

Front office services have a direct relation with the company’s customers, this include marketing, sales, service departments and tech support.  BPOs can combine these services so that they work together and not independently.

The BPO industry is divided into three categories, based on the location of the vendor: 

• Offshore: offshore BPO partners are located outside of the company’s own country.  For a U.S. based company an offshore BPO partner can be located in Guatemala.

• Nearshore: nearshore BPO companies are located in countries that neighbor the contracting company’s country. If a company is located in France, BPO companies in Spain or Italy would be considered a nearshore BPO partner.

• Onshore: onshore BPO partners operate within the same country as the Company hiring the outsourced services, although they may be located in a different city or state. 

A company could achieve total process optimization, for example, working with a contact center that is both present in the market and similar in terms of culture, language and time zone.

Why should you outsource your processes?

American businesses choose to outsource for many reasons. Some people have the belief that businesses contract BPO partners just to get tax breaks and lower costs.  

U.S. companies benefit from outsourcing operations to countries with a lower income tax because businesses pay the rate of their host country. 

But there are many other reasons to engage in outsourcing, such as:

Lower costs:

Outsourcing decreases costs from in-house labor, particularly for hiring, training staff, work space and resources to maintain local employees. The outsourcing companies located in a developing country can lower-cost labor markets. 

Process Optimization: 

Outsourcing companies are specialized. They are experts in executing noncore functions of other businesses. Most outsourcing companies invest in specialized processes and technologies to deliver top quality service and technological breakthroughs to their partners.

Highly trained agents and time management strategies are also a plus when partnering with a BPO company, these will have a direct effect on the productivity levels; it will increase quality and customer satisfaction.

Focus on key functions: 

Outsourcing allows businesses management to delegate functions that aren’t directly tied to their core processes and gives time to focus on the core activities that would make the business grow. 

When outsourcing, management would have the energy and time to develop new strategies and business goals instead of having to  check your accountant’s performance during payroll. These actions will boost the competitive advantages of your company and increase customer interactions to improve customer satisfaction and increased profits.

Global presence: 

Outsourcing partners can help your company provide service to your customers in multiple languages and 24/7 attention. These outsourcing companies can provide new opportunities to establish business relations in other parts of the world.  

Flexibility: 

Having most of your noncritical functions and processes covered by a BPO partner gives you the opportunity to act efficiently and fast when dealing with important events like introducing a new product or service. When you outsource you guarantee you will have the ability to manage your in-house staff and your BPO partner’s internal resources to help ensure the best execution of the tasks. 

Efficiency and Time management:

These are two of the most rewarding benefits for companies that outsource their processes. When outsourcing you are letting specialists handle these processes. This decision will save time, improve accuracy and quality and it also will increase the capacity of workflow. Time management strategies are always executed at their best by BPO companies. 

So, the pros are that it saves you time and effort, which saves you money. But there are a lot of benefits to business process outsourcing, in Part 2 and 3 of this article we will go deeper into understanding how BPO can help your business, what functions and processes these partners can execute for your company, the risks of outsourcing, the industry it self, some new trends and the future of BPO.

The post BPO from A to Z : Part 1 first appeared on World Connection.

BPO providers now are able to support a number of services and help fill many gaps within companies, these are some of the services a BPO company can provide. 

Types of services you can outsource:

Some of the thriving industries that are partnering with BPO companies are: business services telecommunications, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, energy, retail, e-commerce, automotive, banking, supply chain, capacity solutions, and HR management. 

The growth in BPO companies and the excellent results helped advance the creation of some BPO subspecialties, including:

Customer interaction services: 

These types of BPO companies would execute business’s functions like: customer support, email services, appointment schedules, voicemail services, marketing, telemarketing, surveys, payment and order processing and customer feedback.

Information technology-enabled services BPO: 

This form of BPO handles information technology over the internet or data network to deliver services. Here are some examples of jobs in the ITES BPO area:  service desk analyst, production support analyst, and IT analyst.

Knowledge process outsourcing: 

KPO has changed BPO, because it helps companies execute functions that are considered part of their core functions. KPO companies offer more than process expertise and efficiency; they also provide business expertise. Some examples of KPO services are: research and analysis. These outsourcing partners only hire people who are competent in a specific field and are usually linked to the business’s value chain. 

Legal process outsourcing:

Legal process outsourcing is a subspecialty of KPO and provides a wide range of high-level legal work. LPO providers can execute patent applications and legal agreements, as well as perform legal research.  Some of these companies even provide legal advice to their clients. 

Research process outsourcing: 

Another subset of KPO, research process outsourcing specializes in research and analysis functions. The RPO specialized companies perform research and analysis work that help and support business, investment, biotech, and marketing companies.

Travel: 

This BPO subspecialty includes all the operations a business needs to support its travel logistics, from hotel reservations to vehicle bookings. 

Travel BPOs’ goal is to save money for the company; they lower costs while increasing customer satisfaction. 

Airlines and travel companies also partner with BPO companies to take care of their front- or back-office processes. 

Each BPO company will specialize in different services, such as back office transactions like check, credit, and debit card processing, payment collection, direct and indirect procurement; transportation, logistics and dispatch and even warehouse management.

IT and software processes: 

These focus on technical support functions that include: application development and testing and technical support. Some examples are: automated data capture, this increases data intake and reduces cycle time.

Finance and accounting services: 

These BPO services and functions can include: general accounting, billing services, accounts management and auditing.

Human resource services: 

BPO companies can help your company overcome workforce challenges. They can also execute other tasks such as: payroll services, healthcare administration, hiring and recruitment, training, insurance processing, and retirement benefits for all your employees.

Knowledge services: 

These BPO services are of a higher-level. Some of the processes may include data analytics, data and knowledge management, internet and web research and customer feedback analysis.

The Risks of Business Process Outsourcing

For U.S. companies, India and the Philippines perform a large portion of the outsourcing services. India in particular is a leader in BPO for the United States because its labor force is highly skilled, trained and English-speaking, and the companies get all of this with a lower cost.  Latin America is ready to become a powerhouse in the BPO industry, as technology and infrastructure provide more comfortable nearshore bilingual options that share U.S. time zones and culturally relevant lifestyles.

Hiring any outside partner to perform business processes for your company comes with an inherent question of the level of efficiency and quality that the BPO partner can provide. 

Potential breaches and vulnerability in data privacy are a real threat, particularly with the current prevalence and increased risk of hackers. 

These are 3 important factors you should evaluate before partnering with a BPO company:

• The Costs of Services: 

Companies that partner with BPO vendors often disown the running costs of the providing services. These hidden charges can be done especially during upgrades or contract renegotiation. Other hidden costs can include: decrease in individual worker productivity, hardware and software upgrades, layoffs and currency fluctuations.

• Overdependence: 

Once a company designates a partner to execute some of their business specific processes, the BPO partner becomes a part of the workflow. If a BPO partner replaces veteran employees for less experienced workers to keep costs down the cost will not be modified but the quality of the service will suffer as a result. 

• Communication: 

Language barriers can harm the effective execution of the tasks and functions. 

When outsourcing your processes and functions of your business, your company faces a significant amount of risk; this depends on the type and structure of your company.  

These are other possible risks associated with outsourcing: quality control, political instability, data breaches, strategic alignment, changes in technology and hacking.

Now that we have covered all the services and processes a BPO partner can provide and execute for our company and the risks we can encounter, it’s time to take a look ahead and see into the future of this thriving industry and the way it can evolve to create new niches of service.

The post BPO from A to Z : Part 2 first appeared on World Connection.

BPO is the action of trusting a partner to execute some of your business activities or processes to save money and resources, acquire higher quality service for our customers, and support our customer around the clock, this will provide you the possibility to focus on the core business functions. 

This new chapter is all about understanding the industry; the undergoing changes it faces, the future of this growing industry and the best way to choose a BPO partner for your company. 

The Business Process Outsourcing Industry

In the past five years, the BPO industry has exploded due to drastic changes in social media use and the concurrent demand for multichannel communication. Consumer behavior has changed too. Browsing social media has become the third most popular online activity and an overwhelming 81 percent of the U.S. population has at least one active social media account.

Before the year 2000, companies provided customer service through websites and by transferring calls via interactive voice response, and the BPO industry was primarily composed of call centers.  But times have changed and the opportunities are bigger every day. BPO providers are specialized in finding niches of service to help you improve your processes and have a more efficient business.

BPO providers have also improved to provide their clients with high tech breakthroughs which seem to be the future of this thriving industry.  

The Future of Business Process Outsourcing

The future of BPO is a promising one, automatizing will be the key to open new opportunities. 

Data entry work and image recognition can be automated easily, but experts in the field report that certain functions, like handwritten data and telemarketing, will resist automation. Most industries, BPO included, will find a way to use these new technological resources to the advantage of their company and its clients. 

New trends like social media, machine learning and cloud services will be taken advantage of to reduce costs and accelerate growth. 

Startups businesses are becoming more dependent on this type of service, so there is mutual dependence with BPOs.

This practically new tendency to provide attention and support via social media is expected to continue. 

Another change in the industry comes with the fact that BPO companies will have to invest in diversifying their workforce. These BPO providers will get more competitive and will be forced to lower their prices, they will accelerate the need of lower-cost alternatives such as software automation and AI. 

AI and automation are real threats to workforces all over the world, governments and business leaders should focus on educating the new generation so they can meet the new demand of knowledge for highly skilled positions.

BPO companies are required to be more transparent so that they may build and maintain trust if they will be so deeply involved in your company’s functions and processes. 

Choose the right Business Process Outsourcing partner for you:

Finding the right BPO partner for your company is no easy task. You will have to go throw many details before you settle with a company and get to an agreement. 

It is highly recommended going with the formal and extensive research process, before choosing the BPO partner for your company. You should carefully look for the best outsourcing experience and the one partner that seems able to meet your company’s goals. 

This list of tasks can help companies that are considering a BPO provider to perform in sequential order to find the best candidate. 

Define your requirements and review potential providers:

In this first step, you need to identify all your company’s stakeholders and with them you must also figure out the key objectives, risks, and processes for BPO to have a complete understanding of your goals. 

You should also start to source potential service providers. It is always a great idea to develop a scorecard to determine the most important criteria. 

Define the model and source vendors:

Determine the most crucial elements you are looking for in a BPO provider you should also have already defined what service management model your company will use.

Choose the right BPO partner for your company: 

Evaluate all the possible providers. Try to analyze the change that will result from contracting them. What are the risks and benefits of working with each of the possible providers should be taken into account before making any decision. 

Negotiate the contract: 

The negotiation of the contract is the most important step in the process of acquiring a BPO partner. Both companies must reach an agreement of the service parameters and the contract schedule. 

Transition the processes to your new partner: 

This is a hands-on task. You should develop and execute a plan to make the transition to the new work model, make sure that your business has open communication internally and with the service provider from the beginning to guarantee the success of the transition process. 

Create a relationship: 

Verify the proper execution of all the things stated during the life of the contract with your service provider.  A key factor for ensuring that your company is receiving the expected benefits of outsourcing is to have constant performance monitoring. Always encourage a collaborative relationship and plan ahead to renegotiate your contract at the end of its term.

And last but not least, here are some quick tips that can help you choose the right BPO partner for your company:

• A good outsourcing company will always give you advice and will help you decide which parts of your business you need to keep in-house. 
• A remarkable outsourcing company values the work of every employee. A good BPO partner will try to establish a solid connection between their company and your organization to help increase productivity.
• A worthwhile BPO company’s objective is to help your organization optimize and increase sales without consuming too much money.
• Choose your BPO partner carefully, always ask for evidence that supports that the service provider can actually deliver the task with excellence and on time.

The real key to a successful BPO experience is to do your research beforehand, lay out clearly your company’s expectations and goals with your selected BPO partner and stick to what both parties agreed upon. You should choose a BPO provider carefully and conscientiously, and the relationship should be defined formally but willing to give the best so this new chapter in your company’s life cycle brings profits and success.

BPO provides a world of possibilities for startups and big companies. So look into your process to take a step into a better future for your company with the help of a BPO partner.

The post BPO from A to Z : Part 3 first appeared on World Connection.