Are You Frustrated with Your Outsourced Customer Service Provider?

Are you frustrated with your outsourced contact center provider?

When businesses outsource their customer service operations to a contact center BPO, they expect to receive a high level of service and support. Outsourcing your customer service to a contact center can be a great way to improve efficiency and reduce costs. However, many customer service executives find themselves frustrated with their outsourced contact center for a variety of reasons.

In our experience, the top three reasons customer service executives are frustrated with their outsourced BPO contact center provider are:

1. Lack of communication and transparency from the contact center provider
2. Unclear or unrealistic expectations from the outset of the relationship
3. Billing discrepancies and hidden fees

Lack of Communication and Transparency

One of the most common complaints customer service executives have about their outsourced contact center provider is a lack of communication and transparency. This can manifest in several ways, such as the contact center provider being unresponsive to requests or questions, failing to provide regular updates on performance metrics, or not sharing important information about changes or updates that could affect the service they provide.

When customer service leaders feel out of the loop on critical customer experience KPIs they will most likely also have difficulty getting actionable insights about the customer experience that they can leverage to improve operational performance, save costs and reduce customer effort.

Unclear or Unrealistic Expectations

Another common source of frustration for customer service executives is when they feel that their contact center provider has set unrealistic expectations from the outset of the relationship. This can create a disconnect between what the customer service executive thinks they are paying for and the actual services and levels of support that are being delivered.

This can happen when the contact center provider does not take the time to intimately understand the business’s customer service needs and requirements, from brand voice and tone to target customer engagement metrics, or when they make promises that they cannot keep.

This can be frustrating for both parties and lead to tension and conflict down the line. This sometimes becomes a problem when businesses switch contact center providers, in cases when the new provider is unable to meet the same standards or levels of service that were provided by the previous one. As a result, many fear switching contact center BPOs is too complicated an undertaking and might delay making a change for the better unnecessarily.

Being clear about the right fit for your brand and corporate culture – from people, processes and platforms – is important when identifying what you expect from your new contact center provider. Identify clearly upfront what you’re missing from your current contact center and your goals for the new contact center.  Be transparent and seek transparency.

Billing Discrepancies and Hidden Fees

Finally, another frequent source of frustration for customer service executives is unexpected billing discrepancies or hidden fees from their contact center provider. This often happens when agreements are focused too heavily on low hourly rates in an effort to reduce costs.  Often there are other standard fees that will be charged, such as set-up fees, monthly minimums, or early termination fees, that might seem to pop up out of the blue.

It’s always frustrating to feel like you’re being charged for services that were not received or were not expected, such as training or technology implementation services. Too often, when hidden costs are added later, or when the company is not receiving the service levels agreed upon, the cost benefits of lower average or hourly costs are not as competitive or discounted as originally perceived.

It is important to make sure that all charges and fees, including training costs, set up fees, etc. are stated in upfront proposals, to avoid surprises later, and to ensure you’re accounting for all the goals and critical success factors you want to achieve by outsourcing, vs. a singular focus on hourly rates.

Do any of these top 3 scenarios speak to you?