BPO & Outsourcing

5 Key Strategies to Supercharge Your BPO Partnership

Larrita Browning
January 18, 2023
0 minute read

Today’s customer service landscape is tricky to navigate, especially when you need to outsource support to keep up with growing customer demands. Having a reliable BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) partner can help ease this burden – enabling you to scale up (or down) cost-efficiently. But it's not enough just to hire a BPO – having the right BPO agent training and development strategies in place with a BPO Management program is essential to delivering world-class customer experiences. 

In this blog, we’ll explore five strategies that are proven to establish and maintain successful BPO partnerships. To inform this post, we’ll lean on insights gathered from interviews with one of our customers, a leading food delivery app, and our very own Customer Success Director. 

1. Empower Agents with Training & Certification

In the food delivery app marketplace, ensuring a delightful customer experience is critical to gaining a competitive advantage and earning brand loyalty. This is why one food delivery app made training and development for outsourced agents a central part of their BPO partnership strategy. 

Signing a contract with a BPO is just the beginning of a successful, long-term partnership. According to the Quality Assurance Manager, “continuous management” is the next critical phase of every BPO partnership. During this phase, the company and the BPO work together to create a detailed training and agent development plan that gives BPO agents the skills and support they need to provide excellent customer experiences. They even implemented a rigorous onboarding certification program that is required for all new BPO agents to complete. “We’ll guide teammates through to retrieve that certification,” said the company’s Quality Assurance Lead.

Their training program typically takes three weeks to complete, and agents enter a period of “redshirting.” During this time, they practice what they have learned and become familiar with the company’s services. To help ensure that BPO agents are up-to-speed on the app's customer support quality standards and practices, they leverage MaestroQA to provide the agent with live QA insights. “Agents can work a case, and typically within an hour and a half, we'll go ahead and complete the audit and then send it back to get the agent fully ramped by the time they hit their 60 days.”

Through MaestroQA, companies have full visibility into quality metrics such as empathy scores, completed cases, audited cases, and calibration alignment scores. This helps brands measure the effectiveness of their training and ensures agents are aligned with the “high bar” of customer service expectations that brands have put in place.

2. Leverage Feedback to Turn Good Behavior Into Habits

Giving agents feedback is one way to ensure they provide the best customer experience possible. This feedback helps agents better understand how their actions impact customer experiences and allows them to make adjustments accordingly.

It was fascinating to hear how this leading food delivery company has taken this feedback approach to a new level. In order to provide agents with consistent and clear feedback during redshirting, they conduct three live audits of cases a day for six days. Providing agents with these layers of feedback over a condensed period helps them “immerse” themselves in the repeatable behaviors and practices that have a positive impact on customer experiences.

3. Use Coaching & Empathy to Overcome Language Barriers and Improve Customer Experience

 

As customer expectations continue to grow, companies must find new ways to provide a better customer experience. Training and coaching agents on showing empathy are two great strategies companies can use to sharpen their BPO agents and develop good habits.

For example, when one of our customers saw a dip in CSAT ratings from one of their BPO partners, they were able to audit results to discover that their agent’s greeting lacked empathy. So how did they address this? They implemented a coaching initiative to help their offshore BPO partners move away from robotic and transactional greetings, instead focusing on providing empathy and a solution within 30 seconds. Now their agents have the necessary tools and training to understand the customer’s needs quickly and better respond to them.

While providing empathy and delivering clear feedback and coaching can help agents create better experiences for customers, it’s important to remember that these tools are just the start of creating a positive customer service experience. Companies need to invest in developing their agents on a continuous basis to help them provide the best customer experience possible. Through an app like MaestroQA, you can actually manage your coaching sessions with agents, linking QA scores and coaching points directly to your 1:1s to manage and track the proper follow-up. 

MaestroQA Coaching Platform
MaestroQA Coaching Platform
MaestroQA Coaching Platform

4. Improve Culture Challenges with a Train-the-Trainer Strategy

Offshore BPOs have their own set of unique cultural challenges, and train-the-trainer strategies are an invaluable necessity for improving these challenges. Train-the-trainer strategies work by having a team of certified trainers visit the BPO locations.

“By training the trainers, the BPO learns to be autonomous around training future new classes of agents, saves the internal team's time and resources — freeing them up to tackle other projects,” said MaestroQA’s Michelle (Lamerta) Vanchieri, Director of Customer Success. “This allows for a more customized approach to training that meets the specific needs of the BPO.”

Speaking of training, there’s an old saying; you can’t manage what you can’t measure. This is why using data and metrics to measure the success of your train-the-trainer strategy is vital. "By analyzing data trends through a quality rubric, you can identify ongoing training opportunities for each BPO to ensure they are well-enabled on customer service processes. Furthermore, as you roll out new processes, we recommend adding these topics into your Quality Scorecard to ensure you are tuned into any new training opportunities that may arise,” said Vanchieri. 

MaestroQA BPO Dashboard

5. Give Your BPO Partnership a Boost with a Little Latitude!

The shift to a new model of freedom and autonomy in BPO partnerships can be a difficult one for many companies. The leading food delivery company mentioned earlier recently implemented this “new model,” and the results were impressive. Their BPO partners experienced a strengthened relationship, streamlined workflows, and an improved agent experience.

Before the shift to the new model, the delivery company took a more hands-on approach. “The old model was we told our partners how to jump, how high to jump, what to wear when they were jumping, and put them through a lot of hoops just to make sure that we were hitting all of these processes metrics,” said the Quality Assurance Lead.

So how did they make the shift to this new model of autonomy and freedom? They provided a clear set of guidelines and then let their BPO partners operate based on those guidelines, giving them the latitude to demonstrate their expertise. This was a significant shift, as it provided the BPO partners with the freedom they needed to execute.

This new model of autonomy and freedom allowed the BPO partners to take ownership of their tasks and be more efficient in their processes. This, in turn, provided a better experience for customers and agents.

If you want to learn more about MaestroQA, request a demo today.

Previous Article

How QA is Transforming Sales

Leanna Merrell

Navigating AI Pitfalls and Enhancing CX in Call Centers

Leanna Merrell

Beyond VOC: The Future of Customer Service Conversation Intelligence

Leanna Merrell

How to Optimize Your Chatbot Strategy: QA’s Critical Role in Enhancing Accuracy & Effectiveness

Leanna Merrell

MaestroQA Achieves PCI DSS 4.0 Level 1 Compliance: Leading the Way in Secure QA Solutions

Lauren Alexander

Don't Settle. Dig Beneath The Surface For Customer Insights.

Team MaestroQA

Using Zendesk CSAT Reviews and Slack to Appreciate CX Agents

Customer Support Best Practices From The NYC Support Driven Meetup

Why Failure To Provide Great Customer Service Is A Risk To Company Success

Maintaining Quality Of Customer Support In The Face Of Hyper-Growth

Customer Service Quality Assurance and Soft Skills

The 2 Agent-Controlled Factors to Improve CSAT Scores

Guide to Building Call Center Quality Monitoring Scorecards

How To Improve CSAT Scores for Your Call Center in 3 Steps

Customer Service Quality Assurance for Higher CSAT Explained

How To Build Your First QA Scorecard — A Comprehensive Guide

Innovation in Quality Management with Freshly at The Art of Conversation

A maybe-too-honest perspective on our rebrand

How FabFitFun Uses Customer Service Quality Assurance To Manage A Best-In-Class Support Team

Team MaestroQA

How to Create A Customer Service Quality Assurance Form

See The Future: Be Proactive In Support Of Your Customers

Team MaestroQA

Quality Management and Customer Service Training Programs

Why Paving A Path To Resolution Is A Customer Service Best Practice

Team MaestroQA

CSAT Scores vs. Quality Assurance Metrics – Which Is Better?

5 Ways Quality Assurance Programs Can Improve CSAT Scores

MaestroQA Partnerships: Introducing Zendesk Suite

Is Your Quality Assurance Program Built For 2018?

Fresh Take: How Peer Review Can Identify Improvements

Roger That! Assume Nothing Until You Get Confirmation

Creating a Multi-Channel Quality Form For Contact Centers

The Art of Training with Harry's Razors and FuboTV

Building Customer Loyalty And Trust Through Service

Team MaestroQA

How ActiveCampaign Uses MaestroQA To Scale Their Support Team, And Improve Team Dynamics

Team MaestroQA

Omnichannel Support For Agents And Customers: A Necessity

2 Types Of Agent Skills That Impact Customer Satisfaction

Mastering Customer Interactions in the Age of DSAT

Leanna Merrell

How Shinesty Uses Alternative Positioning as a Best Practice

Dangers Of The 90%+ QA Scores

Using Positive Positioning to Improve Call Center CX

Team MaestroQA

Navigating AI Implementation Strategy in Customer Experience: Risks and Strategies

Leanna Merrell

Elevating Call Center Performance with Six Sigma and MaestroQA

Lauren Alexander

Elevating Business Excellence Through Non-Customer-Facing QA: A Strategic Imperative

Leanna Merrell

Elevating Trust and Safety through QA: How TaskRabbit Sets the Standard

Leanna Merrell

The Essential Guide to Chatbot Quality Assurance: Ensuring Excellence in Every Interaction

Leanna Merrell

Unlocking Superior CX: The Bombas Blueprint for Quality and Coaching

Leanna Merrell

Agent Empowerment: 5 Tactics for Customer Retention from Industry Leaders

Mastering Agent Onboarding: Quality Assurance Lessons from ClassPass

How Angi Unlocked Growth and Continuous Improvement with QA

The Transformation of QA: Driving Business Results - Key Takeaways from MaestroQA’s CX Summit

Lauren Alexander

Unleashing the Power of Customer Conversations: Top 6 Tech Trends Revealed at the CX Summit

Lauren Alexander

Important Factors to Consider when Exploring Sentiment Analysis in Customer Support QA: A CX Community Discussion

Driving Business Impact with Targeted QA: Insights from an Expert

The Art of Outsourcing Customer Support: Lessons from Stitch Fix's BPO Partnership

Larrita Browning

How to Revamp QA Scorecards for Enhanced Quality Assurance

De-Villainizing QA Scorecards with Hims & Hers Customer Service

How to Maximize Call Center & BPO Performance | MaestroQA

Larrita Browning

Writing the Auto QA Playbook & Transforming Customer Support

Larrita Browning

MaestroQA Named One of Comparably’s 2023 Best Workplaces in New York for the Second Consecutive Year

Larrita Browning

Advancing Customer Service Metrics with AI Classifiers

Lauren Alexander

MaestroQA Named on Comparably’s Best Workplaces in New York

Larrita Browning

CX Strategy: The Future of AI in Quality Assurance

Larrita Browning

Elevating Customer Satisfaction with Visibility & Coaching

Larrita Browning

How Customers Collaborate with Their BPO Partners Today

5 Key Strategies to Supercharge Your BPO Partnership

Larrita Browning

Champion-Challenger Model: Improve Customer Service In BPOs

Larrita Browning

Kick Start Your Customer Service BPO Partnership Successfully

Larrita Browning

BPO Call Centers: Best Practices for Quality Assurance

Larrita Browning

Call Calibration: What is It & What are the Benefits?

Larrita Browning

Increase QA Team Alignment with Call Calibration & GraderQA

Dan Rorke

Measuring An Organization's 3 Ps: People, Process and Product

Larrita Browning

Empathy in Customer Service: Everything You Need to Know

Larrita Browning

Average Handle Time (AHT): How to Calculate & Reduce It

How to Onboard Your Customer Service Team to a New QA Program

21 Key Customer Experience Definitions for QA Professionals

Should You Have Dedicated Quality Assurance Specialists?

How Top eCommerce Brands Ensure Exceptional Customer Service in a Remote World

The Top 4 CX Books Recommended by Our QA Community

A Guide to Customer Service Quality Assurance Programs

5 Key Components of a Remarkable Customer Service Experience

The Ultimate Guide to Improving First Call Resolution (FCR)

How to Refresh Your Call Center Quality Monitoring Scorecard

The Key to Customer Service Coaching Is More Data (and Fewer Opinions)

Call Center Quality Assurance with Zola and Peloton

How to Update Your QA Scorecard

3 Ways to Test Your Call Center Quality Assurance Scorecard

The 9 Customer Service KPIs Needed To Improve CX

What is DSAT and 5 Steps to Improve It

Leveraging Customer Sentiment to Improve CX in Call Centers

Larrita Browning

Customer Experience Management and Quality Assurance Jobs

How Deeper CX Analytics Lead to Better CSAT | MaestroQA

Customer Service Management 101: Everything You Need to Know

Beyond Low CSAT Scores: Finding the Root Cause of Poor CX

How to Create an Omnichannel Call Center Quality Assurance Scorecard

Achieving Effortless Customer Experiences (CX) with QA

This Is What an Effective Customer Service Coaching Session Looks Like

Customer Service Coaching 101: Improve Agent Performance

Auto-Fail in Call Center QA: What It Means and When to Use It

MaestroQA's Aircall Integration: Bring Your Calls to Life

Build the Ultimate QA Scorecard Process for Email and Chat

Why Poor Agent Experiences Happen (and How to Fix Yours)