Balancing Cost & Quality with BPO CX Management

Regardless of what services are outsourced and what a company’s goals are, the key differentiator and growth opportunity remains great customer experience (CX). Many are still missing out on this competitive advantage, however, because of their BPO strategy risks. It’s becoming apparent that companies must “walk the walk” by treating BPO providers as trusted partners rather than cycling through them as one might a mobile phone provider.

Following the old adage of not putting all their eggs in one basket, companies often execute a multi-BPO vendor approach to outsourcing. Using multiple BPO partners can have several potential benefits for a business, depending on its specific needs and circumstances:

• Risk diversification: Relying on a single BPO provider can be risky if that provider faces issues such as operational problems, financial instability, or a natural disaster in their location. 
• Specialization: Different BPO providers often have varying areas of expertise. 
• Scalability: Different BPO partners may offer flexibility in terms of scalability. You can allocate tasks to different BPO providers based on their capacity and expertise, ensuring your business can quickly adapt to changing needs and demand. 
• Competitive pricing: When BPO providers know they are in competition with others for your business, they may be more willing to offer favorable pricing structures and terms. 

While these factors may seem enticing at first, there are also considerable downsides to this kind of BPO vendor management, especially if those partners aren’t fully dialed into your business.   

It's important to consider multi-vendor challenges that will likely end up causing the operational headaches you were trying to avoid in the first place. With more than one BPO provider, you run the risk of more management complexity, greater potential for integration troubles, and varying service quality.

Additionally, companies can struggle with scalability or ramping up new initiatives, leading them to churn through BPO providers. Having multiple providers often adds to training, onboarding, and implementation costs. BPO partners should align with your business strategy, risk tolerance, and specific operational needs.

Streamlining BPO management for business efficiency and identifying a single partner that can create a custom solution for your company will likely save you time and money in the long run. Committing to a single partner can actually make it easier to scale your business as you grow, especially if your industry deals in highly complex fields such as financial services, healthcare, or e-commerce. And the right BPO partner will also help you scale down after seasonal spikes as well.

With companies looking for transparency and scalability in their partners, working with one BPO provider makes sense. You can streamline communications and points of contact, making it easier to oversee the partnership and have more control over maintaining service delivery consistency.

Over time, the advantages of a single vendor BPO strategy become clear. One BPO partner can develop a deeper understanding of your business processes, culture, and specific needs. Greater efficiency and productivity will improve as you establish well-defined processes and systems that are attuned with your needs. Consider how consolidating might help you negotiate favorable terms and volume discounts to also reduce overall costs.

Anything you outsource should be based on your business’s overarching goals, target audience, and specific needs. ​​At Ubiquity, we take a bespoke approach to answering all these questions. 

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​​​We achieve the goals of a multi-vendor approach with just one vendor—us:​​

Whether you want to start from scratch or work with what you have, we develop a plan tailored to your budget and goals. That’s why we encourage you to learn more about us and how we develop a Strategy That’s Yours.