Spoilt for choice: Which contact centre service provider is the right one for my project?

When deciding on an outsourcing partner, you are usually spoilt for choice. The contact centre market offers a wide range of providers who can take over your customer contacts: Whether a global player vs. a purely local player, favourable off-shore options vs. quality-oriented near/off-shore providers. Which expertise is profitable for your company and relieves your own service unit in the medium and long term? Which partner has the best “fit” with your company?

First of all, you should review your current service. Ask questions such as: “Where do we currently stand with our service? What expectations do our customers have? Which services can/do we want to provide ourselves? And for which services do we need external support?” (Please also read our article Make or Buy?)

Based on this, develop a target image. The resulting requirements profile for potential contact centre service providers should include the following parameters, among others:

• Language skills
• Locations (possibly also relevant to GDPR)/recruiting potential
• Key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Service times (weekdays, times, seasonality)
• Channel support: telephony, email, chat, etc. (multi-/ omni-channel)
• Inbound/ outbound
• Recruiting
• Processes and service depth incl. expected volume and process times
• Technical equipment/ experience

The requirements profile is a good basis for a “short advert”. Obtain offers from potentially suitable candidates and check the “fit”. Please also note: Organically grown companies that have been operating successfully at locations for several years with long-standing customer projects are a good indicator of a potentially well-positioned partner.

However, checking the “fit” should also include industry knowledge. This is because in a long-term partnership, where partial or complete business processes are outsourced, these are usually critical to success. Discussions with suitable reference customers are helpful here. Another success factor is that the corporate culture/philosophy of the potential partner matches your own.

In a final step, we advise you to coordinate your expectations in the areas of personnel (including recruiting, training, ramp-up), technical connection, quality management, reporting and cost accounting with the potential candidates.

Based on these steps, the “best fit” with your company and the requirements of your service processes should be relatively clear. In this way, the decision can be clearly argued to the purchasing department and/or management.

What are the benefits of implementing our recommendations?

A structured approach to selecting the right outsourcing partner for your outsourced contact centre increases the chance of actually achieving the desired effects – e.g. increasing flexibility, improving service, reducing costs, expanding expertise.