BPOs face pressure to prioritize transparency over call volume
CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES — Business process outsourcing (BPO) providers and their clients are locked in a fundamental conflict over customer service transparency, with 20% of service workloads being preventable through clearer communication.
John Goodman, Vice Chairman of Customer Care Measurement and Consulting (CCMC), wrote in a published article in CMSWire that while BPOs often resist initiatives that reduce call volumes, forward-thinking firms prove that prioritizing prevention over call volume drives long-term value for all stakeholders.
Incentive misalignment drives up preventable service costs
Marketing fears transparency could hurt sales, while BPOs worry about losing revenue from reduced call volumes.
Goodman writes that the consequence of this misalignment is bad output in terms of Voice of the Customer (VOC), with important problems being underreported or hidden.
Other BPOs do not bother to address misleading marketing claims; instead, they focus on damage control rather than correcting the cause.
Flawed VOC processes mask systemic issues
Most VOC studies are selective; thus, companies struggle to detect and address the same customer pains. BPOs tend to avoid discussing problems such as misleading marketing assertions and instead emphasize the importance of providing clear explanations and apologies.
When clear promises on products are not made, this method is very discouraging to frontline agents, as they ask themselves what to do with the mess.
High-tech and financial services firms face similar challenges, where unmet promises on delivery times, uptime, or pricing lead to avoidable customer frustration.
A handful of progressive BPOs, however, break this cycle by transparently flagging risks, helping clients improve products and messaging while commanding premium pricing for their insights.
Customer education cuts call volume
Proactive education dramatically reduces unnecessary service contacts, as seen in cases where onboarding videos slashed weather-related satellite internet complaints.
Yet most BPOs provide vague, inactionable VOC insights, avoiding topics that marketing or sales teams may resist addressing. Clear onboarding not only reduces call volume but also boosts customer satisfaction and retention.
Amazon reduced service calls for 1 in every 100 orders and 1 in every 10,000 orders after thoroughly analyzing the root causes of these calls.
It follows that a major insurer experienced a 30% reduction in calls once it educated its customers on the most common enrollment errors, demonstrating that transparency in advance can be worth it even at the expense of the conventional BPO-generated turnover.
Forward-thinking BPOs prove prevention pays off
BPO providers, such as VIPdesk and ACC Premiere, prioritize transparency, even when it reduces short-term call volume.
The Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) of VIPdesk, Othmar Mueller von Blumencron, focuses on partnerships with its clients to prevent inappropriate calls. “It is one of our core principles to work with our clients to reduce unnecessary volume by reviewing all customer dispositions reported by the VOC and finding solutions on how to communicate information better before customers contact,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ibrahiem Atshan, Vice President (VP) at ACC Premiere, stresses the importance of flagging product faults and marketing malpractices that can endear longer-term relations.
“We are committed to transparent client partnerships in which we identify unrealized cost savings and process efficiencies, even when the impact will reduce our monthly billing. We value the long tenure of those relationships over short term transactional costs,” Atshan said.
Such companies charge high rates by minimizing attrition and building customer loyalty, which is unlike the volume-based BPOs. Their success will demonstrate that prevention-based incentive alignment is effective for all parties involved, namely clients, customers, and BPOs.
