7 Key Trends for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Industry 2015 & beyond
1. Shift to Cloud & Virtual Workforce (Work At Home Agents- WAHA)
- The majority of the features and trends for the BPO industry in 2015 are based on using a robust cloud-based software system that takes most of the heavy lifting off premise.
- As per industry research, 18% of workforce will be cloud based in 2015
- Gartner called it a “seamless shift between computing and communicating.” Along with increased interest in BYOD/T, organizations are dealing with more complex architecture and operations, new ways of addressing governance and security and the rise of a remote, cloud-based workforce.Not to mention an increasingly cloud-based clientele.
- As companies continue to need more real-time analytics and multi-channel connectivity, the demand for cloud services can only increase. This has encouraged outsourcing companies to develop their own or endorse specific ones.
- Increased Work at home- Virtual agents
2. Omni-channel
- Social Media for CRM will Force a Shift from Contact Centers to Customer Engagement Centers- By 2015, organizations that have not embraced the concept of the customer engagement center will lose customers to competitors that have
- The best customer service software has the capabilities to allow you and your team to communicate through multiple avenues.
- New channels- Video Support. WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is an API definition hat supports browser-to-browser applications for voice calling, video chat, and P2P file sharing without the need of either internal or external plugins.
3. Smart Customer Service/ Gamification
- Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems and increase users' self-contributions.
- By 2015, more than 40 percent of the top companies would be using gamification to transform their business operations.
- Work Force Optimization - Single view to the customer who is contacting from various channels
- Real-time Reporting & Analytics- instead of randomly sampling transactions as part of a traditional QM process, speech/ text analytics can actually alert compliance teams to possible issues – and take them directly to those specific interactions or sets of interactions that are most relevant.
- Robotic Processs Automation- Robotic process automation (RPA) is the application of technology that allows employees in a company to configure computer software or a “robot” to capture and interpret existing applications for processing a transaction, manipulating data, triggering responses and communicating with other digital systems. As RPA brings more technologically-advanced solutions to businesses around the world, operating models that adopt automation, whether in-house or offshored, will cut costs, drive efficiency and improve quality.
4. Mobile Based customer service applications- may not need a desktop
- Shift from IVR to smart visual mobile apps
- Customer Verification- Biometrics based, NFC based etc.- Instead of wading through multiple questions and client verification procedures, biometric voice systems can immediately verify the identity of your clients. This feature alone will shave minutes off of each call, exponentially increasing productivity.
5. Integration of CRM & Marketing
- Collaboration between customer service and marketing- delivering more consistent messages across all the touch points, they're going to be looking at aligning customer service calls with marketing.
- As the contact center moves to the cloud and is getting integrated with CRM, and business’ marketing channels, it has become a businesswide concern.
- Gartner’s predictions that the CMO will soon be buying more technology than the CIO, we are seeing that marketers are increasingly likely to be spearheading the contact center’s move to the cloud.
6. Client-Vendor Partnerships
- Managed Service Providers are generally no longer serving technological needs from a checklist. Many are working together with enterprises asconsultants, planners, and advisors. A close relationship provides many benefits and enables businesses to better approach initiatives and focus on long-term goals.
- Increase in out-come based pricing models, and a closer review and development of business continuity and disaster recovery plans.
- Mature client-outsourcer relationships are anticipated to “lead to a gradual shift to outcome-based pricing models” with highly experienced clients and outsourcers who have built mature relationships beginning to develop contracts with a “sliding scale of rewards for approaching desired outcomes,” ensuring that providers aren’t locked into an “an adverse all-or-nothing scenario.”
- Companies are now more open to collaborations with their providers in terms of streamlining their processes in an effort to become more efficient thereby continuously decreasing operational costs.
- Companies continue to move towards building strategic partnerships in order to take advantage of opportunities.
- Many businesses are now going beyond the affordability factor when it comes to choosing partners and providers.
7. Domestic Outsourcing
- Economic changes have raised the demand for employing American providers, removing constraints such as language barriers, international law, and currency exchange. Some companies are highlighting home-grown outsourcing as part of their marketing. By working with U.S. providers, however, there are many operational and cost-saving benefits.
- US BPO market is set to expand in response to the rising costs associated with offshoring to emerging markets
- Shift in outsourcing activity back to the U.S and its near-shore neighbors- sparked by a series of factors such as rising wages in China and India; increased demand for American-accented English and Latin American Spanish in contact-center services; and companies preferring to work with geographically-closer outsourcing providers within familiar time zones.
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