The outsourcing industry witnessed major change in 2011, especially in organisations working in public sector business process outsourcing (BPO). One firm – Capita – secured record contracts worth £1.6bn following pressure for the public sector to slash costs. But what does 2012 hold?
I believe there will be four keys areas to watch out for:
Compliance
2011 saw increasing compliance issues affect different vertical markets with the end of doorstep selling in energy, the mis-selling of financial cover products in the home services market, and Ofcom call abandonment rules being broken as companies chose cost over quality.
In 2012, the contact centre will become more of a strategic asset, as firms struggle to balance the demands of compliance issues, increasing customer service needs and pressure to increase their customer base and revenues.
Outsourcing will no longer always be a “least cost” decision, but be more of a strategic cost avoidance decision to protect company assets, reputation and ultimately share price.
Rather than carry the risk themselves, organisations will increasingly turn to outsourced partners who are expert in maintaining compliance systems and keeping them up to date with the fast moving regulatory changes.
Consolidation
Could we see the new ‘Super-BPOs’ start to close their doors to new clients as they focus on the large and lucrative public sector contracts? For clients who still need to build their customer bases and generate significantly more revenue from their existing customers, they will start to look for partners with a solid reputation who can offer niche services that are scalable.
This actually creates an opportunity for the mid-tier outsourcer who has solid compliance systems and technology platforms, and can provide that scalability, leading to the rebirth of the niche outsource provider.
Contact centres
2012 could also see the rebirth year of the contact centre as the industry stops seeing ‘multichannel’ as a sexy add-on, and starts to see it as the norm with a single channel that retains telecontact at the centre.
Almost every company now has a web presence, but very few harness its capacity as a revenue generating tool. However, by using the telephone to call people who are browsing a website or have abandoned their shopping cart, conversion rates can soar.
Online retailers who see themselves as online only, are missing out on the power of engaging with a contact centre agent.
Digital marketing can also be integrated into a telecentric contact model to proactively warm up a prospect before call, confirm or thank them following a sale or quote and then keep them warm until next purchase, through email, SMS and even mail.
Reverse-offshoring
The rise in online transactions has helped some companies over the past few years easily establish a foothold in European or EMEA markets, but telephone contact is becoming increasingly important to brands to establish a presence in a new territory, build customer bases or provide market research before entering a territory. Online marketing easily breaks down the international barriers, so why shouldn’t telecontact?
Many companies have suffered when they have moved operations offshore to gain cost advantage, and are now turning to trusted onshore partners, to provide multilingual support to their sales, marketing and customer service operations.
Reverse-offshoring describes activity that is outsourced onshore in the UK, to take advantage of our high quality and compliance systems, but using native speakers to contact offshore markets in a way that competes with offshore providers on more than just cost.
Liam Smith is the strategic development director at Ant
