The BPO or Business Process Outsourcing industry has gained momentum rapidly in the last decade. The impact that a good BPO solution can have on a business is now well recognized. Companies have learnt from experience that it may not be enough to streamline just the external interface to customers. The internal workings, such as the efficiency of the Intranet, are also equally important to achieve overall success in business.
A communication services company would understand the significance of an efficient Intranet due to the high degree of service expected by internal and external customers. Let us assess one such scenario to see how a good BPO solution can help transform business processes.
A well-known telecom and broadband provider faced challenges with their Intranet, including slowing down systems, which was affecting their efficiency. The company made the right choice of partner for providing BPO services that would help improve customer service as well.
The first step of the solution involved setting up a helpdesk that would handle billing enquiries. This encompassed all technical support services such as handling complaints, support calls by engineers and provisioning of new lines and offers. Both the voice and e-mail interfaces were a part of this system, with trained teams of associates for both.
Unique aspects of the system
The solution was similar to a plug-and-play business process utility model. Some of the most important differentiating factors that contributed to the system being a success were:
Efficient forecasting and scheduling: It was possible to easily handle sudden spikes or higher volumes of queries due to the forecasting facility provided by the system. In turn, this led to a high degree of service efficiency and better customer satisfaction.
Improving skill levels of associates:The first level of contact with the customer is very important, and by upgrading the skills of associates, it was possible to improve the customer experience.
Knowledge base: As the system kept evolving, the experiences were captured in a knowledge repository that helped to make future queries even easier to answer and resolve.
Metrics that proved success
With the ability to provide adequate solutions, the company improved the efficiency of the HR solutions could be easily established in the following ways:
Reduced turnaround time: One can achieve a drastic reduction in turnaround time for billing disputes – from 54 to 3 days! This is a clear indication of the benefits provided by an added advantage of the BPO solution.
Reduction in number of cancelled orders: With customer experience scores at 95%, one can achieve an improvement in productivity with direct impact in the cancellation of orders, which had been significantly reduced.
A good BPO solution should fit into the existing framework of the company and seamlessly provide the required functionality. Undeniably, the assistance of a good technological consultant should help to alleviate the existing technical support issues.
To know more about the topic, please check the informative case study on the subject published by HCL Technologies.
Photo credit: Sebastiaan ter Burg
