Are you Taking Too Much Risk with your Outsourcing Partners?

Contact Center Partnerships are like Stocks: You Shouldn't Invest in Just One.

Imagine your college-aged son just told you he invested his entire life savings into a single company. Like most parents, you’d probably think “That’s absurd!” and would hastily tell him he’s being reckless and risking too much. You’d recommend that he diversify – spreading his savings across different companies and asset classes – to avoid the considerable risk he’d be taking if that sole company were to underperform. 

So, if it’s important to diversify your assets, why are you not diversifying crucial vendor relationships?

If you’re only using one contact center or your contact centers are not performing overlapping work, then you are subjecting your business, and your customers, to a high amount of risk.

What would you do if:

• A natural disaster forced your contact center location to shut down for an extended period,
• Your partner experienced a data breach, locking their systems for an unknown length of time,
• Your contact center experienced a bout of illness with a high number of agents suddenly calling out sick,
• Your partner suddenly announced they will be significantly increasing their rates at the end of your contract period next month?
  
  

Chances are, if any one of these unexpected events occurred you and your team would be stuck pulling long hours for days, if not weeks, just to compensate - not to mention you’d likely make a lot of customers unhappy in the process. 

Don’t take this risk. Prepare your team and your organization to withstand the unexpected by applying a portfolio approach to outsourcing. 

With a handful of partners you can tap when you need them, you don’t have to worry about one partner experiencing an unanticipated hiccup in their service. Rather, your ticket volume would simply shift and be dispersed among your other contact center partners who are ready and able to handle your increased volume. We call this creating redundancy within your network. 

When you’re covered on all sides, your operations are minimally affected when unexpected events occur, and you’re able to adapt with ease. This saves you time, money, and a whole lot of headache. 

Follow your own advice: Spread your investment (your customer support) across different contact center partners to protect your company’s customer experiences and to avoid risky moves that could make your company vulnerable if your sole contact center partner were to unexpectedly underperform. Your future self with thank you for it. 

I know what you’re thinking – that sounds really complicated and time consuming (after all, we don’t make our own mutual funds, do we?). Well, good news. ArenaCX makes it easy for you to create your very own portfolio of outsourcing partners. When you work with the vetted partners in the ArenaCX contact center marketplace, you avoid rigid long term contracts so you can test and trial partners until you find the right one for your business needs. 

Interested in learning more?   with ArenaCX today. We can help you understand where your business might be vulnerable and help you get connected to the right BPO partners.