More than ever before, the success of any business relies on providing an outstanding customer experience (CX). Customers today are better informed and can make more educated purchasing decisions than ever. As a result of this consumers have extremely high expectations for customer service, and this has means that most brands are easily replaceable. Today, successful BPO to the Philippines must be centered around the customer experience since the customer has now taken center stage.
“The world's most successful organizations, such as Amazon, AMEX, and Zappos, understand the importance of delivering exceptional CX and have become themselves, customer experience obsessed. They understand that their success depends not only on delivering great products and or services but also on a world-class customer experience. And it works both ways: satisfied and brand-loyal clients are often prepared to pay a premium for exceptional support,” says Ralf Ellspermann, CEO of PITON-Global, an award-winning mid-sized BPO in the Philippines.
The most successful organizations are hyper-focused on delivering a consistent world-class customer experience across all customer touchpoints. What this calls for is 24/7 omnichannel customer support. Simply providing a call center solution isn't enough. Consumers want to communicate with and be contacted at the times and in the ways that are most convenient for them. This means phone, email, webchat, and even social media support. Only a premium provider has the resources to supply that level of support.
According to Ellspermann, “Providing this kind of premium 24/7 level support onshore can be prohibitively expensive. CX support in places like the U.S. can run on average $24-28 per hour, whereas the same type of support by premium CX providers in the Philippines is half of that, averaging approximately $12-14 per hour. Therefore, an increasing number of companies from around the world are turning to the world’s largest and leading contact center outsourcing destination – the Philippines.”
To achieve this type of world-class CX, premium BPOs in the Philippines invest heavily into the best talent, training, and technology. An added benefit of this is that partnering with a premium vendor in the Philippines saves money on capital expenditures as they already utilize cutting-edge technology to optimize service delivery. Additionally, the vendors that offer a superior customer experience are backed by an infrastructure that is capable of supporting 24/7 support with no downtime.
BPO providers also invest in training and talent development, ensuring that only the best BPO support agents are selected. Leading BPO providers in the Philippines have a recruitment process that ensures only the top 5% of applicants are ultimately hired, and then invest heavily into rigorous training to ensure that these agents exceed customer expectations every time. This type of investment into BPO talent is one of the major differentiators between premium vendors and low-cost service providers.
“There are outsourcing providers that offer customer support at a lower cost than more premium competitors. But what is the real cost to the organizations that utilize their services? Providing inferior CX reflects poorly on the company, damages the brand, and ultimately leads to the customer taking their business elsewhere. BPOs that compete solely on price without an emphasis on delivering a better customer experience simply cannot compete with premium CX providers,” explains Ellspermann.
Delivering outstanding CX is critical to the success of organizations of every size. Today's consumer is both savvy enough and willing to take their business to those companies that they feel values them. BPOs that focus solely on lowering costs without an emphasis on quality CX are selling their customers short. “When looking for an offshore partner to provide this critical business process, companies need to partner with a premium CX vendor if they're serious about delivering a truly world-class customer experience,” he adds.