By 2023, the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry is predicted to be worth USD 52 billion (source: Reuter.com).
Success doesn’t come easy to anybody, and neither is it the same with the BPO sector.
It is evident that the industry may face certain challenges. But wouldn’t it be worth it, face every challenge, and then gain success in any business?
The BPO industry tends to put a lot of pressure on the domestic services wherein competing in price has become difficult. In the same manner, software automation intends to follow the same on these services. Now, if this happens, employees, leaders, businessmen working in the BPO sectors must divert their focus on the quality, while ensuring to take proper care of their clients.
In the present day, a consumer is filled with multiple choices, and so is the same agenda with the companies who intend to take up services from BPOs. If you’re not careful, you can easily lose a customer with just a click of a mouse.
This simply means you need to keep them more than just happy.
What exactly does it mean when we say, keeping the customers more than just happy? Well, the BPO sector is known for getting the work done. As such, when companies offer certain tasks, the BPOs complete them and they get paid for it. Now, besides this, the BPO industry needs a higher value offering.
When talking about a higher-value offering, this includes adopting a certain level of transparency. Demonstrating the companies how they get their things done. Besides this, they need to start investing in building networks and relationships with their potential clients, just so they do not get stranded.
How BPOs can grow?
Most B2B customers demand efficient work and diverse skills to cut down costs. In short, to make ends meet, the industry will need to fulfill the requirements of their customers.
With the emergence of automation, most of the BPOs jobs are at stake. To stay competitive, these sectors will have to diversify their offerings.
To stay relevant in the business industry, these sectors might need to make extra efforts. They would further require to give attention to every minute detail wherein the service they provide to the customer should be of the highest quality. Be it through social media channels or via a website’s integrated chat function, they should have an answer to every query asked.
Although automated software has been used to answer common queries like shipping details such as locations and costs, having a live chat is equally crucial. Not to mention, such automated functions can save the industry a lot on labor.
BPO companies also do trading of lower-skilled jobs for higher-skilled jobs. Wherein, low-skilled jobs will always remain targets of automation. However, allocating a task that requires advanced knowledge in computers gets challenging.
In the Philippines, it is estimated that the BPO sector could bring in approximately 1.8 million jobs by 2020. Thus, the demand for skilled labor is likely to increase.
While many companies have started saturating with BPO companies, it is possible to see a shift of this trend to a newer country.