The Future of Contact Center Outsourcing: What to Expect in 2025

00:00Hi guys, Tom Laird, here. You have heard of RFP RFP.com. advice from a call center geek, a weekly podcast with a focus on all things call center. We'll cover it all from call center operations, hiring, culture, technology, and education. We're here to give you actionable items to improve the quality of yours and your customer's experience. This is an, this is an a evolving industry with creative minds and ambitious people like this guy. Not only is his passion call center operations, but he's our host. He's the CEO of Expivia Interaction Marketing Group and the call center geek himself. Tom Laird. Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of Advice from a Call Center Geek. The Call Center and Contact Center podcast. We try to do some actionable items to take back in your contact center, improve your quality, hopefully improve the age and experience as well.

01:12My name is. Tom Laird I am the CEO here at Expivia, Expivia Interaction Marketing. How's everybody doing? But I got something a little, I don if it's different, but I wanted to kind of go on a unscripted rant Hopefully, to kind of help some of you guys as we're getting into 2025 that are thinking or looking to outsource. And this industry is evolving quickly, but some of us are not evolving with it, right? And so I wanted to talk today about some of the things that you need to look for from from an RFP standpoint, when you're looking for an outsourcer, what are some of the things that your outsourcer should be doing in 2025 compared to even 2024 and in years before? There's a huge difference in where we are today compared to, you know, really where we've been. and I haven't seen a lot of evolution with this.

02:16When we look at an RFP, and I've been receiving RFPs RFPs for last year in even getting into 2025. And they look look like they're from 2017 because we are moving faster than I think a lot of that frankly, you're not even asking. And so I think I wanted to and kind of go through this. What should you be looking for? What should you be asking for? sure I'm live on TikTok, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm live on Facebook. So if you have any questions, especially you LinkedIn guys, let me know. And we can kind of talk that through. You guys are on TikTok as well. Let's have this conversation. I have about six notes here, that's about it. The first thing is I think the baller's music, if you look at on LinkedIn, and I kind of use LinkedIn as kind of the benchmark. If you look and you search for VPO and look at posts, we are the worst industry ever for posting content on LinkedIn.

03:46Everything is ad driven, lot. And you're short offshore guys that maybe don't understand how to use LinkedIn. I don't understand why, but it's very ad driven. Everything is the same. There's very little a differentiation in kind of what what contact centers are doing. And I think again, the BPO is making safe. Nate, what's up, buddy? It's good to good to hear glad you're here. I'm sure we can have some questions too, but I see things like the same differenting things such as white glove service, whatever that means, right? skateboarding, looking at we can do integrations in any platform. BPO world, you're not differentiating at all with things like that. And again, I probably should just let BPOs kind of do that. But I think overall as an industry people are kind of following. of that same road. The other thing that I see nearshore offshore, and again this is kind of just

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05:23with that price compared to everybody else. And I don't see, So when it comes to an RFP when it comes to things that you should be looking for in 2025. I believe trumps almost everything else. If you're talking to a high end high tier contact center that's not just some fly by night has been around for a little bit. They're going to have all those things that you normally expect and from having top agents, to white club service, to having the ability to scale, you know, all of these kind of old. Differentiators that aren't there anymore. So what you should be looking for, in my opinion, is a technology partner that is really good at contact center outsourcing. And we've kind of flipped that model on its head where before it was, you know, we want a really good contact center outsourcing with really good agents that, But now I think it's totally opposite.

06:22Everybody has, I don't say everybody, but again, most of the high-end BPMs, they have the really good agent. They have their policies, their procedures. They have everything in order. So how do you differentiate now? I think you have to look at the technology piece and say, okay, if I'm going to pay XX amount, what am I getting for that X compared to the other contact centers? And I guarantee if you're trying to sell on white-glove service, right, then that you're going to be falling pretty far behind. And also, if you're looking for a contact center, you're not asking the right questions. If those those are still the things What I would say is look first, that is really good at the conduct center outsource of of peace. But, you know, every RFP should have. Does your conduct center have the, ability, and maybe you don't want it, but do they have the ability to have agent assist? Do they have the the ability to have advanced analytics, right? So that I can dig deeper into all of my types of calls.

07:30Is there a roadmap that you can help me to get to AI? AI is is a huge question and I think we're all the wrong questions. If you're a a vendor manager or asking the wrong questions when it comes to AI. Everybody's jumping the gun and they're saying, hey, can you get me, I want to have virtual agents and I want to cut down my head count by 50 percent. All of these things I'm seeing kind of an RFP, right? and tools, but it's hey, can you cut my head-count down. And I think if you have a blanket answer from a BPO that says, yes, we can do that, I would be a little bit leery. I think that there's questions that need to be asked by the BPO if they know their deal. If they understand that, do you have a KMS? Do you have a really good knowledge management system?

08:29you have all of these things that you want to self-serve with a virtual agent? Do you have integrations that are pre-pre-help with your integrations? Those are the starting points, that's the starting point. RFP. So that RFP should not say, hey can you cut my headcount by 50% That headcount, that question should be, hey can you help us roadmap our AI strategy? The BPOs that are taking this AI thing seriously, they're going to say, yes, we can do that. Let. Let's start with building out your KMS. We have some tools for your KMS to your CMS. All of these things that have to be, the infrastructure needs to be there. and a lot of vendor managers aren't understanding that there's a process that has to happen with that and the contact centers that can help you with that are going to be much more valuable than those that just say, yeah, hey, give us an FAQ and we'll create you virtual bots.

09:41I see that happening. That's the AI piece in the RFPs. we're not digging deep, we're not talking about things like, agent assist, we're not a talking about a talking about things like auto QA. You, you know, how important or how strategic would your RFP be if you, hey, listen, kind of our call, what calls, when they come in. Can be self-serve, and how do we build that progression out to get them out of the agent's hands and into a kind of a more of an AI self- I self service model. That's the kind of the, I think the biggest thing, you know, I love still hearing, right? Another, another selling point that I hear still that we were using in like. 2015 is, you know, let us outsource your, you know, care of your customer so you can handle your core business. And I don I don at Expivia, like these are the questions that we're going to ask of you.

11:24This is what we have built over the last year of. How do you roadmap a customer? I've done a bunch of talks on it at NiceCX1 at interactions Um, I've been on a couple of road shows with it talking about really what did 2024 mean? And now we have tools, right, especially at the agent level that are quote unquote mature again, Agent Assist is an unbelievable tool. Now it's not for everybody, it shouldn't be sold to everybody, but if you A long and right? Agent assist can kind of dig through all of that and start to give your agents what they need, right? So that it's an unbelievable a force when your average handle time goes down your customer, your CSAT, and your PSO, that article up. That tool is amazing, you know, looking at auto summarization. Again, every BPO should be able to auto summarize calls for a customer. But having said that, I think that there's a bigger use for that, for customers that maybe have longer calls, that need longer memos, and we have agents that are then typing in those memos. Maybe Maybe the use of some type of code, right, to kind of get some things through, but those memos

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13:18So, again, at cost savings, you're looking at BPOs handling more calls. Right there, there from an auto summarization, right there from a agent assist, you're going to be able to cut a handle time and improve your CSAP, and improve your MPS. The other thing that I think is absolutely vital, like it's understated a lot is advanced analytics. to be able to look at what customers are saying. What type of marketing data can we clean? from that, right. Your BPO should be way service center that does self-service and answers calls and takes care of customers. It should also be a part of your marketing marketing. We should be able to give you really deep insights into customer behaviors, into what are they saying? Are they bringing up your competitors on calls? Are they using phrases like too expensive? Why are customers canceling? All of these questions the 2025 BPO should be able to answer for any customer, it's kind of like, if you're going to go to dinner. Now granted, maybe you're a really good cook at home and you don't need to go to dinner because you can cook at home. That's fine. Some internal centers are great and they're happy.

14:35But a lot of times you're not a great cook. So when you go to dinner, you don't want to just match kind of what you can eat at home. You want an unbelievably great experience. You want all the tools that maybe your internal center can't afford. You want the expertise in the technology side of what you maybe don't have internally. I think that's the new value add for the 2025 contact center. It's really looking deep at the technology piece, having these kind of bells and whistles whistles, and we should have always had these bells and whistles, but now it's getting really cool with AI. To be from a self-service standpoint, and increasing agenting agent productivity with. ai tools as well. Your BPO should have that stuff, or. Or at least you, should be asking. that they have it. I think that, that's the biggest, the biggest difference.

15:38Is looking at your BPO now, not just as a contact center outsourcer, but as a technology partner that you can outsource to,- and they can guide you through all your integrations guide you through all the kind of that you need to move your contact center forward, or your customer experience forward in kind of this this new AI world. So again, not a long contact a podcast here today. And again, that's kind of my ramp for 2025. We're going to do some some posts on on this. I'm going to create an RFP to send to anybody who wants it to have the questions that I think you need when you're talking about AI, when you're looking at a vendor managers that are really, really good at this and digging into this, understand the tools that should be in the high-end contact centers. there's a huge difference now between, I think what a BPO should have today compared to what they had two years ago and compared to what most internal contact centers have as well.

16:41No, there, there's, there's so much technology, Hello, my name is Tom Laird, I'm from New York, New York, New York, New York, New York, New York, New York, New York, New York, will think, you know, again, one of the things from avatar of that that call that they just they just bond. Like, those are the things that we're going to be bring to market that I think a lot of some of the higher-end BPOs and some of those analytics companies are talking through. I think that there's a lot of really cool technology there. There's voice recognition technology, right. Where, again, there's a little bit of controversy with it, but where you can actually change the agent's voice to match the type of customer. So again, if you're near shore offshore to make sound like you're somebody from Texas or somebody from New England or Somebody from New York, that technology is here.

18:08Looking at auto translation, right? That's going to get better and better and better.-I thought we'd have it even better in 2024 but in 2025, that's coming for sure. So you you're an agent that speaks English only, but you have a French caller coming in and having that translation happen in real time. That stuff's here now. And this is the stuff that you should be asking for in your RFP, asking for when and you talk to a BPL, hey, you guys have this stuff. R

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19:03of, of conduct centers and BPOs that they are going to match your needs and they're going to have the technology that you want. So again, I think that's, that that's a really important piece of this as well, well, if you don't go this on your own, if you don't know, because there's so much to it. Um, but, but look, look, and again, I can help you out with that. There's other brokers that can help you out. If you, if you kind of go on and search, I have some really unbelievably great friends in that neck

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20:00I think. there's a. There's a lot of nuance to this stuff and we want to make sure that if you are looking to outsource in 2025 that you're getting what you You should be getting, and you understand the different tools that are out there that an outsourcer should be bringing to as well. So having said that, again, check us out, Expivia Interaction Marketing, ExpiviaUSA, USA.com. We are just a USA contact center outsour.- or if you're looking to near shore or offshore. I have really good friends, my friend here, Nate, who's... LinkedIn all the time is has a great offshore center in the Philippines but again there's a lot of different ways and a lot of different factors that should go into your 2025 outsourcing I am off to Orlando for the next few We have a tournament down in Orlando, so I'll be posting some videos and stuff from down there.

21:05I think talking a little bit more about this and the outsourcing stuff, it's been kind of fresh on my mind the last couple of weeks is where we're kind of getting to 2025. And it's kind of a fresh clean start and this a new AI world. So again, thank you guys very very TikTok I'll stay on for a little bit longer with you. see that there's a couple questions that have come in here. So everybody else, thank you. and I will talk to you guys later this week or next week