How to Create Success Though BPO Partnerships

Transcript

[00:00:01] Steve MacDonald: Welcome, everyone, to the Contact Center Perspectives podcast. I’m Steve MacDonald, your host, and we have a very special guest on here today, Henry Hildesheim. And Henry, you are the Director of Operations for TechStyleOS, but you actually have a really interesting background. For over 15 years now, you’ve been working on both the corporate side, running a contact center.

[00:00:24] Steve MacDonald: You’ve also been on the BPO, the partner, the outsourced side. So, those two kinds of internal and external perspectives are really important for what we’re going to be talking about here today because we’re going to talk about the inside-out perspectives of creating contact center success.

[00:00:42] Steve MacDonald: What are the challenges internally and externally, and what are the factors in success when bringing and merging both of those together? So, I’m very excited about our conversation here today. But before we get started, I’d love to just give you a chance to maybe explain a little bit more about your background.

[00:00:58] Henry Hildesheim: Of course. Hi, Steve, thanks for having me. Really excited about this opportunity tonight. A few sentences about me—working for TechStyleOS as a Director of Operations in customer service, with a background that has very much shaped my view on things.

[00:01:15] Henry Hildesheim: On one side, I’m a true believer in valuing people and managing people the right way. On the other hand, I very much believe in numbers. Every decision that I make needs to be backed up with numbers, which makes me a person who has a very nitty-gritty, micro view on data. I don’t get along with averages very well, for example, which is something that very much defines our industry. I always strive to do everything in the best interest of our customers while taking all this information into account. So, that’s very much me.

[00:01:51] Steve MacDonald: Well, great. Here’s what I’d love to do. I’d love to start out by asking you a really important question, which is: How do you look at the challenges of running a contact center and connecting that to overall success and business growth? There are internal challenges and external challenges, and I’d love to know how you think about that.

[00:02:13] Henry Hildesheim: I don’t think I’m revealing any secrets when I say that a BPO, a contact center partner, and the company that requests their services usually have slightly opposing interests. The BPO partner needs to make money from the service they provide, while we at TechStyleOS, as the company using the contact center, want to get the best and the most out of the money we’re paying.

[00:02:38] Henry Hildesheim: So, this is one of the natural points of tension we see. It’s also why working inside a BPO is very different from working with a partner who requests BPO services.

[00:02:56] Steve MacDonald: I’d love to ask you, though—definitely different organizations, different growth strategies—but you come together as one team.

[00:03:06] Steve MacDonald: So, I’d love to ask first: What are your recommendations on how to ensure you find the right BPO partner and successfully integrate them into your organization so that you are one team serving one customer base?

[00:03:23] Henry Hildesheim: One thing—and this brings us back to people—one thing that’s important is speaking with people and making sure you’re building a connection internally and externally. You need to see your partner as an extension of your own organization, not just in a technical sense, but in a very human way. This way, they feel responsible for your success, just as you are, to a certain extent, responsible for theirs.

[00:03:49] Steve MacDonald: That’s a good strategy. What I’d love to do now is ask you about how you actually make that a reality. I’d love to hear a story about how you’ve worked with your BPO partners or, from your time in a BPO, how an organization made that happen.

[00:04:26] Steve MacDonald: Because it’s a great goal to have, but actually making it happen—merging two different companies with two different company cultures and getting them to exist as one team—is a challenge. Ultimately, you want the customer to feel like they’re interacting with your company no matter what. You want the BPO partner to feel like a part of your company and take ownership and pride in that.

[00:04:36] Steve MacDonald: But how do we get that done while ensuring it still aligns with the BPO partner’s business model and strategy? That’s not always an easy process.

[00:04:55] Henry Hildesheim: Absolutely not. It definitely takes effort. It requires communication, taking the time to talk beyond just the numbers, and discussing how emotions play into certain situations—how both partners feel about the progress toward a goal.

[00:05:14] Henry Hildesheim: It’s always about asking for more from both sides, but it’s also about remaining humble enough to accept a “no” and the reasoning behind it, allowing time for development. And last but not least, meeting people in person. And I don’t mean just meeting the account manager—I mean meeting operations managers, team leads, trainers, and not just for lunch, but actually sitting next to them while they work, listening to them.

[00:05:43] Henry Hildesheim: And beyond all those roles, this applies most to our agents. Our agents are our face, our voice to the customer. They are our front lines. If we expect them to fully represent our brand, then we must treat them as if they were our own employees.

[00:06:24] Steve MacDonald: So, here’s what I’m taking away from that: We can’t just have a strategy set from above and dictate how we want the team to operate—whether they are our in-house agents or BPO agents. We must spend time together, learn from each other, and establish a genuine connection between our internal teams, BPO leadership, and their agents. If we want them to feel like a part of our organization, we need to build a human connection with them. Would you say that’s an accurate takeaway?

[00:06:42] Henry Hildesheim: That’s one of the most important things because that relationship lays the foundation for mutual respect. It ensures that, even when there are challenges in the partnership, both sides remain committed to finding solutions and putting in extra effort to get things back on track.

[00:07:06] Steve MacDonald: Now, I understand the benefits of this approach intuitively, but it takes time. It requires shifting priorities and elevating the human element higher on the list.

[00:07:06] Steve MacDonald: In your own words, why? What is the tangible benefit? Not just holistically—”They feel more like part of our organization”—but in terms of KPIs and measurable outcomes. You’re accountable for running a successful operation. Why do you invest that much time?

[00:07:26] Henry Hildesheim: If my partner knows me, and if they know what I’m striving for, and if they commit to it, and this is what I’m trying to achieve with that personal connection, they would invest into that, knowing this is how they can make their partner happy. This is how they can make me happy.

[00:07:43] Henry Hildesheim: They would probably go above and beyond when it comes to achieving certain metrics, reaching certain KPI goals, because they know, okay, this is what makes Henry, and this is what makes TeX OS successful. Just only be for our own benefit.

[00:07:59] Henry Hildesheim: It takes load off my shoulder because I can rely not only on internal resources, but also on my partner’s resources to be innovative, to see things that I don’t see, and to give me a heads-up without charging me for a heads-up, and that way be quicker, be ahead of the competition, and we also be a role model inside the whole industry.

[00:08:26] Steve MacDonald: The one big theme to what you just said there was, to me, it was like investing in those relationships. Spending that time gives you the trust that they’re going to work hard on your behalf and be happy to do that. That you can trust that they’re going to be doing the things that you want them to do as if you were doing it yourself.

[00:08:46] Steve MacDonald: But if you’re not going to invest in that time, in that relationship, how can you trust that you’re going to get that kind of a reciprocal partner mentality coming back at you? Is that a good way to think about it? Like, a good articulation of what you said there?

[00:08:58] Henry Hildesheim: Yeah, it makes sense, and there’s one more thing on that. BPO is short for business process outsourcing. You could also say you’re delegating part of your business, and if you’re a good delegator, you make sure that people feel empowered. You do it as if these people were your own employees, they’re part of your very own team. And if you do not draw the line between a vendor and a partner too straight, but you make sure there is that feeling valued on both sides, then you can do things that would otherwise not happen.

[00:09:32] Steve MacDonald: It’s interesting because I’m doing a whole series, and I’m interviewing chief people officers, chief human resource officers, CMOs, CROs, and CEOs about the importance of company culture. It’s really about creating engagement and having people feel like they’re a part of the team and they’re empowered so that they feel loyal, they stay longer, and they perform at a higher level.

[00:09:59] Steve MacDonald: Everything you just said is, to my mind, you’re investing in the time to create the right culture between you and your BPO partner, so they feel valued. They feel a part of the team, and they want to do more work for you, and you can trust in that relationship.

[00:10:13] Steve MacDonald: I keep asking this on the podcast because everything that you say is so meaningful, and I just want to make sure that I’m hearing it right. Is that a good way to articulate this? That you’re basically investing in the culture and the working relationship between you and your BPO partners?

[00:10:28] Henry Hildesheim: Absolutely, and there’s lots of payback not only from a very business point of view but also from a cultural point of view. It simply feels different.

[00:10:37] Henry Hildesheim: Just imagine, Steve, you’re seeing one of your partners, one of your vendors, and it’s not only about a formal handshake. It’s not only about having lunch together or having dinner together, but really having the possibility to have in-depth conversations where nobody’s holding back because this idea is something I should share before I know what will be the ROI. This is what it creates.

[00:11:01] Steve MacDonald: So, it’s interesting, you brought up the idea of the dynamic between vendor and partner with a BPO, and a lot of BPOs feel like they’re treated like vendors right from the beginning. The RFP process is very, very focused on cost savings—don’t mess up our CSAT scores, and make sure that the customer feels like you’re a part of us.

[00:11:24] Steve MacDonald: But it’s very, very cost-driven, very, very savings-driven, and that’s not a wrong thing. But a lot of BPO partners feel like that’s almost the only thing that’s important. But you talk about the value of a BPO partner. How do you think about the balance of cost savings versus the value you want to get out of a BPO partner?

[00:11:47] Henry Hildesheim: So, there are two things in that. The first is, most of the cost savings are driven by the company who looks for a partner because they can reduce contact reasons. They can invest in technology. They can provide good customer service upfront. What I mean there is, they’re selling goods to have a good delivery, they’re providing services to have a very good service quality. This is how you save the most—by not creating, not inducing. This is the first.

[00:12:21] Henry Hildesheim: The second step is to handle your resources efficiently, and efficiently does not mean you’re only looking at an average handling time. It means you’re taking a wider picture, and you try to put a certain length of a contact versus a certain likelihood of a resolution versus an increase or decrease of a lifetime value of a customer.

[00:12:44] Henry Hildesheim: If you’re focusing on that whole picture, it gets a bit more complicated at first glance. But it helps you to make your company more successful, and it helps you to save at the right point. If you’re saving money, if you’re saving costs on the shoulders of your frontline workers, in my belief, it’s not a good idea.

[00:13:03] Henry Hildesheim: Your frontline workers are so important. As the voice of your company, they’re so important that they stay for a long period. That’s driving cost that very often you don’t anticipate in the beginning.

[00:13:16] Steve MacDonald: Right. You can drive costs through, like, let’s reduce the average handle times. You can also reduce costs by having happy agents—agents internally and your BPO partners that don’t churn, because that’s a massive cost. It’s a very good way to put that.

[00:13:30] Steve MacDonald: So, one of the things with BPO partners is that they have interactions with your customers every single day. The highest voice of authority in any business is the customer. So, how much do you want to rely on and make sure that it’s part of that relationship—that they’re constantly feeding back to you what they’re learning? So that they’re helping to make you smarter on a constant basis. How important is that in those BPO relationships?

[00:14:03] Henry Hildesheim: It is very important, but it’s also a caveat thing because when our customer service agents are interacting with our customers, then for them, it’s very hard to filter which type of information is important and which type of information is less important, especially if you have a situation where a very important thing—let’s say a bug on a website or an issue with the product that you sell.

[00:14:27] Henry Hildesheim: If that occurs very rarely, like you have a certain number of agents and each of the agents maybe has one occasion during a whole workweek, still, this can be a significant number of products or a significant number of services that are impacted. So, that’s why this is an area where we rely on agent feedback, but we’re also relying on technology. This is where speech analytics plays a big role, where you can pull out certain things from conversations that the agents are leading that they might not even remember.

[00:14:59] Steve MacDonald: You talk about technology, and technology is so important, not just because of AI, but data and understanding our data and really looking at those numbers and making decisions is really important. So, I’ve got two questions on that front.

[00:15:14] Steve MacDonald: One is, tell us a little bit about your data strategy, how you think about data, and you had mentioned in a previous conversation that sometimes averages and benchmarks and things like that can be a little misleading. I’d like to hear a little bit more about how you talk about that.

[00:15:29] Henry Hildesheim: So, I’m very much a fan of, when you take that example of averages, I’m very much a fan of data clouds, which means I can see in a diagram, I can see different data points and how they’re distributed, and that gives me a much better picture than just working with an average.

[00:15:45] Henry Hildesheim: I’m not saying the average is not important. For any planning and forecasting team, it is very important. They have to know a little bit more. They also need to know how the values are distributed approximately because that has an impact on the number of contacts that you can handle in a certain period of time, for example.

[00:16:02] Henry Hildesheim: But for my purpose, I really value working with either data clouds as the most granular or at least working into different areas where data is located, how data is distributed, and so on. Working with quartiles and working with deciles—much more than I would prefer to work on a flat average.

[00:16:21] Steve MacDonald: Makes good sense, and you’ve got to control that data. You’ve got a tech stack, your BPO partners have a tech stack. How do you merge that together so that you’re getting the right data, the technology is working seamlessly across your BPO partners, and you’re getting all the data from all the customer interactions, whether it’s your internal team or your BPO partners?

[00:16:44] Henry Hildesheim: Yeah. Technology-wise, we’re a bit special. We’re not very much relying on BPO technology that our partner owns, but we’re owning a big piece of technology. It’s something I can only recommend to everybody who’s working with a multi-partner environment. As they are then owning the technology, they’re owning the data, they’re owning the strategy.

[00:17:03] Henry Hildesheim: That’s something that we’re doing. So, when it comes to giving data, grabbing data from different technology pieces—maybe from the ACD, from CRM, or from speech analytics technology—then it’s very helpful to own the technology, as you then also own the data, and you own the message that you want to send.

[00:17:19] Steve MacDonald: So, owning that data is hugely important. This is your own customer data and ensuring that. So, the idea of working with a BPO partner—is it integrating from their tech stack into your data, or do you actually have them adopt your CRM system, like your tech stack, in order to work with you?

[00:17:42] Henry Hildesheim: They’re integrating into our technology. So, the idea here really is they don’t have to invest much. I want them to invest in their people, in training, and in people management in general. That’s much more important. That’s also their area of expertise, and this is how we handle it.

[00:17:59] Steve MacDonald: So, we’ve talked a lot about these BPO partner relationships, and you have a very unique background for being on both sides of the fence. So, I think this is a great line of conversation. What haven’t we talked about in terms of the relationship with your BPO partners that you think is important for us to share on the podcast?

[00:18:20] Henry Hildesheim: There are a few things. One thing that I want to mention is, how do you make sure that the partnership retains or remains in good shape even though you’re not on a growth path with your customer service side? Because the BPO, obviously, the contact center, obviously, earns their money, earns with the scale that’s helping people a lot.

[00:18:40] Henry Hildesheim: On the flip side, if you’re getting more efficient in your customer service using technology, if you’re using compact reasons, etc., that also leads to a situation where the partner has to accept that there’s no growth or even during certain periods of shrinkage that will not be offset next season. That’s something that was difficult to manage, quite frankly.

[00:19:03] Henry Hildesheim: Difficult to manage because if you’re working in a very international environment where you’re trying to provide native language support to your customers, even if they’re from smaller markets, you’re getting into an area where suddenly, the size of the team is not determined by the number of contacts anymore, but the size of the team is determined by minimum coverage on a service.

[00:19:25] Henry Hildesheim: This is costly, and then you’re trying to be innovative—how can we make sure we’re still providing top-notch services? But on the other hand, we’re not running these micro-teams. Well, it’s also very hard if you have attrition, if you have leads for any reason. It’s very hard to maintain service on a good level.

[00:19:44] Henry Hildesheim: How do we make sure it’s working well? One piece of technology that we’re using is automated translation services, which usually either the customer or the agent redirects what’s happening. Just everybody’s using their own language, and this is how you merge teams into bigger units again.

[00:19:59] Henry Hildesheim: The benefit is from the economy of scale again. So, that’s one of the things that really poses a challenge, creates a challenge. I think for every type of company that runs a customer service that is not like thousands and thousands of agents, but a reasonable and overseeing number and in very granular markets.

[00:20:17] Steve MacDonald: One of the advantages of working with a BPO partner is the ability to scale up and down as needed. But to your point, you have to acknowledge that has an impact on their business and their relationship with you. But honesty, and that’s a part of the business—is in that relationship and just understanding that there are going to be ups and downs in the business, and if you’ve invested in that relationship up front, I can only imagine that those conversations are easier to have, and it makes for a long-term relationship, which both sides want.

[00:20:50] Henry Hildesheim: I don’t know if I can say they’re easier to have because I’m not having too much possibility for comparison there. At least not during the same period of time, so you’re not handling different accounts at the same time, but definitely, it’s helping. So, what you invested in, it’s helping you that your partner supports you in implementing new technology, even though that might be in contrary business interest, but it’s something that they know is helping us to maintain the relationship, and it’s also, for us, important.

[00:21:20] Henry Hildesheim: We want to maintain that relationship. So, I’m making them part of that process. So, again, it’s working together, and it’s maybe one of the lows that you go through, and at a different point, you’re going to the high again.

[00:21:30] Steve MacDonald: I’ve got one last question for you, Henry. We’ve covered a lot of territory here, but if there was one thing that you wanted the audience for the podcast here to take away from our conversation—the most important thing with working together as companies and BPO partners—what would that be?

[00:21:49] Henry Hildesheim: Take the time and invest in the people—not only in your own people, but invest in all the people that are working for you and that you’re working with. I think that’s a source for success that also makes you happy in the way that, if you’re going through highs and lows together… We’re in Germany—we’re saying, “Shared joy is double joy, while shared grief is half the grief,” and that helps a lot. That really helps a lot. In the long run, it’s sustainable and, very likely, much more efficient and fulfilling than doing short-term investments and disinvestments.

[00:22:27] Steve MacDonald: Well, thank you. Out of all the words of wisdom, I think you really put that succinctly at the end. Thank you, and I know that there are going to be some questions that come from the audience. Would it be appropriate for us to give out the link to your LinkedIn profile so people could get ahold of you?

[00:22:44] Henry Hildesheim: Absolutely, no problem.

[00:22:46] Steve MacDonald: Fantastic. Well, I think that this has been fantastic. I think that the insights into the dynamics of working on those relationships are something that we probably need to explore a lot more in this podcast. But thank you for bringing all of your perspectives into it—it’s extremely helpful, whether you’re in the audience on the corporate side or the BPO side. I think there’s a tremendous amount that we learned today. Thank you.

[00:23:12] Henry Hildesheim: Thank you, Steve, once again for having me. It was a pleasure talking to you.