The Best Practices that BPOs Don’t Follow

Amanda Quinn 0:00
One of the benefits and one of the things that's completely missed, uh, a best practice that is, I think, completely missed in the BPO world, is this sales to operations to marketing, if you have it, feedback loop, or I should say where operations should be the ones in the client services are gathering this feedback, hearing from your customers about what they're worried about, what they're struggling with. Welcome to the Build a Better BPO podcast. This is episode 14. Today, Milan and I are discussing all of the best practices that BPOs don't follow. Milan, we want to talk about what led us to this moment of why we decided to record an episode on this topic.

Milan Batinich 0:42
Yeah, you know, Amanda, I think uh over the last couple years we've had so many conversations with uh numerous BPOs. And it seems like there's a uh those that aren't uh as innovative as others or early adopters into a new way of thinking, it seems uh we've been hearing the same thing over and over again. Where BPOs are struggling to grow, BPOs are struggling with attrition, BPOs are just struggling overall with delivery and client churn, etc. etc. And I think it's because the best practices we're gonna talk about today aren't being adhered to uh by the majority of BPOs, which is causing them to continue to hit their head against the wall.

Amanda Quinn 1:24
Yep. Wonderful, wonderful setup, exactly. And when we talk to them about, okay, here's the answer. Here is the answer to your problems. You want to grow faster, you want to uh have employees stay with you longer, you want to improve your margins. And so you and I will share this is what you need to do. And more often than not, the most frustrating thing is we get a response of, uh, that takes too much work, or I can't spend that money, or whatever. Like, no, I'm gonna just keep doing it the easy way, or the way I've always done it. And Milan and I were just uh commiserating about uh what feels like we're smashing our head against the wall in a lot of these conversations. And so that uh we wanted to just out like lay out all of the opportunities that we feel like BPOs should be adhering to, what the practices they should be adopting that they're not. And it can um this is gonna be a very free-flow discussion. We have some ideas of what we want to chat about, but let's start with employee engagement, Milan. What are some things around employee engagement that you feel like are best practices that BPOs don't adhere to?

Milan Batinich 2:36
Yeah, yeah. No, that's a great place to start. I think number one is, you know, having your leadership individuals within your BPO be transparent with the frontline employees and give employees consistent communication. I think a lot of BPOs miss the mark because they're number one, they're not as transparent as they need to be. So then employees, those frontline agents feel blindsided when all of a sudden something new comes down the pike where maybe the management team knew it was coming, but the agents didn't, so they didn't have time to prepare for changes or prepare for something new. And then I think just having that consistent communication, being able to uh, you know, communicate with each person effectively and on a regular cadence versus just doing it ad hoc when something blows up or when things are going wrong. So having that transparency and good communication with the agents um I think is uh the first part of where BPOs are missing the mark.

Amanda Quinn 3:36
Yeah. And it it feels like the and tell me if I'm wrong, but it feels like the deeper thread underneath both of those is that leadership doesn't really value the individual agent. Like that individual agent is just uh a unit that they're using to kind of sell delivery, sell hours. They're going to, you know, handle this channel, handle this um this client. And when that if that person leaves, okay, we're gonna get another person in to backfill them. And it feels like there's no, unlike a traditional company or a non-outsourcing company where people aren't the product, there human capital isn't viewed that way. You know, employees are viewed as, you know, we spend a lot of time investing it, hiring you, recruiting you, we want you to stay. We know your turnover is expensive, and it feels like BPOs don't have that mindset.

Milan Batinich 4:36
Right. No, that's true. And you hit it on the head with, you know, they're just another number. I remember to this day, uh, when I was working for a BPO when I started as an agent years ago, almost almost 20 years ago, 57328. That was me one. That was that was what who I was known as. 57328. I remember I'll remember that probably till I die.

Amanda Quinn 4:57
That sounds like prison. I know, right? That's like what I imagined from prison shows. Are you serious?

Milan Batinich 5:02
Right. Yeah, yeah, that was my employee number. That was the number I used to uh dial into the phone because it was hard phones back then. Uh every day it wasn't a soft phone environment. And so yeah, yeah, I'll remember probably remember that forever.

Amanda Quinn 5:18
That's wild. Yeah, so you basically just feel like cattle, like on the line, right? Is that what it feels like to be an agent at a lot of BPOs?

Milan Batinich 5:28
Yeah, yeah. From my experience and from uh talking with other people, yeah, absolutely. That you're just you know a cog in the wheel, like you said, a cattle. You just uh just do what you're supposed to do, make the company a bunch of money, and then that's it.

Amanda Quinn 5:45
And is there anything around career pathing or um lack thereof, or um I guess best practices is giving agents or giving your employees a clear um path towards development or path towards upskilling and moving throughout the org? Does that exist in most BPOs, would you say?

Milan Batinich 6:05
I would say in some BPOs, but not most BPOs. Uh some BPOs I've worked with or been a part of, uh they've done a really great job at career pathing and even talking about it during the interview and onboarding process of like, hey, you know, what are your goals? And based on your goals, here's what you need to accomplish in order to reach your goals, whether it's promotion or whatever it might be. Um, but majority of BPOs, no. It's just we hired you, uh, we average a hundred percent annual attrition. So odds are if we're playing the odds, you're gonna be gone in less than a year, and then we'll replace you and give your employee number to somebody else. So yeah, I think a lot of them are just, you know, we'll bring you on, get as much out of you as we can before you quit or before you get released.

Amanda Quinn 6:54
Wow, that's um so that sounds like a very demotivating environment to work in. Is there anything else on the employee engagement side that are best practices that you feel like um BPO should be adhering to?

Milan Batinich 7:07
Yeah, I think uh, you know, investing in frontline leadership. When we think of team leads, senior associates, uh supervisors, managers, well, whatever you call them within your BPO, you know, uh the supervisors they're managers, they're the ones, you know, having the most interaction, 80, 90 percent plus uh with the agents. But a lot of them are promoted into that role, but not really given leadership training. They're they're promoted into uh the role based on their um based on how well they did, based on their uh now I can't think of words. Um based on their uh how well they did and uh if they did well, they're promoted, but then they're not really given any training after the fact. Uh you know, I think about when I was first promoted from agent to supervisor, uh my only direction or instruction was, hey, you were a great agent, now you're gonna manage 20 agents under you, make them all great like you are, or you were. And it's like, okay, well, when an employee comes crying about something going on at home, I have no idea how to handle it. And when I first started off, I had no empathy whatsoever because I'm like, just get back to work. Like you're supposed to be a great agent like I was, like, like the people skills were not there. So, like helping your new supervisors or frontline leaders with leadership development and just people development, understanding how to uh how to coach employees, give them coaching on how to coach employees, give them strategies and training on how to uh treat other people versus saying, hey, you were good, now make everybody else good, and then you hope for the best. Because then there's high attrition then with people you promote.

Amanda Quinn 8:49
Yeah, that may um that's clearly a problem. Uh, and I hope BPOs listening to this take some of these best practices into account, and this propels you to want to change and want to build a different type of BPO. Kind of moving on towards more operations or delivery, client services. Some of the things that I notice that are best practices are really focusing on the real goal that you're trying to accomplish in serving your clients and in serving their customers. So rewarding good interactions, not just adherence to scripts, not just the following the orders that have been set, but making sure the end consumer is getting the right level of support and processes are designed for how we can elevate that end client experience.

Milan Batinich 9:45
Yeah, absolutely. I think instead of worrying, you know, a lot of BPOs worry so much or put so much um weights on adherence and on, you know, the different KPIs and metrics within their contact center, versus, you know, are we doing what's best for our clients' customer? So the end user. And yes, you you know, you can't have people on phone calls for multiple hours with one customer and they need to move on and learn how to move on from conversations. But at the end of the day, BPOs are being hired by their clients to service the clients' customers. BPOs really need to um grasp and really follow the whole idea of what's best for the customer versus what's best for our bottom line, or how can we squeeze as many dollars out of our clients as we can by taking more phone calls or more interactions.

Amanda Quinn 10:39
Yep. Um, and I completely agree. And I think on that point, um, I would say kind of it's more of a structural thing, but making sure that incentives are aligned with your client. And so there's opportunities for win-win, where it feels like right now, especially there's a bit of a disalignment, uh uh misalignment where brands BPOs want to have as many agents on the phones as possible. They want to have as many hours covered, they want revenue up as much as possible. But that's not what the brand wants. That's not what the br what's best for the brand. The brand wants leverage. They want to know that this their cost of support isn't just a ballooning line item that grows exponentially, you know, or with volume. They want to be able to get more scale from what as they grow. Um, but there's a bit of a misalignment there. And so thinking outside the box of how can we structure things so that there is win-win where we both are benefiting from this arrangement. And I'm not putting my clients in a position where they're eventually going to be like, this line has gotten too expensive. I need to go elsewhere or I need to rethink this process.

Milan Batinich 11:55
Yeah, and that that's a perfect point. I think about during COVID how uh some BPOs could have been more proactive with their clients, where to your point, Amanda, that line item was uh was ballooning out of control because we all know that clients BPO's clients have a specific budget in mind for annual spend on their customer experience. And you know, that I know of several BPOs where uh several were proactive, some were not, um but being proactive when all of a sudden, you know, if there's a global pandemic that's causing more people to call in, or you know, if a situation changes and all of a sudden, you know, I think of like disaster relief when there's a big hurricane and then all of a sudden call volume spike where maybe some of that isn't uh expected, like nobody expected a pandemic. Um being proactive and figuring out ways, okay, how can we how can we still serve serve all your customers without all of a sudden now you're spending three times what you had budgeted because of the call volume has tripled in size, meaning we've needed to triple our labor force, our workforce, to be able to answer all the calls. Like, how can as a BPO thinking through like how can we be proactive to serve a client um to be able to serve all those customers without it ballooning?

Amanda Quinn 13:21
Yeah, and and I understand like in that example, like initial waves of panic, right? You'll you're gonna scale flex and serve that that is serving your client in those moments. But as the pandemic dragged on and it was clear that this was not going to be a one-month, two-month thing, and it was gonna be um a lot longer of uh sustained reality, like the opportunity to be proactive, like you said, Milan, to think through, okay, we need to change the way that we're doing this, or let's um automate these group of tickets because that will help us shore up, you know, your customers are gonna get better results. Um, we're gonna get, you know, we're gonna be doing the thing we're good at doing, you're gonna get some cost savings from this. Like I think those are the opportunities for BPOs to really be better stewards of their clients and better partners to their clients.

Milan Batinich 14:16
Yeah. Oh man, you hit you took the word right out of my mouth, partner. Yeah. To be a partner versus a vendor. Yeah, absolutely.

Amanda Quinn 14:24
One of the other things, best practices that is related to this is the way that client relationships are managed and um are managed in the way that um they're framed. The relationship is framed from a client services perspective. And so I think what I've observed in working with BPOs a lot is they get very tactical. Like you said, on the these are the KPIs that we had. This is the scorecard that you, you know, you created for us. We're gonna show you all for the last year how good we've been at managing that against that scorecard. Let's look at volume by channel, let's look at how long calls were. It's like they focus on the tactics and not the results. And like clients only care about the the scorecard to the extent that they put it in place to try to manage to ensure they get the results, right? That that was their way of trying to get ensure they get the results. And so, why would you focus on just the scorecard when the client cares about the results? And so it's an opportunity, and what I think is the best practice, best practice from client services is where are you going? Like this is what's happened so far. My client, where are you trying to go? Because we want to be your partner and go with you in that direction. So, what's top of mind for you? What's on your 12-month roadmap, your 18-month roadmap? I want to make sure that what we're building, how we're thinking about your business, how we're thinking about our business aligns with you and that there's no surprises, and you're not coming to me at the next QBR saying, like, by the way, we're not gonna renew our contract, or this is going out to RFP. Um, it it just that's you know, client management 101.

Milan Batinich 16:11
Yeah, and I love that, uh and maybe you should say it again, Amanda, for the people in the back. Uh, I love the whole the scorecard wasn't created for the sake of the scorecard. The scorecard was created so that way a specific or specific outcomes could be attained. Scorecard is just there as a roadmap to be able to get to that outcome. Yeah, if you go into a QBR and you're like, hey, we we've adhered to everything on the scorecard, but the if the outcome isn't there, who cares?

Amanda Quinn 16:41
If costs are still ballooning up, you know, okay, our re I'm just thinking as a brand, okay, we're on track, we're shipping 30% more orders this quarter. If cost to serve is going up 30% as well, like who cares, you know, or if client, you know, net promoter score is going down, or uh, you know, I know there's a lot of feedback with net promoter score, but just lifetime value or anything uh you know related to this um is is going in the wrong direction.

Milan Batinich 17:09
Who cares if your average handle time was meaningful, let's go, right? Yeah, I I I think back like when I was at American Express and uh our job was that lifetime value of the customer, of the card member. And so when you look at the lifetime value, not every month did each agent hit their scorecard because maybe they had a longer conversation with card members in order to ensure that the lifetime value of that card member stayed intact, or that that card member, even better, would spend more money on their product on their card. So, yeah, so even I remember going to those QBRs, and you know, we would go in and be like, well, hey, our average handle time was was higher this month than it was the scorecard said, but here's the results. The results are much better than we were all hoping for and that they were hoping for, so so better outcome, but missed some of the stuff on the scorecard. So isn't that I agree with you? That's uh a hundred times.

Amanda Quinn 18:11
And did Amex care in that regard in that example? Did they mind at all?

Milan Batinich 18:14
Like, listen, if you can get us this type of outcome every quarter, we don't care how long you're on the phone. You know, as long as the calls are being answered and um your agents are able to uh create longer or greater value from each card member, then they're like, we don't really care. It's like, okay, yes, we would love your average handle time under five minutes per call. But if you're at seven minutes and we're making an extra $100 million a year because you're saving all these card members and showing them the value in the product, who cares an extra two minutes per call if we're making an extra $100 million a year? Which I can't remember the exact numbers, but it was something along those lines. Like, had we stayed within that five-minute time frame, then we wouldn't have made you an extra $100 million this year.

Amanda Quinn 19:00
Yeah, yeah. And I think that um we'll put a pin on it by just saying like the focus that you should be communicating to your client is always about ROI, is always about those outcomes. And it's not that's what's driving all of the conversations. The tactical of who's managing the shifts and what's happening, and okay, we're like that, all can stay at like that can be an email. Like, think of that as an email. When you have senior leadership in a room from your client's perspective, like you should be talking about the future. And it should be the only thing about the past that you should be communicating is that ROI, that outcome that you're driving, this revenue, whether it's you know, we're reducing your cost to serve, whatever it is, that that's all you talk about today, and then the rest is forward-looking.

Milan Batinich 19:54
So, Amanda, you're saying uh BPO should be should embrace being focused on outcome-based selling.

Amanda Quinn 20:00
Yes. Um, and we can transition to that. So um, yes, as we think about sales and marketing, I one of the the key things that I or you know, one of the many key things that I think BPO salespeople should be doing is when they're doing discovery, when they're in the sales process, really they should be thinking about where or trying to find out where the client is, where that prospect is wanting to take their business. What are they really struggling with? What are their the goals that the C-suite cares about? Is it EBITDA growth? Is it gross margin growth? Is it revenue? Whatever that financial goal is, and it is the onus is on the BPO to be like, how can we, and the BPO salesperson in particular, how can we help you accomplish that? The way we do it, maybe humans, maybe technology, but we're gonna make that financial goal the constant thread in this sales process. And ideally, like I said, you embed that in the contract. And so the contract is reflective of that goal. It's not we're gonna hit the yes, you'll have the SLA stuff in there, but it's only a way to protect the brand from to make them feel a little bit more secure that you will hit that goal. Um, and so I think that's that's a huge best practice that a lot of BPOs miss on the sales side.

Milan Batinich 21:27
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Amanda Quinn 21:29
Another one I'd say is, and I talk about this a lot, um, the fact that you cannot sell something that you don't know that well. You we talked about this in another episode, Milan, when you were like, I'm trying to sell RPA and I'm looking it up on YouTube right before a call, right? You can't sell something you don't understand. And you can't sell into a market that you don't understand. Right. If you don't understand the buying committee, if you don't understand their Jargon, if you don't understand industry trends, it's really challenging. And so that's why most, if you look at a software organization, right, they're going to break up their sales team and their marketing team into pods that are vertical focused or use case focused. And they're going to have a product marketing person that is delivering them all of that content of the pitch of how our software works for that given market, for that given use case. And every their whole go-to-market engine is very dialed in on this is where we play. We're going to win until we kind of are the market leader in this area. And then we move on to the next. And then we move on to the next. That is like how every business that has venture capital has to grow. And BPOs are like these amoeba like sales organizations that are just like, I will go over here, or like I think there's an opportunity in this direction. Let me spread over into healthcare. Or like my brother knows somebody who works in insurance. We're gonna be trying to sell into insurance now.

Milan Batinich 23:14
And it's like right.

Amanda Quinn 23:16
As a result, you get you get no competencies, you're starting recreating the wheel every single time.

Milan Batinich 23:21
Yeah, and when you're when you're focused on one specific market or one specific type of client base, you're building building that. You're building your foundation, you're building your base. So you had said, you know, focus on one, master that before moving on to the next one. That's building that whole foundation. And another point you brought up, Amanda, which is so true, is every industry that a BPO tries to sell into, the decision making is going to be completely different, or can be completely different. The whole process could be different. I mean, like like you were saying, the different industries. Like if I'm trying to sell today to a utility company in the Midwest, and then tomorrow I'm trying to sell to a technology company on the East Coast, and then uh on Monday, you know, I'm trying to sell to a healthcare organization in the Bay Area. It's like uh the whole trying to sell to a technology company, to say a retail chain, to a uh healthcare company. The whole approach needs to be different. The whole and I'm not saying that the BPOs should learn, okay, let's learn a thousand different approaches for a thousand different industries. I'm agreeing with what you're saying is let's focus on one industry, learn it as much as we can, uh mold our marketing, mold our sales processes and everything around that one industry, and then be you become the experts in that industry. Because then and I'm sure you'll talk about inbound leads and marketing, but then the inbound leads start flowing because you're known as the go-to provider for that specific industry. I think we talked we might have talked about it um outside of a podcast or on a podcast, but you know, there's a there's a BPO out of Africa that they will only work with dental practices. Only dental. That's the only thing they do. And it's in their name. But uh, that's all they work with, is they found their niche and they found how to sell into that industry and you know, appointment scheduling and all of that, and sales. And that's all they do. And I talked to the CEO and I'm like, well, what happens, you know, if somebody reaches out to you and they're like, I'm interested in working with you, but I'm not in dental. He said, if I know somebody in that industry, I'll refer them to another BPO, or I'll just refuse even talking to them to look even entertaining looking at the business because it's not in our wheelhouse. And he's super successful, and now he's the go-to uh, you know, for that industry.

Amanda Quinn 25:44
And my guess, and uh or I'll ask you, why does he not want to take that business? Why would he not want to take an inbound from a different industry?

Milan Batinich 25:53
Yeah, great question. So what he told me was that the reason he doesn't want to even entertain that is because it's a distraction for not only him, but it's a distraction for a sales team, it's a distraction for his ops and his delivery team, his uh, you know, when we think of implementations and uh uh client services. He's like it would be a distraction across the board for everybody. And he said it was a sizable deal, but it would be such a huge distraction, it would take away from their expertise and it would take away from their um focus and it would take away from their amount of time they're spending with their current clients to try to chase after or try to learn this whole new line of business where he'd rather just continue on in the same line of business.

Amanda Quinn 26:36
So I mean the the He knows it'd be less efficient, like his operations would become less efficient to try to cater to this one sizable deal.

Milan Batinich 26:46
Right.

Amanda Quinn 26:46
And I think that's the key, right? It's if you can if you follow the flow where let's just say, and and it doesn't have to be one, I think that's a a misnomer because it could be that you're depending on your size, depending on your um sophistication, your client roster, you have multiple areas of pockets of clients that um you serve really well. And so let's just say we're looking at one of those, and if your sales team figures out, okay, this is the message that's working, this is how we talk about our services, this is how we differentiate from our competitors in this space. Um, now marketing can kind of be you actually, I'm not gonna go to marketing yet. Now, ops, the more you do that kind of work, the better your ops team gets at serving those types of clients. The more they're trusted by your clients, the more you are trusted by your clients. And your clients are sharing, oh, by the way, it would be really great if you guys could also add this capability or help me with this thing. And that may be directly related, but it may be slightly different than what you're doing today. And you would have never known that that was a need from this market. And maybe you find out that, oh, like we're doing support for e-commerce brands, but they're really actually also needing help with um product pages, adding new products onto their product pages. Their internal person left and they want, you know, help with like kind of the um getting things on the site. Okay, now that's a new offering. Now you your sales team goes to market. Like, do other people need this? And now you're getting more and more embedded in that vertical, in that use case. And so you become even more of it's more obvious to prospects that you know your stuff versus every other BPO that's just dabbling in the area and only can think in the customer support mindset.

Milan Batinich 28:43
Yeah, and then your salespeople can be proactive in hey, we were able to help this reach, say they're in retail, we were able to help this retailer or another one of our clients build out something that we think would be beneficial for you. So then they become proactive in their sales approach just by noticing potential needs that even the clients may not be aware that, hey, there's a better way. Just like now, as BPOs listen or watch this podcast, they may be thinking, wow, I didn't realize some of these things are best practices, or that there's a better way to do certain things that we have been doing. Uh so yeah, yeah, definitely I agree.

Amanda Quinn 29:17
And actually, that's a great point because that's one thing I've noticed about working with BPOs, Milan, is that the mindset, I think, of a lot of BPO leaders and is to have everybody in their role that is responsible for, you know, heads down, this is what you do. You are an operator, this is what you're responsible for. And I think it's really important that BPOs start giving, ceding some power to those below them. And I think there's a lot of, there's a bit of a command-control mindset with CEOs of BPOs where I'm the decision maker and everyone else follows my orders. But what that leads to is that everyone's adhering to scripts. Everyone's at, you know, that everyone is just like drones following orders. And what this requires to be able to do this, you need to give your support, your um client services leaders some latitude to be asking questions, to be able to say, Oh, you need that? Like, let me go talk to our head of ops and see if we can help you there. And there's a process to do that, or there's a there's an acceptance that that's something you're in your reward, maybe if that's how your team used to operate. But you're allowing it, incentivizing it for people to be picking their heads up from their day-to-day execution work and thinking, how can we better serve our clients? How can we better serve their customers? And it's not just the process that has been drilled into me, but I'm I'm thinking about more creative solutions here.

Milan Batinich 30:57
Yeah, you're thinking strategically on how can I best help this customer? Uh what in what other ways can I help this customer?

Amanda Quinn 31:04
Yep. And just to put a pin on it, um, the one of the benefits and one of the things that's completely missed, uh, a best practice that is, I think, completely missed in the BPO world, is this sales to operations to marketing if you have it, um, like feedback loop where sales is uh, or I should say, where operations should be the ones in the client services are gathering this feedback, hearing from your customers about what they're worried about, what they're struggling with. They then can feed that to sales to say, hey, bring this up in your conversations because maybe others are also struggling with it. And this can show prospects that we know our stuff. We're not asking generic discovery questions. We're asking, oh, are you also struggling with the constant need to update uh product product listing pages? Um, because we a lot of our retailers are struggling with that too, you know, or marketing can then go out and and be putting out content about like, here are the the, I don't know, I'm gonna give a bad example probably, but like the um top ways that retailers are wasting their time when it comes, you know, tasks that should that are taking up way too much time for an in-house marketing team and customer experience team. And here's, you know, and they list those out, and that can kind of like be a lead magnet to get retail clients to come into the funnel based on that one little knowledge, like insight that you got from your clients. And so making sure these teams are working together and they're not completely siloed is a really um is a best practice that I would encourage any business to adhere to.

Milan Batinich 32:49
No, I agree. And uh something that just popped in my head as you were explaining that, Amanda, is for BPOs that are listening to this and other businesses, it doesn't have to be just BPOs, when sales is in those final stages of meeting with a prospect to close a deal, where I've found the most success is bringing an ops leader into those meetings. So I I would think when I was at one company, um, we were most successful when they came down to okay, this is like final presentation time. I would bring in like head of training and learning development, head of operations, um, and myself into that presentation versus I know a lot of BPOs just have the salesperson in there. But by having the ops person, the person that's gonna be managing your account from now, from the time it's signed through implementation to the next three years or however long the contract is, and hopefully beyond, having that person in there, having the trainers in there or the learning developments, client services more is better than less, is what I've learned, versus just having the salesperson in there. Because then the the client or the prospect sees like, wow, I'm being valued. I can ask questions directly to the ops leader that's gonna be managing my accounts and be handling the agents. And uh, so there's just another best practice that just pops in my head that I'm like, oh, also include those people into those meetings.

Amanda Quinn 34:11
Yeah, it's kind of like an ops manager can speak the language of the prospect uh a little bit better. And I think it's like the equivalent of in a technology sale when you when you get the sales engineer who's at who you can rapid fire like the hard technical questions to and they can give it back to you. That benefit, I think, is the benefit is akin to what you're saying with the ops manager being in the room.

Milan Batinich 34:33
100%. Yeah, absolutely.

Amanda Quinn 34:35
And while we're on sales, the the one other best practice I would say is having a sales process and not just expecting a sales process where you're in. I I'll roughly define this. I'm not a sales person, so I'm sure there's sales sales people out there who will be like, that's not a good definition, but a full logical flow that you expect prospects to go through. You know, this first meeting, this is what we're gonna ask. These are gonna be uh these are the gates. I won't move on to the next stage until XYZ is met. Next stage is this. This is what happens to you.

Milan Batinich 35:10
Qualifying, qualifying the prospect. There's so many times that salespeople will just hope that the clients, the prospects will be the type of client they want to bring on, but then they're in the third or fourth meeting and they're still not qualified as okay, is this the type of prospect that operations can handle or that the BPO even wants to work with? So I agree. Yeah, following a process and adhering to the process and making sure that the process is being followed so that things don't get jumbled. And especially if you have multiple salespeople, if you're a larger organization with multiple salespeople, you don't want, you know, if me and Amanda are salespeople at a BPO, you don't want Milan handling uh prospect meetings one way, Amanda doing it a totally different way.

Amanda Quinn 35:54
And but it feels like that's very common. It is where it's just you entrust the salespeople to just manage it their their way. You hope the numbers they're putting in the CRM are accurate.

Milan Batinich 36:04
Yeah, I think the C-suite of many BPOs uh count on the salespeople handling it their way because the salespeople are just selling to people they have a relationship with. So it's like, well, Amanda, you have a relationship with that prospect, so do whatever you need to do. Milan, you have a relationship with that prospect, do whatever you need to do. Versus having a process in place because they're relying so heavily on what's your relationship? How big's your network? How many LinkedIn connections do you have?

Amanda Quinn 36:29
Yeah, yeah. And what that effectively does is if your sales process is, and I'm putting quotes for those that are listening to this, uh, is I hire folks with big relationships, big net relationship networks, and I expect them to be able to tap those relationships to deliver uh opportunities to our BPO when those relationships don't pan out or when the well runs dry, then it's like, oh, okay, fire that salesperson onto the next salesperson, and you just see this, you know, like every 18 months of uh revolving door of salespeople. I mean, you and I have talked about this ad nauseum offline, Milan, about how that's just such standard practice. And what's happening is you're not moving forward as a firm. You're not because every because there's no like engine, if you think about your your sales engine, your go-to-market engine, the onus should be on the BPO to create that engine. And that's really the C the C-suite should be creating that engine. This is our process. These are the documents that we created. This is the collateral. We'll obviously update those things as need be, but we're not having one salesperson pitching the business this way, another one pitching it that way. Um, and then when they leave, we're starting all over again, and a new person's coming in and talking about us in a completely different way. No, you want to like you're not moving forward in that world. Like you're not getting better because sales should be your pulse on the market, your pulse on what's what buyers are looking for, what's resonating, what's not resonating. And as you get that feedback, you should be incorporating it, editing it, like making changes to your business to be moving in the direction that your buyers want you to be moving in. And if you're not doing that, you're being left behind. And so this kind of viewing sales as a task that can be just done and is just owned by a person and it's their, you know, um neck on the line, and it's not a company-wide problem that we need to be all working on together is a real missed opportunity.

Milan Batinich 38:50
Right. Absolutely.

Amanda Quinn 38:52
And I'd say lastly, around sales, the one of the things that BPOs I think often struggle with, and the reason I think they get pigeonholed into just being bodies, like lay I provide labor, um, is that from the very get-go, that's all your salespeople are talking about. And so the best practice I'd say is when when we're talking about ROI that you're delivering to your clients, that ROI, those key metrics that you're truly delivering, the outcomes that you're delivering, that should be what you're leading your conversations with from the sales side, where you're talking about we we help financial services firms cut fraud by 20% by doing X, Y, Z.

Milan Batinich 39:43
Yeah, what's the outcome?

Amanda Quinn 39:44
Yeah, and it's not we provide customer support and sales and whatever for financial services companies. Back off it, you know, that's because that's the message today. And that is super undifferentiated and is going to lead your salespeople to be constantly struggling to get into convos.

Milan Batinich 40:02
Right. Yeah, it's great that you do that, but yeah, what's the result? How how effective is providing customer support or sales or whatever it is?

Amanda Quinn 40:11
Okay. Anything else on sales before we move on to our last topic?

Milan Batinich 40:14
I don't think so.

Amanda Quinn 40:15
We beat the horse dead?

Milan Batinich 40:17
Yeah, I'm sure we're missing something, but I'm sure we are too.

Amanda Quinn 40:21
Um okay, let's move on to the last thing. And we save this for last because I feel like there's going to be a collective eye roll from this audience if you're a BPO, um, which is the importance of planning for the future. Because I don't know why strategy is like a four-letter word in for a lot of BPO leaders. It feels like something that is like a waste of time. Every time I talk to someone about strategy, they're like, uh, uh, like, wait, like they just see dollars going flying out the window for no reason.

Milan Batinich 40:55
Yeah, and this isn't a best practice, Amanda, but I wonder if um they act that way or respond that way to strategy because of everything else we've talked about, because they're not adhering to all those other best practices that sales and agents are revolving doors, and it's like, well, to think long term in three years, I don't know if any of my salespeople will be here, or I don't know, I don't know if we're gonna be focused on a niche or just focused on relationship selling or whatever it is. So I I don't know. I've just a thought I had maybe the strategy is a four-letter word because it's like, well, how can I have a five-year plan or a 10-year plan when it might be brand new players every couple years?

Amanda Quinn 41:33
Right. Yeah. Or I think they have a five-year plan, and it's generally around how big I want to get it so I can sell it mostly, is what I hear. But there's no ladder to get from where I am today to to that number in the future. How like the how has not been figured out.

Milan Batinich 41:52
In the next five years, I want to go from 500 agents to 2,000 agents. I have no idea how we're gonna do it, but that's the goal. So let's get there. Nobody knows what they're gonna do to get there or how to get there, but yeah, you're right. There's no ladder in between.

Amanda Quinn 42:07
I'm gonna do more of the same, and I'm gonna eventually hope that I get there.

Milan Batinich 42:10
Right.

Amanda Quinn 42:10
And meanwhile, if you follow these best practices that we've outlined, you will actually get there. Yes, you 100% will get there. If you do this, yes. I can I can guarantee it. If you do these things, you will get there.

Milan Batinich 42:22
You have an Amanda guarantee today, folks.

Amanda Quinn 42:26
I want to see, I want to hear. Yeah, if you meet with me and you tell me where you are today and what you're doing, and then we talk, you say how you're gonna follow our advice and where you want to get to. I will check in with you periodically about how you're going on those doing on those things. And if you're doing it, I guarantee you'll hit it. So hold me to it, come back to me. I prom that's an open guarantee.

Milan Batinich 42:48
Five years from the airing of this podcast. Let's let's do it.

Amanda Quinn 42:52
And I don't know if it's from there's not somebody in the company who views who views being forward-looking as their responsibility, or if it's just the CEO's responsibility and he doesn't, or he or she doesn't want to um give that responsibility to their delegates, because it it should be the onus should be on multiple people in the company to see this is the direction where we need to be headed. And I'm gonna be empowered to make changes to head in that direction. Because if you're if you're the leader, the CEO, the founder, and every single decision has to go through you, it's no wonder that you're not being forward-thinking. You're so bogged down in the day-to-day. Like you need to be able to pick your head up, you need to be able to trust that your head of sales is building a sales process, is setting the ground for how to tell your story, where you're marketing, where or not marketing, but where you're fishing and has a plan to grow. Whether they are good at that, like that's is your role as the CEO to decide if they're following it. But You need to empower your chiefs to do their thing.

Milan Batinich 44:03
Yeah, and CEO clearly communicate that expectation to each of those individuals. Yeah, head of sales may think, well, it's the CEO will give me or tell me what to do or tell me what the sales plan is. When the CEO may be thinking, oh, head of sales is creating a sales plan. Then when they meet, there's no sales plan. Nobody's created it. So communicating that to your head of sales or communicating that to your head of operations. Like, hey, I want you to take ownership of this and give that, give them that empowerment, but communicate it very clearly with them.

Amanda Quinn 44:35
Great point. Great point. I've heard from many companies about the like inherent finger pointing of it's their responsibility. No, it's their responsibility. And if you don't just establish who owns what, who's responsible for what, you guys are just going to continue to swirl and not make any forward progress.

Milan Batinich 44:54
Definitely.

Amanda Quinn 44:55
Okay, the other point I want to make on strategy and planning is having a longer term viewpoint on things. Because what I've found is that many BPOs and BPO leaders are looking for ROI immediately when they want to uh as they evaluate investing in various things, tools, partnerships, changes to the business, they want immediate results. And nothing happens immediately, right? Like there is a time horizon for payback. That's just how reality works. And what I find is that they because they can't, they won't, they because they can't prove that this will pay them back in three months' time or uh two months' time, they're they just say, okay, we're not gonna do it. And as a result, they don't invest in their business. And so they keep doing that, like, you know, we want to be here in five years and we're down here now, but by not investing, your your growth is gonna just continue to slowly eke along. You're not gonna get those like stepladder function, functional leaps in your business. Um, and so what I would say is a best practice is to be really intentional with your investments and have patience with it. And I know you know cash is limited, and so you have to be very thoughtful about where you you are making those investments, but know that there won't be ROI right away, most likely, and be okay with that and set that expectation aside, but do it because you have conviction this is the right decision for your business.

Milan Batinich 46:35
Yeah, that makes sense. And I think everybody wants the ROI immediately, but really understanding and being able to forecast when the ROI will be. So that way you're not, you know, expecting something that isn't actually gonna take place. So being realistic around your expectations and your forecasting of that ROI.

Amanda Quinn 46:56
Yep, exactly. Okay, well, I think we covered a lot today, Milan. Anything else to add?

Milan Batinich 47:02
I'm sure there's another 10 hours worth, but we should probably wrap things up.

Amanda Quinn 47:07
All right, perfect. Well, thank you for listening to us today. We appreciate it as always. If you've heard this list and this rings true and there are things on this list that you want help with and you want guidance on just how to start and how to start implementing these best practices in your business, please reach out. Milan and I are here to help. We want to help. We're we're looking to partner with BPOs that are forward thinking, that are not okay with the way that the industry operates in general and want to change things up. So please let us know how we can assist you in growing your business. Have a great day.