Why Your QBRs Are Killing Your Client Relationships

Milan Batinich 0:00
The BPO really doesn't have anything new to share, any strategies or anything they're seeing in the market.

Amanda Quinn 0:05
That is a alarm bell should be going off if you don't have that. You can't confidently put together what the next six months look like for your business. That's a really good sign to engage outside help.

Milan Batinich 0:16
The BPOs that are going to be successful that do that, say that, and follow through and do that by reducing interaction save by 20%. They recognize that the long-term relationship at 80% value is a whole lot better than losing the relationship altogether.

Amanda Quinn 0:29
Welcome to the Build a Better BPO podcast. I'm Amanda Quinn, and with me I have Milan Batinich. And today we are talking about QBRs. Why your business reviews are killing your partnerships. Milan, you've been a salesperson at many BPOs. Uh tell me about QBRs. Yeah. Tell me about tell me about QBRs and what they typically look like.

Milan Batinich 0:54
Yeah, uh, so great way to kick off this episode. So from my perspective, at the many BPOs I've been a part of and the many QBRs that I've facilitated and sat in, from my perspective, usually QBRs are really just a setup. Yes, to go over metrics and to go over numbers, but typically that's happening on a weekly basis with operations. So ultimately, QBRs have always historically been an opportunity to upsell and cross-sell the client. So yeah, we're going to go through the metrics. The, you know, it's if you're meeting every quarter, it's like, okay, here's the metrics for the last rolling 13 weeks, even though you know operations goes through this with you every week and every month. Here's a look at the previous three months. And then it's really just trying to sell them on new services, more services, increased services, whatever it might be. It's a it's a sales pitch, an ongoing sales pitch.

Amanda Quinn 1:47
That tracks. That tracks with what I've seen. Um that doesn't surprise me at all that that's how you would frame it as a salesperson, because I've I definitely have observed that they are it's almost like death by KPIs, where your their BPOs are giving away in-depth, overly deep, detailed reviews of this is your interactions by channel and what it's been looked like for the past year, even. This is how much volume went through us versus your internal team and what our attendance was over the last nine weeks. And obviously, you'll see this day was low. That's because there were three dentist appointments. It's like, oh my God, is this how we're really spending time in front of an executive? Is this really the perception we want our company to be giving off in these really important conversations?

Milan Batinich 2:39
It's absolutely ridiculous. And to your point, Amanda, you know, you're meeting with the client executive, and the executive doesn't really care that you're sitting there bragging about the minimums. Really, that's what KPIs are. In order to uh keep the contract in place, you have to hit these minimum KPIs. So then when you go into a QBR and you're bragging about, hey, we've met our minimums, now give us more business. It's like, so you're bragging for doing your job. You're bragging about doing what you were hired to do. It's like, well, you know, how how is this going to improve my business?

Amanda Quinn 3:15
Exactly. Exactly. And I think right now, the reason I wanted to talk about this today and on this episode is I think BPOs, this is going to be the year where if you are not painting a compelling vision to your clients, you're going to face churn. They are brands right now are under so much pressure to be delivering AI to their executives, to be showing cost savings or efficiency improvements from those investments. They're getting hit up nonstop by your competitors. Like you need to have a compelling reason to have them work with you. And just because you've been in a relationship for a long time, that's not compelling enough. And I think the almost like the music's going to stop this year, and there's going to be a bit of a wake-up call. And this meeting in particular serves as a really important touchstone for you to showcase to your, to the executives at your client side where you're going, what you're about, why they should stay with you, why you're delivering value to them. Um, and I think the fact that most BPOs are treating it like a sales conversation or just a tactical operational review is really reinforcing that we're a vendor messaging.

Amanda Quinn 4:35
And we want to get out of that. We don't want to be a vendor. And so this episode is meant to show you what you should be doing.

Milan Batinich 4:41
Yeah, definitely. And and, you know, there's as a BPO, if you're watching this and you're a BPO, uh representative of a BPO, you know, you may be thinking, well, my clients aren't asking for it to be done a different way. But just because, you know, and I'm not trying to read all of every BPO's client's minds, but just because the client isn't asking for it doesn't mean that they don't want the QBR to be going differently, or they don't want you to be proactive and helping them when it comes to AI and uh and everything else that we'll talk about here today.

Amanda Quinn 5:13
I'm so glad you interrupted with that point or like interjected that point because that is a great point. Like you should not be waiting for your clients to ask you for anything. If you are waiting for them to give you direction, that is the definition of vendor, that is definition of order taker, right? That is you are replaceable if that is how you're operating. Mindset shift needs to happen. From today forward, you need to take charge, you need to set the direction, you need to be leading these conversations and casting a really strong vision of where you think the market is going, how you're gonna change to to meet that market, and what you are gonna be doing differently tomorrow than you are today. And if you're not doing that, just um honestly, I feel like you should sell because you're that is gonna be the bare minimum table stakes to be able to survive in 2027 and beyond. Like you need to, you cannot just be flat footed anymore. You need to be leaning forward and driving strategic conversations.

Milan Batinich 6:21
Yes, 100%. Love it. So true.

Amanda Quinn 6:24
And so, really, the goal of these conversations, and let's, you know, they are not a sales conversation. I want to like, I'm gonna hammer that in multiple times on this call, probably on this on this podcast episode. They are not a sales conversation. You should have no sales conversation, no aspect of it should come into these quarterly business reviews or annual business reviews. What you want to be showing is what executive value did you deliver? And not operational metrics, but think think if they needed to give a readout of why they should work with you and what you've delivered, cost savings, revenue increases, lifetime value increases to your clients, those are the types of things like boardroom level metrics. How have you accomplished those? What have you done? Like that's one key pack aspect. Another is like your strategic alignment of where is their business going, where are what are their priorities? Where are you going? And how does your direction align with their priorities? And how can you help make their priorities more likely to come into fruition through what you're doing? So um, that makes sense.

Milan Batinich 7:39
Yeah, 100%. Absolutely. If you're you don't want to be viewed as a vendor any longer and more as a strategic partner, then you have to come to the table and come to these QBRs and annual reviews as a strategic partner with strategic insights and with uh, you know, to be aligned with your client's business versus like we talked about at the beginning. Here's KPIs, now give us more business. That's absolutely the opposite of what you should be approaching these QBRs.

Amanda Quinn 8:05
Yep. Yep, exactly. And one thing I want to talk about too is like you don't need to have all of the answers of where you're going. Um, and because this isn't a sales conversation, you you want to be able to say, like, this is the direction we want to be heading in. These are the things we're thinking about as we head in that that direction. Does that align with what you're looking for? Does that align with where you guys want to go? And give them space to re respond if it doesn't. But you want to be in doing that, you're planting the seeds for future sales. Like that's what I wanted to think of it as like right now, these conversations are not like a harvest. This is not a harvest time. This isn't a time to like get sales. This is it's planting. This is a relationship. You're you're you're planting the seeds for future value. And so kind of think of that mindset shift as we re-orient, reorient around what QBR should look like.

Milan Batinich 8:59
Yeah, absolutely. And be be prepared to provide those strategic insights. Cause a lot of times, you know, towards the end of my time working in the BPO space, Amanda, um, you know, there would be individuals that are like, listen, we're in the retail space, or we're saying a consumer package good, we're a CPG brand, and we only know what we know. We only do what we do. Like, Milan, you work with others in our industry. Like, what do you see that's working for others that we don't know because we're so focused on our own business 24-7? What are some strategic initiatives or insights that your BPO has that where you can provide uh a help or an outsider's perspective to your brand? That's just going to add even more value. And uh again, you're not trying to sell more services or more things, more more of anything to your client, but you're providing strategic insights that they may not be aware of.

Amanda Quinn 9:55
Absolutely. You should be the bringer of best practices, right? You get the advantage of looking across multiple companies in a given industry or given function, right? You know what works, what doesn't, what processes should be in place, what others, like you can be bringing those insights and you should be bringing those insights to bear to kind of reinforce your position as a strategic partner for them. And actually, as we think about what the structure of, and I want to go into what the structure of a QBR should look like. I actually think this point is a great point, and that's actually where I would recommend starting. So the first section, like I think QBR should have three sections. The first is kind of like executive impact, the second is your strategic roadmaps, and the third are your long-term recommendations to your clients. So when you think about executive impact, that first section, I love the idea of opening that conversation up with benchmarking, where they are against their peers from what you see across other CPG brands. Like, here's where you're doing well, here's what you could be making changes of. This is what we um what we see, this works better than that. And you're kind of falling in here. Like that's such a great way to open up a conversation with their executives at their side.

Milan Batinich 11:13
Yeah, absolutely. And and sharing, if there's something in the industry that's starting to happen that is innovative, because uh your client, every client wants to be at the forefront of any new innovation or anything new that's happening. They want to be uh ahead of the curve and early adopter. So being able to provide provide those insights right from the beginning, yeah, to your point, Amanda shows that you're truly a partner with your clients.

Amanda Quinn 11:36
Yes, yes. I would say maybe the market insights could go in the road mapping section in the second section, but absolutely like you want to be a source of best practices and a pulse on the market. And so the more that you can be providing that to your clients, the more that they're gonna stop perceiving you as a vendor and stop feeling like they need to haggle you on price at every moment of contract renegotiation. So, in that executive alignment uh section, in addition to kind of start, you start with benchmarking, and the next thing to cover is the kind of the strategic value that you've delivered for them. Like I was saying before, what is what's the revenue that you've driven for them? You know, through through working support, um, we have uh we have created $100,000 of revenue um out of turn the cost center into a profit center. And actually we're driving net positive EBITDA for your business through the way that we're approaching customer support, not by being pushy because CSAT is still remained very high, and customers are are are feeling not feeling like they're getting sold to all the time, but we are finding ways and opportunities to opportunistically recommend the next best product or cross-sell or upsell. And as a result, here's what it's how it's translated to impact to your business. So leaving with those kind of um really important revenue, cost savings, high-level financial metrics is what you want to focus on. Everything operational, all the stuff that is like the meat of today's QBR, appendix. Appendix slides, you can send it afterwards or send it beforehand with the deck, but so you have it there to reference, but it is not talked about.

Milan Batinich 13:28
Yeah, because going into the QBR, your client already knows all of that operational metric stuff. So really you're just filling time with fluff, not actual strategic meat.

Amanda Quinn 13:40
Exactly. And you're the point person at your client knows, right? But their boss might not know, but they don't need to know. It's not relevant to them.

Milan Batinich 13:50
100%.

Amanda Quinn 13:51
Right? You want to give them the stuff that's gonna be relevant to them so that they can show up to their next executive meeting and being like, one of our one of our BPO partners or our BPO partner brought uh brought to our attention that we're losing that this one item that we sell is actually the cause of 30% of our returns. And actually, right, in if we remove that SKU from our from our catalog, we our savings would be blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like that's meaningful. That's what you want to be leading the starting the conversation off with.

Milan Batinich 14:25
Yeah, absolutely.

Amanda Quinn 14:27
Okay, the second section is this strategy and roadmap. And so in this section, the goal is really to understand where they want to go as a business, what they're focused on, like what are their big priorities in the next 12 to 24 months. And then you want to paint the vision for where you're going and see how those two line up. And so this, you want this, these questions to be um, you want to get a sense of their business and the strategic priorities may have nothing to do with the work that you do for them. If they're willing to tell you what those strategic priorities are and they have nothing to do with your business, that's actually a great sign. It shows that they trust you and that there's um solid foundation here. If they're unwilling to give you their strategic priorities and all the limit, all the information they'll limit you to is kind of around the work that you do, around the function that you're performing, that's also a sign, right? So this is a good bellwether, but what we want to know here, let's just um come with an example. So imagine your customer is Revlon, the makeup company. And Revlon says, um, our strategic priority is um revenue. Like we are focused on growth. And what that looks like for us is we're coming up with new um new product categories and new markets that we're gonna enter in to test out to see if there's opportunities to kind of scale our portfolio. And one of the things that we're considering this year, um, or one of the things we're gonna launch is makeup for men and just being an LGBTQ plus you know, ally. That's one of our initiatives. Another is we're we're gonna enter into fragrance and test that. And we're hope, uh third is we're gonna enter into Asia. We're not in Asia yet. So those are kind of the key things that are as a business, we're focused on. And like I said, revenue is our uh is really what um the big KPI that we're really monitoring. So if if a brand told you that, Milan, how would you feel as a BPO kind of responding to that? Would you feel like you have a better sense? Well, I'll pause. I won't lead your Yeah.

Milan Batinich 16:44
Come on, give me some hints, Amanda. No, I'm kidding. I mean, I would take that as a huge positive, a huge win because they're sharing things outside of the scope of the work that my BPO is doing for them. And so giving that type of insights and understanding into the big picture of the vision of their company, say over the next 12 to 24 months, gives the BPO an opportunity to provide insights and provide information on, you know, based on the goals that Revlon in this case has, based on those goals, can give you know strategic insights and advice, uh tactical advice that Revlon then can move forward with that has nothing to do with hey, you outsource to us, you know, it's completely separate. But the way I would take that is while they really trust us, even outside of the work that we're doing for them. They see us as a valued and trusted partner of theirs versus answer our calls, make sure you follow these KPIs, and that's all you're doing for us.

Amanda Quinn 17:44
Absolutely, absolutely. And what I want to reinforce is when they give you that vision and they tell you these are our priorities, you do not sell, you do not leap at that opportunity to be like, oh, well, we can help do support for these new brands, and like we have a partner in Asia that can help do customer support.

Milan Batinich 18:06
Do not you hear that info, put it in the back of your mind, put it in your pocket, whatever, table it, table it for the I laugh because I've been in QBRs, Amanda, more on the account management side, not the sales side. Where yeah, I'm thinking of one salesperson in the industry in particular that would hear something like that and would just jump at, here's how we can support you in Asia. Here's how we can best support you in your makeup line to men. And yeah, oh my goodness, you hit you hit it on the head. Yeah, that is not the time to sell. They're not just saying, hey, I'm gonna give you this information in hopes that you try to sell like crazy to me right now. That is not why they're sharing that information.

Amanda Quinn 18:47
Right, right. Yeah. Uh yes. And so we don't want to be those kind of sleazy sales people approach, right? We don't want no one wants to to feel like every time I'm vulnerable, somebody's hitting on you or you know, being sold through.

Milan Batinich 19:02
Every QBR, they're gonna try to sell me a used car. That's what it feels like.

Amanda Quinn 19:06
Kind of, right? So we're gonna we're gonna shake that off. We're gonna shake that idea off. This is the new path forward. Okay. So then they've told you where they want to go. You're appreciative, you ask questions, you got your barometer of the health of the relationship.

Amanda Quinn 19:20
Now this is your turn to show where you're going. And this, you wanna start by painting a high-level vision for what you want to be. And this, again, this is the market is changing right now. And so this is the time to have this conversation where you can say, like, you need to start by acknowledging where you are today. Like, we know to date, we've really we said that we would deliver insights to you, but we've really been pretty poor at it. We've really just been doing the work that you asked us to do, and we've been pretty reactionary and not really proactive. Um, and we've been really late to embrace technology. We we acknowledge that. But here's where we want to go. Our vision is that we want to be a true partner for you. We want to develop the type of partnership where when you win, we win. When we win, you win. And what that looks like is gonna be a mix of us being forward thinking about how we're leaning into technology, where we're gonna uh leverage technology and how when. We don't want to rush into technology that is untested or doesn't have meet your stringent security requirements. And so we're gonna be very judicious about where we go and what that looks like, but that's at a high level, the type of organization that we're building. We don't want to be reactionary, we want to be proactive and forward-thinking and almost like individual consultants is kind of how we're visioning. And this, again, this is just made up. This is an example of what this could look like, but think aspirational. Like, where what do you want your BPO to look like in 2030? What is that what does that look like? Um, and paint that reality for them. And then as it, and then like after you've done that, like this is the arc that we want to go in. Then this is the hard part. You need to paint what does that tactically look like over the next couple of quarters? And it can get less clear as you get further out, but you want to put together an actual roadmap. You want to say, right, as a result, that's why this quarter we're making these changes. We're focused on this. We're gonna be leveraging AI to really improve our operations. You're not gonna see this necessarily because it's not client facing, but we're changing how we're recruiting. We're leveraging technology in our recruiting processes, we're leveraging technology in the way that we're doing workforce management and incentivizing and motivating our employees. What your the benefit. That you're going to get from us doing these are faster uh time to hire when you tell us that you need to scale or ramp or blah, blah, blah. And here, you know, list out all the benefits that they're going to get from you making those changes. And then next quarter, the thing that we're going to be tackling is QA. We know, you know, we want, we're going to implement QA, an automated QA tool into our services. Whether, you know, we don't think you need to be paying a human to do this work or we should be paying a human to do this work. There's technology out there, and we're really excited about the insights that not only agent insights that we're going to be able to get from that technology, but the insights about your business that that technology will unlock and enable us to better help you and support you in making smarter strategic decisions. And as your, and then this is where it starts factoring back. As you're when you go to launch your revenue makeup for men, getting an early pulse on how customers are receiving it or what's coming through the support queues is probably going to be really great feedback for you. And so that's one way I can see that this tool really benefiting you on your strategic initiative, tying them together so that they're like, good, you're, you're, you're thinking about what we are thinking about. I can talk to my executives about why I now feel like you get me, you get what we're doing, we're aligned. It's like psychological reinforcement of our partnership.

Milan Batinich 23:34
Yeah, 100%.

Amanda Quinn 23:35
I got I got you bought in. You're into it, Milan. You want to buy my BPO services doing that.

Milan Batinich 23:40
I am ready. I am ready. So, Amanda, who from a the BPO's perspective, because I know many BPOs just send the salesperson. You sell the accounts, you go handle the QBR. From this perspective, do you do BPO still send the salesperson in? Who's attending the B or the QBR from the BPO? Who are those people that should be there?

Amanda Quinn 24:01
That's a great question. Um, no, the you can have a salesperson, I would say your salesperson should be quiet.

Amanda Quinn 24:08
They should be a listener. They should they can not totally they can be writing in their notebook all the opportunities that they're hearing and identifying and all the things that the client is expressing. Oh, that sounds interesting. I could see us needing something like that. Write it down. But don't they need to be an active part of this conversation? No, I think it should be led by the account manager, the person that's the interface with the client on the regular basis. If the executive, you know, if you have CEO that wants to come in and be part of the conversation or lead the conversation, they can do that. But I think this is a really great way to showcase your either your ops manager or your account manager, whoever's kind of your your point person who's doing the solving of things to be able to say, and we did this thing for you, we saw this problem, and here's how we fix it, where they're saying, they're describing in their own words, kind of what the value that they created, and it's gonna really help they're gonna be able to speak with the specificity that the CEO probably won't be able to. And so I really think if possible, they should be the ones leading it. But I understand if the CEO wants to take, take these.

Milan Batinich 25:16
Yeah, no, that uh that makes sense. And sometimes, especially with smaller BPOs, the salesperson and the account manager are the same person. So it's a matter of taking off your salesperson hat and putting on your account manager hat throughout that QBR, even when you're receiving buying signals and you're hearing these things. You know, from a from a sales mindset, when you hear that, oh, they're expanding to makeup for men, they're expanding to Asia. It's like all these alarm bells, like I I must sell. And it's like, no, no, no, you're here from a strategic perspective.

Amanda Quinn 25:46
What's the salesperson trick? I feel like you and I talked about this at some point, like to not talk on sales calls, isn't it? Like, don't someone people like pinch themselves on the leg?

Milan Batinich 25:55
Yeah, yeah. I uh so I work for one person where he would like poke himself with like a uh, I don't know, he he carried around like this little, not a needle, but he would like poke himself with something sharp and then something else, like yeah, pinching like right above their knee, pinching the skin so that way they don't talk. Yeah, absolutely.

Amanda Quinn 26:13
So so adopt if you're in that role, adopt one of those methodologies and do not sell. Do not sell.

Milan Batinich 26:21
Yeah. I the this this is uh mine. I have this little rock that I'll just like hold on to and squeeze and move around in my hands. Yeah, okay.

Amanda Quinn 26:32
So you can come up, come up with something. Yes. Some some and I think if you're if you're having this kind of cross-functional team there or multiple people that are representing your BPO, there it helps to have accountability, right? Maybe you can cut someone off if if you can tell that they're going down that route if a salesperson is going down that route. But yeah, I think in general, the in general, we do not want to be selling in this conversation. And kind of going back to the roadmap. And so what you heard me say was this next quarter, this is what we're doing. The following quarter, this is what we're doing. If that's as far out as you have planned, that's fine. And beyond that, like I I would like it to be the next two years, if possible. I think that's really powerful. If you can't at a high level say what that looks like, and it doesn't have to be technology, it doesn't have to be, it could be we're upskilling our team around these things, it could be we're making these cultural changes or org changes, we're um we're all taking Gen AI prompt classes, or you know what I mean? It could be things we're exploring different commercial models, and so we're looking at what that would look like and implementing um, and we're gonna probably need um systems to gather data to be able to be able to um actually price those deals and make sure that it's win-win, you know, where things aren't as clear. So it doesn't have to be technology all the time, but um, you wanna be showing this is the direction that we're headed. And the um if there are market trends that you're seeing or feeling, like talk about them, you know, like it could be um our vision is that we want to be able to develop our own front-end AI. We think that the off-the-shelf solutions that are available right now pose security risks to your business that we don't feel like is the right choice right now. And so we're exploring and we're engaging technology consultants to help us figure out if we want to go with an open AI model, an LLM, or if we want to build one ourselves. Like you don't even have to have made that much progress on it. You just need to say, this is what we're starting to do. This is what we know is gonna come down the pike at some point. And we want you to know that we know it's coming. Because typically, BPOs haven't really painted this forward-looking vision. And so it's left the brand to wonder do they really know this? Are they actually thinking about this?

Milan Batinich 29:12
Yeah, and I think that's probably a whole nother podcast episode of teaching BPOs on how to be forward-thinking and to be thinking about these uh strategies to go into meetings with their clients and even with their prospects, um, in order to be that partner versus that vendor. And you know, identifying what what is you know, uh 12 months from now, what's 24 months from now? You know, uh what's what's coming coming down the pike or what uh what initiatives make the most sense for your type of business? Because you know, a lot of times BPOs will get into a meeting and they won't have any really anything to share. They won't have anything strategic uh to share that they've come up with or that they've researched or anything like that. So, Amanda, what happens if that is the case? A BPO gets into a QBR meeting and uh brand is talking about all these amazing goals and things that they want to do over the next couple years, but the BPO really doesn't have anything new to share, any strategies or anything they're seeing in the market.

Amanda Quinn 30:11
That is a alarm bell should be going off if you don't have that. Uh if you can't confidently put together what the next six months look like for your business, that's a really good sign to engage outside help. That's what we're doing at Quinn Growth Advisors. We're helping BPOs with this transition exactly because it is hard. And it's especially hard if you're grown up in BPO and this is all you've ever done to start thinking in these completely new ways of how do we need to orchestrate things? How do we, how do we buy technology for all these different use cases? What does that look like? How do we prioritize that one against this one or this business change over that one? Like there's a lot of change that's happening here. And so this it's really beneficial, I think, to bring in outside help to kind of help make these help you get clarification on these really strategic questions.

Milan Batinich 31:04
Awesome. Makes sense.

Amanda Quinn 31:06
So the end of that like section, that second section, you really now that you've painted the vision of where you're going, what you want to do then is invite your client to say to tell you whether or not they agree with that vision, whether they see themselves in that vision, way, whether they see that that roadmap can help them accomplish their goals. And what you might find is that actually I you what you might want to what you might find is that they say, that thing you talked about that you guys are doing in three quarters from now, like that's not like that's something we've been really wondering about. Like we we've been talking about that internally. Like, oh yeah, like buying signal, buying signal, don't do anything with it, right? But maybe your prioritization of things may change on an individual client basis, is what that's telling you. Like, okay, if they're already starting to engage in this or start going down this path internally, like we want to meet them where they are. So we'll table it for now. We're not gonna have the discussion in the QBR, but we will follow up with them after quickly and say, like, let's talk more about that. You expressed you're really interested in translation support and what that technology could unlock for your business. Like, what does that look like? What are you, you know, whatever. Um, and so you want to make sure that you're giving them a space to tell you what parts of that appeal to them your roadmap.

Milan Batinich 32:31
For sure. Okay. Very good.

Amanda Quinn 32:34
Yeah. Um, so really any questions on that kind of overall approach, Milan? I feel like I I know I ran through a little bit quickly.

Milan Batinich 32:42
No, no, it makes sense. I think I asked all the questions that uh that I had awesome.

Amanda Quinn 32:47
And really, the the purpose of this is like every BPO, every BPO, every single BPO, I can say this almost I would bet money on it, is wanting to grow their business right now. They're like, I need more clients. That's what that's what I hear every single day, all day long. I need more clients. And what I want to focus on is the cost to retain a quant a client is a lot lower than the cost to acquire a new customer.

Milan Batinich 33:14
A whole lot lower. My goodness. Yes.

Amanda Quinn 33:18
It's so much easier to prevent churn than it is to acquire a new customer.

Milan Batinich 33:21
Correct.

Amanda Quinn 33:22
So let's start there.

Milan Batinich 33:23
Yeah, absolutely.

Amanda Quinn 33:25
Right. And so really this these conversations right now, I think, have been viewed as so tactical, but they are I think one of the most strategic levers BPOs can be utilizing in this at this moment, at this, at this time when there's so much uncertainty, and I think so much vendor switching is on the cusp. Leveraging QBRs and showing up in the way that you want to be perceived is of vital importance.

Milan Batinich 33:56
Yeah, definitely.

Amanda Quinn 33:58
So to implement it, I know that we talked about some of the challenges. Obviously, you need to have a strategy. So that's one big challenge. It will definitely require executive buy-in because if your executives aren't aligned and aren't keeping your salespeople at bay, we know they're gonna go back to the way that they always have. And I think CEOs can be some of the worst offenders of this pouncing on sales opportunities.

Milan Batinich 34:24
And so they they really need to become disciplined and keeping sales and strategies separate.

Amanda Quinn 34:31
Yeah. Yeah. Think of it as like this is a relationship, right? You want to create a trusted space, a place where you can be vulnerable, and it does, it takes being vulnerable. Like, admit that you have been an order taker, admit that you haven't really delivered on all the things that you promised in that initial sales conversation, or that you're not as far along as you want to be. That's fine. Everybody love, like, nobody will fault you for that. All you need to do then is say, and but this is where we want to go. And I'm starting, and even this is how I'd recommend closing that meeting, Milan. Like, today's conversation is probably the most strategic conversation we've ever had. And I want this to be an example to show you that we are making changes. This is an this is how we will be showing up for you. We are committed to being a different type of provider to you. We want to be a strategic partner as you think through what your tech stack looks like, as you think through what your the way you want to continue to serve your customers or do whatever the function is. Like we want to be your brainstorming partner on that journey. And this is the way we're gonna start this relationship.

Milan Batinich 35:49
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's uh it's uh like the opposite of what you're used to doing. But then your clients are gonna look at you as, you know, by being vulnerable too, um, the clients will receive that a lot, a whole lot better than you just trying to mask it with some sales talk. Mask your capabilities. And then your clients are gonna view you as wow, they've really changed and improved, or they're very strategic and they're looking out for my best interests. Like this was the first QBR where they didn't just try to get more money from me, they actually provided value outside of what I already pay them for.

Amanda Quinn 36:26
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I and I know I know it's unnatural, right? Because the the changes that will happen are likely gonna be you're gonna be telling your clients, I'm gonna save you money. These changes we're gonna implement are gonna save you money or are gonna, you know, in and we're hoping are will also deliver better outcomes to your clients, but the the saving money means that it's probably gonna hit your revenue, right? You're gonna have to make changes, you're gonna have to cannibalize your revenue to win long term with your clients.

Amanda Quinn 37:04
And not every BPO has wrapped their mind around that and has accepted that. And it's really obvious, and it's especially obvious to brands. They know when someone's putting their money where their mouth is, right? And they're saying, I'm committed to reducing your interactions 20% every year. That's that's my goal for you. I want to do that, and right, these are some of the ways we're doing that, or I want to continue to be driving down your costs. And here's how we're gonna continue to do that.

Milan Batinich 37:35
Right. And the the BPOs that are gonna be successful that do that, say that and follow through and do that by reducing interaction, say, by 20%, they recognize that the long-term relationship at 80% value is a whole lot better than losing the relationship altogether and receiving zero, zero percent. 80% is a lot better than zero.

Amanda Quinn 37:55
Right, right, exactly. And this is for those that hear this and are like screaming at their phone or whatever device you're listening on about why do I have to lose margin, think of this as a short-term revenue hit. Like there, this is a blip. But what this is showing you, and what I want you to think about is the world is moving to outcomes, outcomes, right? We're working, we're moving towards win win. And if you can keep that long-term vision and that's where we're going, and start thinking of how you would price things if you in a win-win model, as you're like reducing your revenue. If you if you're structured your contracts in a win-win, you still will win, right? You will you can get some of that gain back and show like I hit my goals. I hit, I'm gonna get those revenue kickers or whatever on the top of that. Like, there's plenty of ways on top of just the software margins that can that will be had, this doesn't need to become is not a race to the bottom, I guess is my way of saying it. It's kind of like a short-term dip, but it the potential to be long-term value creator and partner for your clients and make good margins on the other side of this are huge. And I hope you POC that opportunity.

Milan Batinich 39:08
Yeah, I agree. Absolutely.

Amanda Quinn 39:11
So if anybody wants help implementing this at their QBR or wants help thinking through strategy, please reach out to me, uh, Amanda Quinn at Quinn Growth Advisors, find me on LinkedIn. We're doing a QBR overhaul. It's a four-week intensive, basically, where we audit your current QBR process, create a new process for you, and a new deck template for your team to go through to really make this easy and teach your team how to use it. So because we believe this is a really important problem that BPOs need to overcome. And so that's a new um initiative that we're rolling out.

Milan Batinich 39:46
That's awesome, Amanda. I didn't even know that you uh had rolled that out or that you were doing that. Yeah. What a great tool to offer and uh a great console to help BPOs be able to gain more information on how to go about handling the new way of QBRs versus uh just listening or watching this podcast.

Amanda Quinn 40:04
Yes. And it's it's so hot off the presses, it's not even on the website. We're uh we're moving faster than uh can make changes. So yeah, reach out to me if you have any questions or you want to talk through that or what that could look like at your company.

Milan Batinich 40:17
All right, well, thank you everyone for tuning in to the latest this latest episode of Build a Better BPO Podcast. Uh Amanda, this has been phenomenal in understanding how QBR should be moving forward for really long-term growth and long term relationships for BPOs. Uh, hope everyone got a lot out of it and uh definitely reach out to Amanda to be able to work with her and her team on realizing the new way to conduct your QBRs. And we look forward to speaking with everyone again soon on our next podcast.

Amanda Quinn 40:49
Thanks everybody. Bye.