Actually Never Been Happy With Your Outsourced Customer Service?

Try Integrity & Ownership!

Yes, those are two very strong words. Maybe even words, you might find in some “bullshit bingo” charts as well. However, I personally think these two belong together and should be front and center for every true leader. You have to try integrity & ownership , I am sure about that. So much so, that they will play a critical part in part III of my blog series.

I could not talk about my journey to a better outsourced customer service, without touching on integrity and ownership. You have actually never been happy with your outsourced customer service? Then one or both of these two might be missing in your relationship. On either side.

My first two blog posts have gotten quite some attention from the “BPO world”. A few managers, that are working in the BPO industry, even reached out to thank me personally for being “so bold”. You missed my first two blog posts? I recommend checking them out first. You can find them here and here.

I am writing this series to share, how me having lost my client attitude, is making a huge difference in the servicing program I am currently managing. And how it also has led to great results, too. For those that measure success purely in KPIs.

But to be very clear, a partnership only works if it goes both ways. So for all the BPO colleagues reading my posts, let me highlight this for your benefit. My approach will not work without you accepting a lot more support and involvement, than you might usually experience. Or maybe even like.

It’s important to understand, that the support is not likely going to come without more and deeper involvement. However, if combined with care, the involvement will ultimately be very beneficial to both sides. This is admittedly not the easy part. It requires a lot of work and effort from the partner leader and it requires transparency and “sharing of control” from the partner. And just to be clear, this is not going to happen on day one of your relationship. It’s a process.

Honestly, if you are not putting in the work to become a leader to the partner and build up this relationship with every interaction, it will likely not happen at all. Because, as I am saying in my last post, you got to earn trust with care, care and then again, care. Followed by radical candor, which is actually one of the most important tokens of care.

There is no true care, without integrity. And vice versa. And to me personally, integrity and ownership are too close, to be considered a separate value each. Both make great buzzwords and they are talked about a lot. Too much for my liking. As to me, talking about them, is not the same as living and breathing them. And the latter sounds a lot easier, than it is.

I have shared my general thoughts and experience around integrity in this older post. Feel free to jump over here and check it out. Don’t forget to come back here, though.

Life is not perfect, but trying hard really matters when it comes to integrity. It’s all about intent. And honesty. First and foremost with oneself. About your actual motives and what’s driving your behavior and reactions to certain situations. Are you really caring for your outsourcing partner, or is that just what you are telling yourself, while you are actually more focused on your own results, career etc.?

Don’t get me wrong, your results are important to you and they should be. However, if to achieve them, you need to collaborate, you should genuinely care for those you are collaborating with. The rest will fall into place with displayed integrity and joint ownership.

Because with integrity and ownership, you are not going to be one of those partner leaders, that only talk about the great partnership, until something goes seriously wrong and then take a 180 degree turn.

You will walk that walk, even if it is difficult. At least as far, as you can walk it. Sometimes you will run into company politics and other brick walls. And that’s not your fault. Just make sure you keep your integrity and be open and transparent. Transparent about the process and about how far your decision making competence goes and when things will be out of your hand. It will be appreciated. And even when hitting a brick wall, can still try to influence and support the process.

It’s easy to lose it, when things go wrong. Often times even small problems can become a big deal. Been there, done that. As a leader to your partner, having their back might actually mean having to go against the mainstream opinion within your organization. This is where ownership becomes so important and helpful.

And in two different, but equally important, ways. Firstly, you have hopefully been able to build a trustful relationship with your partner and they are open and transparent with you. They trust you enough, to own up to whatever is going wrong. And pro-actively inform you, immediately when they see it coming. This is very important for your control over what happens next.

Secondly, you are considering yourself a leader and not a vendor manager and as a leader, you are taking ownership of your team’s actions and mistakes. Because you know very well, there is no outstanding work being done and great results achieved, without failure. And since your partner owned up to their part, you can now take ownership of yours.

Since the partner has been forthcoming and pro-active, you now have a chance to drive the narrative of the incident and having their back might not be that difficult after all. There is only one thing, that can get into your way. Your own ego. Or rather, your own anger and disappointment or worry.

Never take what’s happening personally, especially not, if it could have a negative impact on your “brand” and your results. In order to avoid this from happening, you need your brain to function. So allow yourself the five minutes of being upset, as I was in the example in my last post, when my partner made the mistake with the trainers. Then take a deep breath and get to work and unite people towards resolution.

Remember, you do not have to own the problem (or have made the mistake) to own the resolution. Integrity and ownership do not mean, it’s your fault or admitting the same. Far from it!

2020 is a challenging year for many of us. This does definitely not exclude BPOs and our servicing partner companies. Swift and immediate reactions were and continue to be required to react to the ever changing demands, driven by the pandemic. To expect this to happen without any mistakes on the way, would be naïve.

Yes, also in my current project mistakes have happened – on either side I might add. In my line of business, these always catch a lot of attention and have to be reported through, what feels like, the entire organization. Not a situation I like to be in. But that is not always my choice. It’s important to remind myself, it’s not always the partner’s choice, either. It simply is a mistake or an unfortunate decision and these things do happen. Without any bad intentions at play.

Recently a few incidents happened at the same time. It’s Year End review time in our company. The last thing I need for my team is “bad press” with leadership teams. And I am human, so yes, I was upset for a few minutes about the incidents and the timing. And then I stopped myself right there and reminded myself, that I could not control whether this had happened or not. But I was absolutely able to control my reaction and attitude, own the solution and have my external team’s back as their leader. And that’s what I did and am still doing.

I could of course have chosen the “blame game” approach. But if you think that through, where would that have led me? To a low morale in my servicing team, a lot less transparency, loyalty and support. And a negative internal “mainstream opinion” about the partner. That I would actually have created myself. None of this sounds remotely appealing to me.

The partner had been forthcoming and as transparent, as they could have been. I needed to honor and celebrate that. Yes, that’s right I chose the word “celebrate”. This was definitely a bigger test of our relationship and partnership. The honesty, transparency and “owning up” to their mistake only happened, because of the trust I have been able to build. I now had to hold up my end of the bargain.

First of all I assured the partner, that I will support them, without promising that everything will be fine. I made the mistake ones to make a promise that was not mine to make and it almost went horribly wrong. Secondly, I took ownership of the next steps and asked for the help and support within our organization, that I needed to resolve the situation. I am diligently managing the process, while keeping the partner up to date on all steps. It was my turn on being transparent.

And the interesting thing is, while I expected this approach to sit well with the partner, it is also much appreciated by our internal Senior Leadership team. After all, me owning the resolution, is all they need. Yes, they would all have preferred that nothing had happened at all. Who wouldn’t? However, me giving them the confidence I am owning and resolving it, is definitely the next best thing. I got this and they know.

I knew something happened early, I controlled the narrative and my previous deep involvement with the partner, has helped build the same level of trust internally as it did externally with the partner. Me showing integrity and ownership are making the difference and are allowing me, to influence the “mainstream opinion” more than I imagined. Positively.

As I said in the beginning, this approach of integrity and ownership only works, if it goes both ways. Caring will give you the energy and fuel to continue, even when you meet resistance at first. If the resistance to be transparent and open continues on the partner side, this will become increasingly tough, though. Give it a try, BPO colleagues, it might be worth it!

I have said in one of my previous posts, that there is no leadership without authority. It’s the authority given to you by those you are leading. I shared the post here on LinkedIn.

If you are not given that authority, this relationship cannot work. Just, please do not give up too easily. I have been in the same shoes as many of my current counterparts at the partner. I started my career years ago in a BPO and have worked in some BPO companies since, before I landed a job “on the other side”. The vendor & client relationships I have seen and even been a part of, are what made me try a different approach this time around.

Because I have had to cut corners to generate the margin at a cost per call / connect minute etc. that should have never been agreed to . I have experienced, that feedback actually was a one way street – from the client to us. Never the other way around. And so on.

Imagine you are managing a BPO project and you are not meeting the KPI goals, because you just do not have enough capacity to provide sufficient support. You can’t afford sufficient team leaders or supervisors to support your customer care professionals. Why? Well maybe because your CEO expects a margin, but your sales person just compromised too much on the rate. So now it’s all on you.

And when you are openly sharing your tough spot with your client, they are using that against you in the next negotiations or they are escalating this internally as you are clearly cutting corners. Right, why would you think you can or should be that honest about these things ever again?

I have seen partners share honest numbers, when asked how many customer care professionals they could hire per month, just to be beaten up for it. Or, if they share the same during the vendor selection process, they are simply not getting the business. And others, that are making ridiculous promises and claims, that are more in line with the clients expectations, are ending up as the winner. Well, the client will be the loser here, that’s for sure. Been there, done that, too.

I myself have talked about partnership but at times acted more like an entitled client. It did not work well for me. I just didn’t fully understand why. Now I know it was, because I never analyzed my own behavior and role, but purely focused on the partner. Their decile performance, their hiring process, their “team lead to customer care professional ratio”, their salary they pay, their results etc. . I never realized, that I (the company I represented) was actually the one driving most of the listed “theirs”.

In a partnership, there should not be a “their”, there should be more “ours”. And as much as I am still looking into decile performance, drivers for recommend to a friend scores etc., as their leader I am also looking into my team’s and my support. The processes that could be causing certain results. The goals and whether they are actually attainable and fair for both of us.

Yes, I want to achieve my goals. And I realized in order to do so, they need to achieve their goals, too. I am still usually adding a small buffer on top of my goals, when providing the partner’s goals. But I am also transparently sharing this with them and explaining my “why”. And I took out said buffer, when it comes to the penalty range. As it would not be fair to collect a penalty, when I am still making my minimum goals.

As I shared in part II, knowledge is key. It allows us to speak the same language and have a common understanding. It makes transparency and honesty so much easier, when the other party actually understands, what you are talking about. And knows well the impacts of their actions. I understand my partners financial situation with our project and my impact on the same. And I try all I can to act accordingly. Why?

Because I am using my integrity and ownership skills, so that both parties can have a successful outsourced customer service project. Interested in trying it yourself? Want to try integrity & ownership to build a trustful relationship with your outsourcing partner? Go for it!

Last Friday was boss’ day. I have received many touching messages from my team, but two of my colleagues made it a point to highlight, that I actually was not their boss but their leader. They described, what difference that meant to them in our relationship. I can only hope to be a leader, who develops leaders within our servicing partner as well.

Are you ready to become a leader to our outsources servicing partner?

In the fourth and last part of this series, I will talk about “what’s next” in my journey. And I will share some of the day to day measures my team and I put in place to support and lead in our outsourced partnership. I hope you will check it out, too!

And don’t forgot – integrity and ownership should always go hand in hand! They are a critical part of leadership, as are care and radical candor.

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