Silicon Slopes, an annual event that brings tech companies from around the country to Utah, offers a great opportunity to discover new strategies that can transform your business.
But here’s the problem: Technology companies are often stretched too thin to implement these new and exciting strategies. Competing within your fast-paced industry may make your employees overworked, burnt out, and inefficient.
You must fix this, but budget constraints are a concern. Just how does a tech firm scale effectively while building brand loyalty? The answer, in part, is choosing the right business process outsourcing (BPO) solution.
BPO and tech companies are a match made in heaven. Let’s find out why.
WHAT IS A BPO PARTNER?
A BPO is an organization companies use to outsource certain functions, allowing your business to work at a greater capacity without needing new full-time employees. Outsourcing allows your business to focus on your core competencies instead of spreading your efforts and attention across diverse, yet necessary business functions.
For example, you may not have the resources to build a customer care department from the ground up. Partnering with a BPO specializing in Fintech support will help you establish solid product ratings and gain new users.
WHAT DO BPO COMPANIES DO?
Depending on the organization, your BPO partner can help you with:
- Tech Support
- SaaS/App support
- Customer service
- Retention/Saves
- Sales enablement
A BPO partner will be your business’s ally, helping you achieve stretch goals with ease.
HOW A BPO HELPS TECH COMPANIES
What we’ve just described is a fundamental application of BPO partnerships. But how can these services help companies in the tech industry, specifically?
Tech companies are ever-evolving entities growing in a fast-paced environment. For startup tech companies, it can be challenging to find fast footing and remain competitive.
BPO partners can help you gain that necessary foothold. How? Here are three specific BPO solutions for technology companies:
- Supporting new users with IT services: If your tech company focuses on software services, there are bound to be bugs and errors your beta testers and early access users will encounter. Without the proper IT support, you can’t offer your customers a satisfactory experience, which can lead to shoddy product reviews and a shrinking client base. You can mitigate those risks with a BPO partner specializing in customer support and IT services. Tech firms should be prepared to support users on their channel of choice. That means finding a partner that can handle voice, video, chat, SMS, email and social media volume.
- Customer Care: Simple tasks like password resets and answering questions on features are important to your user community. But spinning up an internal team to handle them is not only time consuming but cost prohibitive. This is where a BPO partnership is key. Allowing a partner to handle basic customer care is a cost-effective solution that drives higher customer satisfaction.
- Communicating with users through self-help: Chatbots are great tools to answer your simple questions. With AI technology, simple interactions can be completely automated. If a complex interaction requires human aid, the chatbot will invite a live agent to resolve the issue and explain possible next steps.
BENEFITS BPOs OFFER TECH COMPANIES
Here are four benefits you can expect when partnering with a BPO.
INCREASED EFFICIENCY
The right BPOs have defined processes that reduce costs and raise the bar on service. You can be confident that the skilled contractors will take care of every business process you outsource efficiently. BPOs constantly train their employees to perfect productivity and reap rewards.
INCREASED SECURITY
Data privacy and security weigh heavily on the minds of every tech company. Are you confident that your customer’s data is secure? With a BPO partner, you won’t have to worry about it. BPOs have robust privacy infrastructure, keeping customer data safe at all times. BPOs operate under strict international data compliance standards, which help guarantee better protection against data breaches.
INCREASED SCALABILITY
You may not need an entire staff at all times. For example, you’ll likely need an extensive customer service team around a product launch, but that demand won’t last forever. With a BPO partner, you won’t have to burn and churn your employees as the seasons demand. Your BPO will flex the number of employees needed for your business as you see fit, so staffing requirements will always meet your needs.
INCREASED EXPERTISE
Using a BPO allows a tech firm to perfect its product. You won’t have to hire customer service experts, tech support or retention specialists if you partner with the right BPO. You can continue to develop industry expertise while your partner BPO takes care of the rest.
HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT BPO PARTNER
Not all BPOs are created equal. So how do you ensure you’re partnering with a BPO that can adequately support your needs? Here’s a list of four criteria worth your consideration.
A BPO THAT’S COMMITTED TO QUALITY
Quality commitment is essential for customer service outsourcing. If your BPO doesn’t value the customer experience and focus on resolving issues during the first interaction, you’ll see a lot more negative reviews in the app store. If this happens, you’ll have to spend a lot of time and money on reputation management campaigns to offset the negative attention.
Meanwhile, a BPO committed to quality turns early adopters into customers for life and strengthens your brand with each interaction.
A BPO THAT WELCOMES LEADERSHIP INVOLVEMENT
Some BPOs prefer to offer a completely hands-off experience for their clients. While this may sound appealing, it becomes concerning when the BPO doesn’t value input. For example, you’ll likely have preferences on how your BPO handles customer service calls. If you can’t voice those desires, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle.
Look for a BPO that sees this collaboration as a genuine partnership — a business relationship where you and the BPO can work together to perfect the customer journey.
A BPO EXPERIENCED IN THE TECH INDUSTRY
A tech company must focus on innovation or risk falling behind. If your company has the best product, solid funding and a visionary executive team, gaining market share should be a given. Customer care, however, is equally important and getting it wrong damages the brand. Tech firms, especially start-ups, need a BPO partner that understands the importance of product labs, hands-on training and data security. That is why it is crucial to look for BPOs that already have tech experience.
A BPO WITH STRONG LOCAL TIES
Partnering with a BPO for customer care, tech support or back office processing is a great way to reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction. Working with a local partner makes sense on many levels, too. Communication is key and going local means meetings are in person, rather than over video. Personal relationships develop naturally and earning trust is easier face-to-face. With mutual trust established, full transparency follows, and the open exchange of ideas leads to solutions that often go wanting in a long-distance partnership. That’s why local companies should strongly consider partnering with a Utah-based BPO.
EXPLORE A BPO PARTNERSHIP WITH CLEARSOURCE TODAY
Headquartered at the heart of Silicon Slopes, ClearSource BPO is the partner you’ve been looking for. We specialize in customer experience, tech support and back-office outsourcing. We have the expertise to help your tech company thrive, offer comprehensive reporting and deliver quality and value from onshore, nearshore and offshore locations.
Do you want to learn more about what a partnership with ClearSource looks like? We’d be happy to chat.
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