Introduction

A common question our team often receives is why quality is important in BPO. We get that; it's a valid concern since managing a top-notch BPO team can be pretty challenging. Let's discuss the issue in more detail!

5 Reasons Why Quality Is Important in BPO

Align The Process with Client Requirements

At its core, quality serves as a direct reflection of a BPO's commitment to its customers. 

It lets you identify where performance falls short of expectations (Source: WheelerCPA). 

Therefore, setting stringent quality standards is important; only then can you ensure that every transaction and deliverable aligns with the customer's expectations. It's also easier to identify where performance falls short of expectations and implement targeted improvements accordingly. 

For example, let's say error rates in invoice processing are high; a closer look reveals issues with how your agents input data and integrate them with the remaining parts of the systems. Once you address those root causes, the overall productivity will improve and boost customer experience as a result.

Encourage More Effective Agent Training

A competent BPO team must learn to use quality metrics to guide training efforts toward improvement. Specifically, once these key metrics are properly addressed, you can leverage the results to pinpoint areas where your agents might need extra coaching sessions.

Here's a simple example: a surge in negative customer feedback about a product might suggest huge gaps in product training. Similarly, high rates of errors in data entry points indicate your team needs extra practice on verification procedures.

And that's not all; quality analysts can also use these same key performance indicators to measure whether the training initiatives have been truly effective. For instance, if customer loyalty scores drastically increase after training, that means these additional training programs can be reapplied or modified for future use.

Improve Customer Retention

Needless to say, quality is almost always synonymous with customer satisfaction ratings, especially when the services exceed all initial expectations. Happy customers are more likely to become repeat customers and, as a result, are less inclined to seek services from competitors. 

Not to mention, when your business consistently delivers timely and error-free services, it also benefits your reputation as a result, which further fuels customer retention since clients are more willing to stay with a provider they can depend on. Poor service quality, on the contrary, tends to erode trust and lead to severe customer churn.

Save Costs

One of the most direct ways quality improves the bottom line is by reducing errors.

When processes are executed with high precision, the need for rework or refunds will be minimised. As a result, the time spent on each customer interaction also decreases, which translates to fewer labour costs! Better yet, as mentioned above, high-quality service leads to less customer churn, saving you the extremely high expenses of acquiring new buyers.

To sum it up, quality assurance allows BPOs to achieve operational efficiencies, fewer risks and errors, and better customer retention, all of which contribute to significant cost savings.

Establishing a Culture of Quality

Lastly, quality embedded in an organisation's core values will eventually become a shared goal. 

Your staff at all levels can understand the importance of quality and actively contribute to its achievement; not to mention, employee satisfaction will likely increase once they see that their efforts contribute to a higher purpose. Continuous improvement initiatives and promising growth opportunities (often associated with quality) also lead to higher employee engagement. 

Over time, this strong quality culture will benefit your long-term relationships with clients, eventually strengthening all the other four benefits discussed above. It's basically the foundation for a BPO team to achieve sustainable growth while differentiating themselves from the rest of the market. 

6 Quality Tools in BPO

Process Maps and Flowcharts

First, we have flowcharts, which are simplified diagrammatic representations of a process. 

Experts often compare them to roadmaps that guide the flow of activities from inception to completion. Once complex BPO processes are broken down into sequential steps, your quality assurance team will find it easier to see a clear, concise visual of the process journey - which you can then leverage to identify potential bottlenecks.

Process maps, on the other hand, provide a more actionable insight of the process. They do not just outline the sequence of activities but also identify roles, responsibilities, inputs, outputs, and decision points. Together with flowcharts (which offer a high-level overview), they create a more complete picture of the workflow to ensure better consistency in actual execution. 

Fishbone Diagrams

Next is the fishbone diagram (often called an Ishikawa or cause-and-effect diagram), a powerful quality management tool that unravels the web of factors contributing to a specific BPO problem. Its visual representation often resembles a fish skeleton, with the problem as the head and potential causes as the bones, hence the name.

It resembles a fish skeleton (Source: Flickr). 

BPO teams often use this diagram to categorise potential causes systematically into distinct categories, such as:

• Workforce
• Method
• Machine
• Materials
• Measurement
• Environment

When analysing each key element, the team can pinpoint the core reasons for customer churn to develop targeted interventions accordingly. This inclusive approach prevents superficial solutions that may address symptoms but fail to eradicate the root customer issue. 

Pareto Charts

As a visual representation of the Pareto principle, the Pareto bar graph embraces the 80/20 rule: 80% of effects come from 20% of causes. 

Each bar represents a category of problem or defect, arranged in descending order of frequency. At the same time, a cumulative percentage line is superimposed to demonstrate the impact of each category.

The strength of the Pareto chart lies in its ability to focus on the "vital few" issues rather than the "trivial many," which allows BPOs to allocate resources more strategically. Furthermore, the easy-to-understand visual nature makes it easy to convey complex data to stakeholders and prevent misunderstandings of the proposed solutions.

Histograms

This graphical chart is ideal for identifying underlying patterns. Specifically, it organises data into intervals or bins, reflecting the frequency with which data points fall within these ranges. 

Its shape (bell-shaped, skewed, or bimodal) will reveal critical information about the process. For instance, a right-skewed distribution of call handling times in a customer service BPO signals the presence of a significant number of excessively long customer calls, demanding further investigation.

Control Charts

Do you want to analyse process variation over time? In that case, a control chart is the best process control tool; it continuously monitors the process for signs of instability or the emergence of special causes of variation. 

At its visual core, the chart comprises a central line representing the process average, flanked by upper and lower control limits calculated from historical data. As data points are plotted sequentially, their relationship to these control limits reveals the state of the process.

How a control chart looks like (Source: Wiki). 

Scatter Diagrams

The scatter diagram (or scatter plot) explores the relationship between two variables. We suggest you use this graphical representation to identify potential correlations between factors that might impact customer satisfaction levels, individual agent performance, etc. 

Its rule is simple: the diagram plots pairs of numerical data, one variable on the x-axis and the other on the y-axis. Each point on the graph represents a data pair. When examining the pattern of these points, you can discern whether there is a positive correlation, negative correlation, or no correlation between the two variables.

Conclusion

We have detailed why quality is important in BPO and shared some common quality tools to help you assess it. 

To improve your quality assurance process further, consider using StringeeX. It's a top omnichannel solution that offers deeper insights into your centre’s performance across all communication channels; you don't have to keep switching between them! Contact us to learn more about what StringeeX can do for you.