In this episode, I’m exploring the very exciting world of… Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)

I took some time to get granular with some of the common challenges I see.

Here’s what we'll cover:

• Motivating remote teams
• Cultural nuances when working with teams from the Philippines and Colombia
• Surprising benefits of outsourcing through BPO
• What to look for in BPO contracts
• Important questions to ask in an RFP when considering BPOs
• Setting clear expectations with KPIs
• Top tools for managing remote teams

1 - How to Motivate Remote Teams

Motivating remote teams is challenging. Here are a couple tips on how to do it:

First of all, it's all about context sharing. As a remote worker, it's very easy to be isolated and not really know what's going on in different departments of a company or the why behind the work. So be very explicit about oversharing on top context. Make sure teams always have visibility on projects that other departments are working on and how that specifically impacts their work - this is super critical for in-office and especially for remote work.

I also highly recommend using tools like Gather Town to recreate an in-office setting. You still have the benefits of being able to work remotely in your PJs, but it recreates the experience of moving between offices and enables the casual water cooler chats that happen as you navigate through different virtual spaces in your Gather office.

2 - Outsourcing from the Philippines and Colombia - Cultural Nuances to be Aware Of

The Philippines has a very hierarchical culture, and it's important to respect and embrace that when building a team out of the Philippines. Even starting from the educational system and going into their prior workplaces, many of them had a very clear reporting structure and very clear expectations set around the role and what is okay and what not to do. You'll often hear terms such as TL for Team Lead or OM for Operations Manager. They really like to include titles and terms of respect for people higher up on the org chart. It's also very important to be mindful about giving them the support resources that are needed, especially for larger scale support contact type teams.

Colombia has very close cultural alignment and affinity with the United States. A lot of the organizational structure practices that we put in place in the Philippines do not align well with countries in Latin America, where a very strong hierarchical structure can be seen as a bit of micromanagement. For these countries, I strongly recommend just setting clear KPIs and explaining the why behind the work, and then getting out of their way and letting them rush to it. Then quickly dive back in if you see misalignment from the clear goals that are set.

3 - Surprising Benefits of Outsourcing Through BPO

I've seen the US onshore support teams really experience a huge level up when leveraging a BPO to handle the front lines work. The onshore team then is able to level up into handling quality assurance, handling training, and building out better processes and SOPs.

Another great benefit of working with a BPO is the operational expertise that they bring from working with similar clients across different industries. They can help build out things like strong KPIs and scorecards for team incentives and operational best practices around things such as how to structure your Zendesk or how to put in place security best practices.

One of the other great advantages of using a BPO for a support team is just being able to leverage them for overnights, weekends, and holidays. I've seen a lot of US support teams where you come in Monday morning and the queue is huge and overwhelming. Being able to leverage a BPO also helps to align with customer expectations around response times.

4 - What to Look Out for in BPO Contracts

It's important to be very mindful about details such as the cancellation fees if the partnership doesn't go right. Also be very mindful about what the annual increase rate looks like. If it's substantially larger than just regular interest rate increases aligned with the consumer price index, that's also a potential red flag with the partnership as it could quickly escalate year over year in price.

Another thing to really be mindful of when formatting the contract is putting in place service level agreements. Having SLAs around KPIs met will help keep both parties accountable for reaching those targets.

5 - Asking the Right Questions in an RFP

First of all, I would get pretty granular about asking who would be involved in meetings and what's the cadence of these meetings and check-ins. Also dive pretty deeply into cybersecurity and what practices the BPOs have in place.

Another question that sometimes doesn't get asked until it's too late, and I recommend including in the RFP process is, what does the performance improvement plan structure look like? How long does it take to replace poor performing teammates?e

It's crucial to get insights into timelines and understand how the BPO manages performance proactively. This helps you avoid being in a place where you have to be reactive and push the BPO to make staffing adjustments due to certain teammates not working out.

6 - Setting clear expectations with KPIs

I strongly recommend establishing clear KPIs from day one. Implement a one-month 'glide path' ramp-up period for new hires after they complete training. During this time, you should see metrics improving week over week. By the end of the month, team members should reach full production mode, aligning with your company's internal KPIs.

7 - Top Tools We recommend for Managing Remote Teams

I'm a huge proponent of Scribe for building SOPs. Think of it like a Loom on steroids to be able to very quickly build out a thorough SOP for any process. For remote teams in the Philippines, we've had a lot of fun and engagement with Wheel of Names. Check it out, it's a free, very basic tool for any team building events or even for training and calling on teammates to answer questions - that one's a pretty big hit with the team at Neowork. And we also love leveraging Kahoot for training to gamify the learning process and run friendly competitions.

I hope this has been helpful in learning a little bit more about BPOs. I also recommend never putting all of your eggs in one basket with a BPO and instead use multiple partners and have them have a friendly competition between each other. If you're ever interested in talking more, I'd love to connect and help diagnose how NeoWork could potentially help your business.

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