How to optimize retail customer experience year round

Delivering a consistent, rewarding and exceptional customer experience is no small task for a retailer, whether they're global or whether they are a small brand.

One potential strategy is partnering with a business process outsourcing firm, an external service provider that specializes in delivering a great retail customer experience.

An upcoming webinar, "Mastering Retail: Optimize Your Customer Experience Year-Round," sponsored by iQor, will focus on three key strategies for implementing a great customer experience through each season of the year. The fireside chat discussion will feature an expert panel: Tone Holmen, senior vice president, operations, at iQor; John Swain, vice president, account management, retail at iQor and Brian Madonna, vice president, operations, Universal Screen Arts, Inc.

As the panelists will detail in the free webinar, operational excellence is a must-have for retailers wanting to provide a rewarding customer experience every day of the year — and the process includes everything from recruiting and hiring the customer service team to training and development as well as an effective operations process.

To provide a glimpse of the webinar discussion, RetailCustomerExperience reached out to Swain to gain insight on why the BPO approach can prove valuable to a retailer as well as the opportunities and benefits retailers can gain from a CX partnership. Sign up here for the free webinar.

Q. Let's start with some background on iQor and its philosophy when it comes to customer support.

A. iQor is a business process outsourcing company ideally suited to help retailers create amazing customer experiences. iQor provides a comprehensive suite of full-service and self-service scalable offerings that are purpose-built to deliver enterprise-quality CX. iQor helps retail brands deliver the world's most sought-after customer experiences through the optimal blend of digital and human capabilities. Our work-in-office and work-at-home teams offer support from domestic, nearshore, and offshore locations to meet our clients' diverse needs. Our seven iQorian Values drive and inspire all that we do to ensure rewarding customer experiences. As a trusted partner to our clients, we unlock the ultimate customer experience through decades of CX expertise, a diverse array of agile solutions, and our strategic use of AI. iQor's omnichannel support experience helps retailers, e-tailers, and e-commerce and catalog brands connect with customers on their terms.

Our CX experts partner with retailers to design intelligent channel optimization strategies to ensure they align with customer needs. We're a strategic partner that offers custom CX solutions, agility to adapt to changing needs, and thought leadership to drive success for our clients. From AI-powered agents to in-app messaging, we apply automation where it matters most to exceed customer expectations for hyper-personalized, seamless omnichannel support. iQor's Symphony [AI]™ ecosystem augments agent performance throughout the employee lifecycle, offering forward-thinking strategies to keep employees smiling and delivering exceptional customer service. This next-generation AI ecosystem combines advanced machine learning models with iQor's years of accumulated process knowledge to optimize the employee experience from first contact with recruitment through the years of customer service experience they build on the production floor.

Q. What are some of the common misconceptions retailers may have about outsourcing customer support?

A. When considering outsourcing customer support for the first time, retailers may have questions about whether outsourcing is the right choice for their brand. Here are a few of the wide-ranging benefits outsourcing can offer.
Brand ambassador: An outsourcing partner should represent the brand with the same passion and enthusiasm as the brand's internal team. iQor creates a culture that produces brand ambassadors for the retailers we support. When customers contact a retail brand's service line their experience is seamless and authentic. iQor has supported numerous retail clients as their sole contact point for a decade or more. We create an atmosphere where our team — ranging from frontline agents to supervisors and beyond — identifies deeply with the brands they service. We become a trusted business partner by aligning ourselves with our client's goals. We make every contact point feel as though the customers are communicating directly with the retail clients we serve.
Control: A successful outsourcing relationship provides retailers control over the customer experience they envision for their customers. iQor has a long-standing reputation of working closely with our retail clients to align frontline employees with retailers' brand values. This ensures retailers have visibility into all aspects of service delivery through close interaction with project managers and customized reporting.
Cost effectiveness: Outsourcing customer support is often more cost-effective than maintaining an in-house customer support team, as it eliminates the need for recruiting, hiring, onboarding, training, nesting, coaching, supervision, project management, workforce management, process improvement, and change management not to mention the infrastructure costs associated with a customer support function.
Data security: iQor's heavy investment in and commitment to a zero-trust approach provides our retail clients peace of mind. Zero trust is a dynamic approach to security that enables iQor to protect our clients' data and systems from the latest threats and ensure a secure environment for the client data we store, handle, and analyze.
Open communication: With a true partnership approach and open communication from Day One, iQor fosters open communication from the C-suite to frontline agents. We provide outsourcing support in English and Spanish from more than 40 locations and 10 countries. Through ongoing training, coaching, and performance monitoring, we ensure the proficiency of our multilingual support teams to provide customer service retailers feel confident about.
Quality assurance: Outsourcing customer support offers specialized expertise to promote service quality. iQor has decades of experience maintaining high-quality service through a commitment to training, career development, an employee-centric culture, and highly effective processes honed over time. Additionally, iQor's Symphony [AI] optimizes employee engagement and performance by leveraging our accumulated process knowledge through a powerful AI ecosystem to create happy employees who perform consistently at high levels of qualify for the brands that entrust us to service their customers.
Seasonal staffing: Experienced BPOs offer reliability when it comes to rapid ramps and ensuring frontline agents are prepared to succeed from the start. iQor has a proven track record of ramping up seasonal staff to meet the heaviest demands associated with holidays, special events, new product launches, and more — even on short notice. iQor's recruiting, onboarding, and training processes have been honed over decades of partnering with retail brands and are powered by Symphony [AI] to meet their staffing needs all year long while maintaining performance excellence.
Specialized training: iQor partners with our retail clients to develop ongoing and customized training and coaching for our customer service teams. We have won more than 40 awards for our robust training programs. The sQholar Program runs for four months and includes 60-plus hours of blended learning assignments. The LevelUp Program is a combination of workshops, training courses, and job shadowing sessions that prepare individuals for a managerial role. The iLead Program encompasses ongoing personal and career development coaching conversations. Our proprietary PeaQ Performance Qoaching Workshop is for new supervisors, agent team leads, and operations managers to develop core leadership skills. These training programs are a small sampling of our extensive training opportunities that are part of iQor's organizational development function. We encourage retailers considering outsourcing all or a part of their customer service function to start a conversation to identify a partner that's best suited to meet the unique needs of their brand.

Q. What should a retailer be aware of when assessing and evaluating potential BPO partners and why is iQor above the rest?

A. Every retailer wants to deliver consistently excellent customer service that addresses their customers' unique needs cost-effectively. We at iQor believe the following characteristics make for a strong BPO partner.
Partner mindset: Throughout iQor's history, we have embraced client relationships as partner relationships. It is very common for us to learn about our clients' businesses in such detail they contact us with questions they can't answer internally themselves. We take a proactive approach to CX solutions. In client relationships where iQor is one of several BPOs, we are often referred to as the most strategic BPO relationship in their portfolio, offering thought leadership and innovative solutions responsive to their needs.
Brand-centric culture: Our partner mindset also pertains to building a culture of brand-centricity. Our frontline agents embrace the retailer's brand wholeheartedly. Agents take on the culture of the brand in every interaction because we train them to know your brand. The agent's affinity for your brand is as strong as the retailer's employees.
Embrace all situations: We understand the meaning of "expect the unexpected." We've seen it all. As it pertains to our partner mindset, we pivot on a dime when our client needs us to respond to situations that might require workforce management shifts, staffing, or a move to another form of service delivery such as chat, SMS, social media, etc. Our eye is always on the retail client's business goals with a willingness to adapt quickly to fluid situations.
Ongoing training: iQor's organizational development team is devoted to training best practices delivered through active learning classrooms. Hundreds of iQor trainers deliver interactive learning programs that engage agents meaningfully so they can get to the production floor of service delivery quickly and with the necessary proficiency to deliver consistently excellent service.
Digitally irresistible: At iQor, our goal is to consistently meet or exceed our retail clients' KPIs, creating smiles for our clients and for the customers we serve on the frontlines. We use digital technology where it matters most to engage retail customers in their channel of choice. We're always listening. A relationship based on trust forms the foundation of a successful outsourced customer experience that delivers on retailers' KPIs and improves their bottom line.

Q. What should retailers do internally or strategically before partnering with a BPO/iQor?

A. iQor recommends retailers consider the following internal and strategic preparations to ensure a successful outsourcing collaboration. We stand by our retail partners every step of the way to guide them through the process. Our executive and operations teams are accessible, and our inter-departmental industry-savvy New Program Implementation Team makes for a smooth transition to outsourcing.
Define objectives: Clearly outline and communicate the specific objectives and goals you want to achieve by partnering with a BPO. Whether it's improving customer support, reducing costs, or expanding operations, having well-defined objectives is crucial.
Assess current processes: Evaluate your existing internal processes to identify the areas that you can outsource. Determine which processes are well-defined and those that need to be updated and improved.
Budget and cost analysis: Prepare a comprehensive budget and cost analysis of your current CX delivery systems. Plan to discuss the financial implications of outsourcing, considering both short-term and long-term costs and savings.
Risk assessment: Assess your current potential for internal risks associated with CX delivery, such as data security, compliance, and quality control. Prepare to discuss how a zero-trust approach to data security, such as iQor's, addresses threat risks.
Identify key metrics: Define KPIs and metrics that align with your business objectives to measure the success of the partnership.
Cultural fit: Prepare to discuss iQor's approach to align with your company's culture and values. A shared understanding of your brand's identity will lead to a successful partnership.
Compliance and legal considerations: Plan to review legal and compliance requirements associated with outsourcing in your industry and/or location to ensure iQor's compliance with these regulations.
Requests for proposals: Create a detailed Request for Proposals to solicit bids from potential BPO partners. Include your requirements, expectations, and evaluation criteria in the RFP. Prepare to meet with iQor to review a custom response to your RFP.
Due diligence: Conduct thorough due diligence on potential BPO providers you're considering besides iQor. Consider their track record in retail, their experience, client references, and financial stability. Arrange to visit iQor's facilities to meet the leaders in the trenches along with the people on the frontlines of service delivery.
Contract negotiation: Prepare to engage in contract negotiations to ensure that the contract outlines roles, responsibilities, service levels, and dispute resolution mechanisms to your satisfaction.
Transition plan: Collaborate on a comprehensive transition plan that outlines how the transfer of processes and responsibilities will occur. This should include a timeline, training, and communication strategies.
Change management: Coach your internal teams on the changes outsourcing may bring.
Provide training and support to employees who will work with iQor.
Communication Strategy: Establish effective communication channels and points of contact with iQor. Ensure open and transparent communication to address any issues promptly.
Performance monitoring: Collaborate on a system for monitoring iQor's performance on agreed-upon KPIs. Regularly review and discuss performance and make adjustments as needed.
By thoroughly addressing these internal and strategic considerations, retailers can lay the foundation for a successful partnership with a BPO like iQor. This preparation ensures alignment with your business objectives, efficient operations, and the results you seek in a CX outsourcing partnership.

Sign up here for the free webinar.