In the insurance industry, outsourcing has become a popular trend. The reasons why are clear: Outsourcing frees agents up to focus on tasks like customer relations and agency growth. Despite these tremendous advantages to outsourcing, when you consider assigning some of the back-office functions of your business to a different company, you may feel doubt. That’s a good thing!
Why Doubt Is Healthy When It Comes to Outsourcing
When you outsource, your current employees are affected. You are also entrusting members of a different company with sensitive information and with tasks that can affect your business’ success or challenges. Doubt can be helpful because outsourcing is a big decision that carries risks. If you leverage your doubts to make wise decisions about outsourcing, your doubt is healthy.
For instance, doubting that outsourcing customer service calls will improve overall business processing significantly is fair. In fact, trend research shows that outsourcing is most effective when it is well rounded. If you’re going to outsource, choose to work with business process outsourcing (BPO) companies that can take on specialized tasks to save your professional insurance staff more time. In addition to outsourcing customer service, quality control, underwriting, and payment processing, consider outsourcing tasks like accounting, payroll, marketing, and/or IT.
How to Use Doubt to Make Smart Decisions
Harness your doubt to minimize the risks associated with outsourcing. You should be strategic in choosing which BPO companies you work with and what you choose to outsource. When selecting a BPO provider, be mindful of things like:
- Implementation fees and other “hidden” set up costs or requirements
- Using a BPO company that is willing to use your software and integrate into your processes rather than you having to adapt to their methods only
- Verifying that your point of contact has language fluency and education adequate for communicating effectively with you
- Ensure that a BPO company has the necessary support teams to assist the operations team (e.g., Talent Acquisition, Quality Assurance, Training, IT, etc.)
- Asking for proof of concept or references from other businesses using their services
Leveraging Your Outsourcing Outcomes
Set a limited contract and track your return on investment for its duration before opting to continue using a BPO company’s services. Don’t forget to also measure changes and results among your internal staff to see if the outsourcing is benefitting their ability to grow the business.
