Why You Shouldn’t Trust BPO Partners for AI Automation Solutions

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, customer service leaders are constantly seeking innovative ways to increase efficiency, improve customer experiences, and reduce costs. One area that has gained significant attention is the integration of automation solutions powered by large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. To stay ahead in a rapidly changing market, customer service leaders have been closely monitoring ChatGPT and its innovations to learn more about how it can revolutionize their customer experiences – specifically through chatbots and agent assist capabilities.

While outsourcing customer service operations to Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) partners or call centers may have seemed like a logical choice mere months ago, it’s crucial for customer service leaders to exercise caution when entrusting them with the responsibility of creating new automation solutions. In this blog post, we’ll explore why BPO partners may not be the best option when it comes to leveraging generative AI and why customer service leaders need to stop using traditional outsourcers and instead consider alternative approaches when selecting the best automation solutions for their customers.

Many BPO partners still operate on traditional and rigid operating models including recruiting and onboarding, the classroom-style training (and inevitable retraining) of agents, and forecasting months in advance to properly staff their teams. They primarily rely on scripted responses and predefined workflows which drastically limit their ability to harness the true power of large language models (LLMs) which can provide personalized and dynamic customer interactions. In this day and age of rapidly released new technological advances, traditional BPOs are playing catch-up when it comes to leveraging the full potential of generative AI.

BPOs Have Antiquated Operating Models

BPOs ultimately generate revenue from their fixed staffing model and human labor where clients are typically paying per full-time employee to work on behalf of their brand at an hourly rate. With new automation advances, we believe many BPOs will hesitate to adopt new automation solutions because they directly cannibalize their revenue model – allowing more interactions to be automated and decreasing overall interactions with a human. As more generative AI solutions become available, BPOs will be required to either innovate or defend their current offering in order to remain competitive and retain revenue for their cornerstone product offering. When (or if) BPOs decide to build automation solutions that leverage generative AI they will already be miles behind in innovations compared to modern automation providers.

Lack of Experience in AI (and Innovation in General)

Implementing generative AI solutions requires specialized knowledge and expertise in order to have a seamless implementation and set your customer experience team up for success. While BPO partners excel in managing and optimizing call center optimizations, they lack the experience and technical proficiency to effectively leverage large language models for automation.

Developing AI solutions involves training, fine-tuning, and continuous improvement based on real-time data. All of that work typically needs to be handled by a data science team who has industry experience in not only LLMs but also in customer experience in order to create the best solution for your customers. While many BPO partners have their call center operations and procedures down to a science, many lack the necessary expertise (and teams in place) to navigate the complexities of training AI models and ability to ensure proper guardrails are in place to make sure it acts appropriately.

How to Ensure You Select the Best Partner

While BPO partners have traditionally been seen as a resource when it comes to customer service operations, customer service leaders need to exercise caution when relying on them to create new automation solutions using large language models like ChatGPT. Their antiquated operating models and lack of experience in AI implementation will make it increasingly difficult to maximize these new technological advantages to their full potential.

To fully harness the potential of generative AI in customer service automation, you should consider partnering directly with AI technology providers or specialized AI solution providers, like Simplr, who have the necessary expertise, industry knowledge, and teams in place to build an automation solution that will help increase efficiency and enhance your customer experience.

To learn more about how to select the best provider for a generative AI solution, download this report where we share 8 questions that you need to ask before selecting the best provider.