As an industry worth 261.9 billion USD in 2022, the BPO industry is subject to evolution and new trends. All industries expand and create new trends every year. However, this industry is nothing if not praised for being adaptable. Even just after the pandemic, BPO companies survived by adapting strategies and work models. They even fast-tracked an expansion to the virtual space.
Now, what exactly are the latest innovations in this space? Let’s look back at the major BPO trends of 2022.
Training and Development
A key trend in the BPO industry is one that every company should value: employee retention. The BPO industry place skills and good staff as a valuable resource. So, investing in the skills and wellbeing of a team is what keeps a BPO company successful. These can be a simple leadership seminar, virtual business communication training, or critical thinking workshops. Even just guiding a new hire on their first day around the office is good for any company.
That said, turnover is harmful to the harmony and culture of any organization. Not only is having better employee retention cost-efficient, but it’s also healthier for productivity. A thriving office culture has a driven office staff.
Which is why a rising trend for BPO companies this year was investing in their training and development plans. Strong training programs can prevent both resignation and stagnancy for employees. It also promotes a clear path to a successful career.
Trends Toward Avenues of Growth in the BPO Industry
According to Why Employees Leave, retention is valuable for a company’s overall goals. It’s best to provide an accessible path for personal and professional growth.
Programs planned for employee training and development should offer to enhance both hard and soft skills. Moving past the iron-fisted ways of old business, companies now value compassion and empathy. They understand that hard skills like video-editing and programming are not the only things that make a good employee. Soft skills like leadership, decision-making, business communication are what companies are focused on developing. Interpersonal skills are even more valued in the post-pandemic workforce.
Remote Call Centers
Around 2021, most on-site call centers adopted a cloud-based system, fast-tracking the evolution of the industry. This helped ensure that their staff would be safe without sacrificing employment, as well as to test out different work setups.
New Ways of Management
In 2022, A survey 58% of staff wanted a fully-remote work setup, while 39% of respondents preferred a hybrid work environment. Post-pandemic, most businesses changed their outlook on work environments. Industries fast-tracked the use of the virtual landscape and have even made efforts to connect to global teams. This means that remote work management became an emerging trend in 2022 through both hybrid and fully-remote teams. It became necessary to research and adapt to other cloud-based tools and understand how to optimize operations in this new strategy.
Omnichannel
The expansion of our digital landscape sees that marketing creativity is overflowing and abundant. It forces us to reshape how we approach our customer experiences with such a saturated field of creatives. BPO trends lean to personalization, like omnichannel marketing. Here, the customer’s experience and connection with a brand is seamless and highly personalized.
Omnichannel marketing advertises a brand throughout different channels. Through this, advertisements become personalized as you build a connection. With a strong collaboration between programmers and digital creatives, brands can shape a better user experience for their potential customers.
BPO Trends in Shaping the Customer’s Journey
Omnichannel marketing engages with a customer across platforms while keeping in mind where they are in the Customer’s Journey. This follows the points that determine how a consumer approaches, seeks, then comes to a purchase decision with a brand. Unlike the usual forms of marketing, omnichannel is highly effective and creates an overall more cohesive brand identity and strategy. However, it is a hard and challenging approach without good teams in place.
This is why it has become a major trend for the BPO industry. Companies already have large pools of talent working together often, which include teams in marketing and development. However, not all businesses can afford these teams to effectively create an omnichannel strategy. So, they turn to BPO services to better connect with customers and keep up with the digital marketing landscape.
The BPO Industry and Adaptability to Trends
Industries change. Trends can come and go, and global events can reshape how the businesses operate. Especially with a scope as large as the BPO industry. Reports have shown that outsourcing as well as offshoring are predicted to grow greatly. The BPO industry itself has a growth rate of 9.2%CAGR from 2022 to 2030, advancing to USD 525.2 billion.
A business that seeks to give their service to a wide array of large and small businesses alike. But understanding what new trends are in this industry that you are either in or are interested in using is helpful in knowing what exactly they can offer you. We see a trend of adaptability, development, and innovation as we wrap 2022. Hopefully, knowing how the industry made the most of this year will give us some insights for what’s to come in 2023.
