AI or BPO For Your Holiday Sale Volume?
With BFCM quickly approaching, you might be looking at your queue (or your projections) and feeling that familiar pre-holiday panic.
Maybe your company had a growth spurt and what you assumed you could manage before, you’re realizing you can’t manage now.
Maybe a few team members have left unexpectedly, or your organization has gone through layoffs, and now your ability to adequately handle the volume with just a little bit of overtime seems questionable.
In these cases, it’s common to lean into an AI solution, a BPO partner, or sometimes both.
Here’s how I’d think through which might be the right move for you.
Where could you use the help?
Before you start comparing demos or talking to vendors, think about what kind of help you actually need.
Are you expecting a flood of tracking status questions that are simple to solve but spike this season?
Do you need extra hands during nights and weekends when your internal team isn’t staffed? On what channels?
Do you need technical expertise that allows customers to get help setting up their new gadget on Christmas morning?
Do you need your current to team operate more quickly and efficiently?
You may also want to consider, are you the kind of organization where things tend to run pretty smoothly? Or are you the type of organization where something always goes wrong in a big way, and you need expertise and creative thinkers to help solve the problem?
When you have a good idea on what specifically would be the most helpful to you and your team, then you can start thinking about the best way to get that help.
Is AI a realistic option in your timeframe?
Some solutions can be launched quickly while others take a bit more time.
Some brands are ready to launch quickly, while others will need more time.
Consider your tech stack:
If you’re using Shopify with Zendesk or Gorgias, and a return portal like Loop or Aftership, you’ve got great easy-to-launch options like Kodif, Siena, and Flip that can get you live with a few key flows quickly.
But if your tech stack is more custom, less commonly integrated, or requires dev work to make connections, you might not have enough time to implement something reliable enough for you to throw BFCM volume in its face.
Consider the state of your knowledge resources:
If you have up-to-date documentation ready to go, that’s going to be a faster implementation than if your documentation is out of date, or if you don’t have documentation at all. (This is true for BPOs too by the way.) It’s not impossible - Many AI solutions allow you to write out instructions for AI to use as policies or rules - but that will take time if they’re being built from scratch, and performance may be limited if there aren’t a lot of additional resources to leverage.
Consider the quality of your data:
The cleaner your data is, the cleaner your implementation will be, and the better experience your customers will have.
What does it mean to have clean data? A customer’s interactions over phone, email, and chat are stored under one customer profile and not three. Your able to tie your customer’s service ticket to their order. Your tickets are properly tagged so you understand the reason for contact. You are collecting accurate metrics.
Identify Solutions You Already Have
Lastly, check if you already have AI solutions available to you that you’re either already paying for, or can turn on for a fee. Sounds silly but it’s pretty common. With so many systems adding AI over the years, you may have invested in a system before the AI boom, and be unaware of its new AI features, especially if you’ve been canceling all those meetings with your account rep.
What customer sentiment are you expecting?
If you’re contemplating a customer-facing AI solution compared to a BPO, you may want to consider who your customer is and the sentiment you’re anticipating.
Ideally, your organization is launching their sale well prepared and ready for anything. Customers will be excited to get a deal! But if we’re being honest, that’s not always reality. Sometimes you’re going into a sale knowing you’re going to upset some customers.
Maybe there’s not enough inventory, or the most popular product won’t be on sale, or you have a gut feeling the promotion you’re about to launch is hella’ confusing. Perhaps you just started charging a stocking fee for all returns and you don’t know how that conversation is going to go.
If for any reason you’re expecting the incoming service volume to be customers who are emotionally-charged, AI is probably not going to make things better.
What’s your scaling strategy?
When you think about scaling your CX function, do you already know your direction?
If you were already planning to find an AI solution or sign a BPO during Q1 or Q2 of next year, it may make sense to just move forward with that plan a little bit early, especially if you already had a partner in mind. You can start small before the holiday, and then continue growth and optomization once you’re safely through all those January’s returns!
The holidays could also be a good time to test those partners who do offer a free trial, a pilot, or a month-to-month agreement. You’ll definitely have the volume to draw some conclusions.
That being said, don’t panic-buy AI or rush into a long-term contract with a BPO just to get you through the holiday sale. If you find yourself not wanting to commit to anything right now, BPOs tend to have more flexible agreements than AI solutions, but not always. Look for month-to-month contracts, or contracts with a “convenience clause” allowing the brand to break the agreement for any reason at any time, usually with a 30 or 60 day notice.
It Doesn’t Have To Be Either/Or
Many brands, I would dare to say most brands, use a combination of BPO and AI support.
You may decide AI works best for taking over the simple order status questions and a BPO works best for complex troubleshooting.
Maybe AI is helpful as an agent co-pilot, but you want your customers talking to humans.
Or you may decide AI can handle almost everything, but for VIPs and upset customers, you want real connection and empathy.
It’s also worth noting some BPOs are making AI solutions and management services a part of their offering. By investing in these BPOs, you’re actually getting both contact center support and AI, without having to directly manage both.
Wrapping It Up
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, but hopefully this will help you think through what immediate direction you’ll take as the sale approaches. If you need a little more guidance, at The CX Coach, I work with CX teams in online retail, helping them strategize service models, and evaluate AI Solutions and BPO Partners.
