Advantages of subject material experts (SMEs) in BPO call centers

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While subject material experts (SME) are at all times in high demand amongst KPO services, BPO and other related businesses can also profit significantly from them. 

An SME in BPO provides much-needed expertise to efficiently perform a business function and helps with the sleek transfer of data inside the company.

As a call center, contact center, or BPO provider, if you happen to’re considering dedicated SMEs to your team, this text is for you.

In this text, we’ll explore the 4 advantages of getting SMEs in your BPO and call center teams and understand their key responsibilities and essential traits.

Table of Contents

Let’s start.

4 major advantages of an SME in BPO and call center teams

Before we list the benefits of having subject material experts in a BPO or call center setting, let’s understand who an SME is.

A subject material expert or SME is a person who has a deep understanding of a key business aspect and is liable for sharing their knowledge with other stakeholders. 

Additionally they be certain that all deliverables inside their subject expertise meet the expectations of the stakeholders and follow pre-defined standards and policies.

An SME might be an authority on a specific business process, task, system, department, technology, equipment, etc.

For instance, an SME in a telemarketing business might be a services or products expert helping agents understand the nuances of what they’re attempting to sell. 

Similarly, an SME in a tech support company might be a licensed technology expert training agents to resolve customer queries.

In a call center workforce hierarchy, an SME might be anywhere between service agents and supervisors or team leaders. Firms can either hire SMEs or train their high-performing and experienced agents to develop into one.

Now, let’s explore how an SME helps boost business performance:

1. Higher knowledge transfer

Knowledge transfer is the backbone of business process outsourcing and other related outsourcing services. This information transfer happens on different levels:

• From the outsourcers to the BPO.
• Throughout the BPO – from experts to recent agents.
• From agents to finish customers.

SMEs play a significant role in enabling knowledge transfer at each level. 

They assist capture, process, transfer, and protect mission-critical information in regards to the business function being outsourced. Most significantly, they ensure a smooth flow of this data from the client company to the top customer via agents. 

An SME’s role becomes much more critical within the BPO sector resulting from the recruitment model they follow.

BPO firms typically hire fresh graduates and train them on the needed skills, processes, and systems throughout the onboarding phase. When done right, an efficient transition of essential intelligence and knowledge helps:

• Create a team of expert and competent agents.
• Facilitate the sleek transition of a business process.
• Discover opportunities for system and process re-engineering, reminiscent of standardization, optimization, automation, etc.

2. Helps streamline workflow

Once you are taking over a selected business function from the client, you’re expected to run it with maximum efficiency.

For that, it’s essential to evaluate and organize all processes, resources, and knowledge related to that business function to create smooth workflows. A topic expert has the depth of data required to make that occur. 

An SME’s experience and know-how enable them to identify inefficiencies and gaps related to communication, knowledge, resources, skills, etc., sometimes even higher than team leaders.

Consider a scenario where lots of your customer support agents have a low FCR (first call resolution) rate, despite going through extensive training and doing every part by the book. This might affect your service level and the general customer experience. 

On this scenario, you may have an SME review the agent call and screen activity recordings to discover the foundation cause. 

It could prove that your ‘known-issues’ bank is missing some recent error codes after a recent product update. This was stopping the agents from offering an quick solution to the client, leading to more follow-ups.

When you discover the foundation cause, an SME may also help update the ‘know-issues’ bank accordingly.

Moreover, with their domain knowledge, SMEs are aware of potential risk aspects that may disrupt business operations. They’ll aid you devise strategies to mitigate such aspects and protocols to handle them higher, ensuring business continuity.

Furthermore, firms with limited staff can hand over small and medium scale client projects to SMEs, freeing up managers and team leads for more outstanding clients and growth-oriented work.

3. More cost savings

The tenet behind the outsourcing industry is to assist firms run their operations at lower costs and more efficiently. 

To supply such services, firms within the BPO industry must operate with maximum cost and resource efficiency. 

Subject material experts, with their specialized knowledge, may also help businesses achieve this efficiency. We’ve already seen how they assist enterprises discover operational bottlenecks. Fixing these issues also helps plug hidden money drains. 

For instance, fixing the low FCR problem mentioned above will save the corporate several hours and costs in lost productivity resulting from follow-up calls.

SMEs may also help reduce project costs with their out-of-the-box ideas and deep knowledge-based insights. 

For instance, an information technology expert could aid you implement a complicated CRM system to collate customer data from social media and other communication channels. 

Similarly, a business analyst can aid you regulate your investment in a future project by gathering insights from historical data.

And maybe the most important monetary advantage of having SMEs in your team is a well-trained and highly efficient team of agents, boosting your service quality and the general brand image.

4. Credibility

With their skilled expertise and hands-on experience, SMEs help boosts the credibility of your online business. This might be especially vital if you happen to are a startup company.

Potential clients look handy over their projects to well-trained and experienced specialists. So once you market your BPO services, having qualified experts in your team increases your possibilities of landing well-paying and long-term clients.

For instance, if you happen to’re a healthcare BPO provider, you will have sensitive information like customers’ medical records. Having a cybersecurity expert in your team who can ensure data security compliance would surely add to your trustworthiness.

So it’s clear how SMEs may also help each large and small businesses operate cost-effectively and put more resources into key competencies.

Next, let’s briefly have a look at the roles and responsibilities of an SME.

Key responsibilities of a Subject Matter Expert

While the precise role of an SME will rely upon their specific area of experience, listed here are some key responsibilities generally related to an SME within the outsourcing sphere:

• Support the creation of business rules, procedures, standards, policy drafts, guidelines, etc., around a business function.
• Help define performance objectives and performance benchmarks.
• Validate the resource requirements and deliverables for services under the project.
• Resolve issues related to project deliverables.
• Assist within the design and development of coaching material and other user documentation of their particular area of experience.
• Provide suggestions to enhance procedures and upgrade technology infrastructure.
• Engage with decision-makers to discover opportunities and risks.
• Represent the needs of their business unit to senior management and vice-versa.

With a transparent understanding of an SME’s functions, let’s try a couple of qualities and traits of a very good SME.

9 key considerations when making a Subject Matter Expert team

Whether you might be writing a job description for hiring experienced SMEs or training your top-performing agents to develop into one, listed here are nine things that it is best to deal with:

1. Qualifications and experience

When considering SMEs to your team, it’s essential to think about the length and breadth of their experience.

Which means a very good SME must be well trained of their domain and have substantial work experience of their area of experience.

For instance, an SME in corporate communication should possess years of experience in business writing, public speaking, etc.

It’s equally vital for SMEs to have the needed educational background so as to add credibility to their expertise and experience. 

This included graduate and post-graduate degrees, diplomas, skilled training certificates, etc.

For instance, a high quality assurance expert should ideally have globally recognized certifications like Six Sigma. Similarly, an SME in data management must be certified in courses from leading providers like SAP, Microsoft, etc.

For those who’re training SMEs internally, you may sponsor their SME training. But if you happen to’re hiring experienced SMEs, be certain that you confirm their credentials. Assess their learning and experience portfolio and test their understanding of the topic through mock scenarios.

2. Passion for the topic

An SME is taken into account an authority of their field. Such proficiency requires an in-depth study of the topic.

Naturally, SMEs need more intensive training in comparison with average agent training, which is usually about mastering step-by-step procedures.

So it’s only when an aspiring SME has a passion for the topic that they’ll put within the required efforts to succeed in that level of proficiency. 

This is particularly vital when trying to advance your top-performing agents to SME levels. You possibly can create aptitude tests to evaluate and shortlist agents which can be a very good fit to develop into SMEs.

3. A learner’s mindset

Today, the world moves at breakneck speed. All services, products, and the technology behind them transform rapidly.

Because of this, any SME might want to always upgrade themselves and evolve to maintain up with the changes of their area of interest and retain their expert tag. And this could occur only in the event that they have a continuous learning mindset.

4. Analytical skills

While subject material expertise is paramount, you shouldn’t overlook another must-have special skills to excel as an SME.

For instance, SMEs often face scenarios that test their analytical and reasoning skills. 

Why does an SME need these skills?

An SME must capture massive amounts of data, process and organize it, and eventually use it as required. All these steps require a mind with strong analytical pondering.

Furthermore, without logical pondering, an SME may not find a way to make use of their vast knowledge to good use during a demanding situation.

So ensure that you test potential SME candidates’ analytical and reasoning skills with fastidiously designed tests. During an SME interview, you may query a candidate about some hypothetical scenario to evaluate their response.

5. Communication skills

Sharing their expertise with other team members is a giant a part of an SME’s job. 

They might be a part of executive-level meetings to present key information, take live agent training sessions, conduct seminars, etc. They might also need to interact with dissatisfied customers and pacify or persuade them.

Their social skill is at all times on the forefront and important in effective knowledge transfer. So once you interview or shortlist your SME candidates, ensure they’ve a nice personality and may articulate their ideas and thoughts with utmost clarity.

6. Teamwork

An SME’s job is very collaborative. For instance, in a call center setting, SMEs must usually collaborate with agents, team leads, graphic design teams, center managers, etc., to make sure smooth knowledge transfer.

They’d fail to satisfy their responsibilities effectively in the event that they aren’t good team players and like working in silos.

When taking a look at potential SMEs, examine how well they understand the organizational dynamics and assess their rapport-building, empathy, listening skills, etc. 

7. Leadership qualities

Subject material experts are typically required to guide and mentor recent agents on key customer support processes. This mentorship role requires them to have good leadership skills as well. 

Furthermore, a very good subject material expert often goes on to develop into a team lead or project manager in the longer term, making leadership traits all of the more vital.

8. Time management skills

SMEs play many various roles and perform diverse duties inside a corporation. It’s essential that they manage their time well to operate effectively. 

They need to find a way to prioritize their tasks and balance their workload across functions to get enough time to hone their skills and expertise. 

9. Hands-on approach

Their thorough knowledge allows them to see opportunities and threats that aren’t visible to others.

So once you onboard an issue expert, ensure they don’t just stay subject experts but develop into drivers for change and innovation.

For that, it’s essential to groom them to be hands-on with their knowledge and leverage it to drive process improvement and positive transformation in the corporate.

Key takeaways

Subject material experts can aid you transform your outsourcing services with highly specialized knowledge in a selected subject or business area. Leverage their expertise to enhance operational efficiency, drive innovation, and improve your bottom line.

Undergo the article to seek out how SMEs can add value to your online business. Also, create an efficient SME job description with a transparent understanding of their responsibilities and must-have skills.