Welcome to Outcome-Washing

Everyone’s at it.

A colleague, consultant, or keynote speaker says something like “you should switch to outcome-based pricing,” and everyone agrees, though few (if any) know quite what they mean.

Why? Because the industry has broadly agreed that outcome-based pricing is a Good Thing; it’s buzzy and AI-coded, a mantra that signifies you are part of the in-crowd.

The catch is, “outcomes” mean many things to many people. The term is so open to interpretation that it’s at risk of becoming meaningless.

And yet there’s no shortage of companies willing to exploit this uncertainty—especially when they have something to gain.

We Have Entered the Era of Outcome-Washing

Like “green” or any other type of “washing,” a genuinely useful idea is being adopted by organizations with a commercial incentive to claim the label without actually doing the work.

The term has become a journey without a destination, a concept in search of an agreed-upon meaning. The latest example, if you will, of the corporate world running before it can walk.

What is needed is a definition, a point of reference to mark our homework against; to collectively decide what an outcome is and (critically) is not, so customers can avoid agreeing to something that’s not what it appears to be.
Let’s start by looking at the three primary commercial models deployed in services. We’ll use CX delivery as an example:

• Input-based: You pay for resources deployed (per FTE, per hour, per seat, etc.). The contract is managed via KPI achievement, with any efficiency gains belonging entirely to the client. This is, by a country mile, still the dominant model in practice, and often the model that enterprise procurement teams feel the most comfortable with.
• Output-based: You pay per unit of work completed or resolved (per contact, per case, per ticket, etc.). We believe that most “outcome-pricing” currently on offer—the “outcome-washing” we have coined—is simply output pricing in new clothing. It’s task completion with a per-unit price tag.
• Outcome-based: In the simplest terms, no matter your strategic objective, genuine outcome pricing always has a measurable before and after.

The right model isn’t the most sophisticated one, or the most popular one. It’s the one that fits your business. A client with stable, well-understood operations and a preference for direct control may achieve better results under an input-based structure with robust KPIs than under a gain-share arrangement that adds complexity without adding value.

Selecting (or being sold) the wrong model in the name of innovation is its own form of poor advice.

Outcome-Pricing in Action

When it comes to innovative models, Concentrix is one of a handful of companies that has been offering outcome-based pricing for over a decade. It is a fortunate position to be in as the subject proliferates: we already know what we mean when we offer it.

For example:

Working with a premium retailer, we helped them achieve their efficiency goals of a $4M saving by aligning goals through outcome-based contracting. The overall transformation strategy encompassed operating model redesign coupled with AI and automation.

Critically, the transformation needed to deliver this saving while also improving overall Customer Experience metrics.

Delivery against the target unlocked a gain-share mechanism to enable the sharing of future transformation driven savings with Concentrix, all through an auditable governance process.

The percentage gain-share weighting was between 20-40% per transformation initiative, depending on the transformation mechanism, level of investment, and ongoing support.

Shared risk. Shared reward.

We are rewarded for the differential. The value created is the outcome.

The client gets a guaranteed, quantified cost reduction. Concentrix recovers its investment and earns a share of the value it creates.

The same logic works with revenue growth. Instead of a fixed cost target, the model ties Concentrix’s reward to revenue growth (upsell, retention, and lifetime value) created through the same kind of transformation.

Everything else—the commercial structures, the contractual mechanics, the technology deployment—is detail layered on top of this core logic.

The Commercial Mechanics

While proposing an outcome-based approach to a client, we identified multiple opportunities where Concentrix was uniquely positioned to add value. Step 1 (Baseline Improvement) combines automation, process improvement, and stronger management practices while Step 2 (Solution Optimization) rethinks the client’s shoring portfolio. Together, applying Concentrix’s world-class operations expertise and best practices could cut costs by 42.6%.

Conversational AI vendors could only address only 15% of that.

With the processes refined and model optimized, the next opportunity is to imagine how things could be done differently. Reimagining the whole operating model opens the door to Step 3 (Transformation), which enables a further 15–40% reduction.

Conversational AI vendors can address less than 10% of that; the rest comes from rethinking the customer journey and rebuilding the technology stack.

Resolution in the Air

Before we continue, it is worth reiterating that outputs and outcomes are not the same, and that this distinction goes beyond mere semantics.

Conflating the two has an obvious structural flaw that the outcome-washers are not keen to advertise, so don’t feel compelled to keep this a secret.

Think of it like this. The industry average first contact resolution rate sits at around 70%, which is (just barely) considered a “good” rate. What this means, however, is that roughly one in three customers has to call back about the same underlying issue.

A provider in an output-based model, charging per contact (or even resolved contact) has zero incentive to reduce that contact volume.

Conversely, a provider in an outcome-based model has a very clear incentive to do so, as these exact efficiency gains—a meaningful before and after—are what the model’s success depends upon.

In a true outcome model, both parties always benefit because the quantifiable value is the outcome.

In an output model, though, if a client’s product keeps breaking and customers keep calling, that provider earns more. To be clear, you are, in effect, paying someone to ensure your problems never go away. Ouch.

That, right there, is outcome-washing in practice. You take the language of shared success and wrap it around a commercial model that benefits from continued failure.

And yet, who can really blame them? Providers of point solutions, be they AI startups or more established players, are simply not equipped to identify or solve upstream failures or operating model issues—the very same issues that get pushed (firmly) back to the client.

So… What’s the Outcome?

Once again, none of this means outcome-based pricing is the wrong direction. For clients with the data, the trust, and the willingness to transform required to make it work, it can absolutely be the right one. Where those conditions exist, we have been building these models for years.

What it does mean is that you need to be alert to the problem of outcome-washing.

Outcome-washing doesn’t survive scrutiny. It survives in the absence of it. So, this is your warning: you need to be prepared to challenge providers on the ‘what ifs’ when they use that term.

Bringing this scrutiny to the program and working with the right partner is how you deliver on your business strategy—one where outcomes are delivered and value is created.

If you’re ready to stop washing and start winning, talk to us to discover how we orchestrate AI + Human talent to deliver your business outcomes.