BPOs today aren’t like traditional call centers, where executives are constantly switching between calls. Modern call centers are revolutionizing the way they work to increase employee satisfaction and retain customers for their partnering firms.
BPO refers to a company or call center that can outgrow your existing in-house solutions and take on some or all of your outbound or inbound calls. Outsourcing can help you streamline your business’ internal operations and make it more efficient. This can improve customer service and free up resources. You should also be familiar with CRM systems. They can be used to build a relationship and network with clients or customers. BPO is a major undertaking that often provides outsourcing solutions.
What is a Call Center or BPO? It can be valuable to learn more about BPOs and what they can do for your company. We will discuss the benefits and drawbacks of a BPO phone center, as well as how they work.
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A call center is a central department that receives and handles calls from potential and current customers. Call centers can be located within an organization, or they can be outsourced to another company who specializes in handling calls.
BPO, or Business Process Outsourcing, is the process of outsourcing non-core business functions to a third party service provider. Many companies outsource certain business functions to specialized agencies because they are more capable of performing them.
BPO call centers are outsourced agents that handle customer calls and incoming calls for other companies. BPO agents are often highly skilled in customer service and have sufficient information about the client organization to answer many potential questions.
BPO = Business Process Outsourcing. BPO stands for Business Process Outsourcing. It is simply the act of hiring another company for a task that your business requires. You are using a third-party to manage non-primary business activities on your behalf.
BPO call centers are often integrated into the customer service strategy of client companies. The following are the steps an organization can take to integrate a BPO center into its operations:
When an organization is looking to outsource certain operations, the first thing it does is identify what needs outsourcing. The best way to outsource a particular operation is to find a BPO that specializes in it. You might consider working with a BPO that offers multiple services if you need them all.
After defining what the organization needs from a BPO provider, representatives can begin to search for one. Two other important criteria include their specialization.
Monitoring the results of BPO call centers is the best way to ensure quality services. The organization will receive regular information about the tasks the outsourced agents are working on and their productivity rates. This data can be used by the management team to improve the quality and efficiency of collaboration.
Inbound call centers allow staff to respond to customers’ calls and messages immediately. These are just a few of the tasks that a BPO call center can handle.
BPO call centers can handle either outbound or inbound services. The first refers to answering customer messages and calls, and the second refers to actively reaching out and contacting potential and existing customers. The following are some of the most important inbound services offered by BPO call centers:
Answering support questions | Companies that sell complex products or services are likely to require an inbound call center to help customers understand their functions and benefits. While large organizations have internal departments dedicated to responding to customer inquiries, smaller ones usually outsource this process to BPO call centers due to budget limitations. |
Providing dispatch services | Some companies regularly receive calls from customers who request a specific service, with a common example being taxi companies that pair clients with available taxi cabs. Some of the organizations that provide such services prefer to avoid hiring full-time employees to handle their dispatch services and outsource them to a BPO call center instead. |
Processing orders by phone | Organizations that offer their customers the option of ordering via phone require a team of professionals to answer the calls and go through the entire purchasing process, including introducing customer information into the company database, taking payment information and sending out the order to the department responsible for shipping it. BPO call centers can handle this entire process, eliminating the need for creating a new department and providing the flexibility that some businesses require during high-volume times of the year, like the holidays. |
Some of the main outbound services that BPO call centers provide are:
Outbound agents answer the phones, while an inbound agent answers the phone. Because they are tedious and time-consuming, outbound call center services often get outsourced. A business could call thousands of people to get enough responses for a market research survey.
Partnering with a BPO Call Center allows you to delegate these tasks to their agents so your team can concentrate on improving customer relationships and your products.
Handle telemarketing operations | Telemarketing is the process of directly marketing an organization’s products or services via telephone or the internet. It can be an effective way of generating new business, and some organizations prefer to outsource telemarketing operations to BPO call centers. |
Doing telesales | Telesales is the process of selling goods and services over the phone by contacting qualified potential customers and attempting to persuade them to make a purchase. Companies that don’t have the capacity to hire and train a capable telesales team typically use a BPO call center to handle their telesales. |
Performing market research | Some organizations attempt to learn more about how existing and potential customers see their products and services by contacting them over the phone and conducting surveys. Given the fact that market research calls usually only require the caller to ask pre-written questions, outsourcing the process to a BPO call center is usually a straightforward process, as the callers require less training than for other similar services. |
One of the biggest benefits of working with a BPO phone center is:
Many BPO companies have multiple locations around the globe in different time zones. This means that customers can contact customer support from anywhere in the world, regardless of where they may be.
There are some potential downsides to working with a BPO-based call center:
BPO call centers will take care of all your calls, but they also need to be familiar with your customer service strategy and support services. They may need to be trained in specific business topics to better serve your customers.
It can be costly to provide and manage training materials. This is something you should consider.
Quality is important. Customers expect high-quality customer service, and you must be able deliver. It is important to ensure that the quality and customer service standards of any BPO call center company are in line with yours.
Review your potential call center partner and look at case studies or white papers from customers to find out what kind of results they have achieved for other companies (especially those in your industry or sector).
Global Response offers 40+ years of multi-industry expertise and a call center that is as unique as your company. Global Response’s experts have decades of combined experience in helping companies of all sizes, including those in automotive, finance, and healthcare, improve customer satisfaction and experience.
It may sound obvious, but too many companies choose a call center before they have fully thought about their current pain points. BPO call centers may provide many services and capabilities, but are they what you really need? Consider your current needs in customer service, marketing and lead generation. Which problem do you require your call center solve?
If in doubt, choose a customer-focused contact center with omnichannel support and top-of-the-line technology such as Global Response. Your BPO contact center should also be familiar with customer privacy compliance and offer flexibility and scalability so that they can grow with you and adapt as your business needs change.
Outsourcing your call center can provide you with the opportunity to improve customer communication and internal processes.
You should ensure that the call center company you choose to outsource can provide the technology needed to improve processes and meet your key metrics. It’s also important to make sure that the tech stack they use can be integrated with your existing capabilities and tools.
You might be interested in the following technological solutions for a BPO call center:
Every business may not need all the technology. These may not be necessary for your business, and you may also need other technologies not listed.
Global Response is a customer-focused BPO call center that integrates to many platforms and systems. Global Response offers everything you need to improve your customer experience, from cloud-based omnichannel call management to advanced data security tools and WFM tools.
Advanced technology and customer data management are most beneficial when you have access to the learnings.
Prior to choosing a BPO contact center, ensure you are familiar with the data, reporting, and analytics they provide. This will help you optimize your growth and processes. Find out what metrics and KPIs the call center tracks to determine which metrics are most important for your business goals and objectives.
Also, check to see if your call center offers configurable dashboards and reports. It is important that your call center can track, analyze, and then implement the most important metrics for your goals.
BPO call centers offer the benefits of flexibility, scalability and agility with the assurance that they are cost-effective and efficient. The BPO industry is growing rapidly and is expected to continue expanding at an even faster pace. A BPO call center can help if your business does not have the resources to handle all of your outbound and inbound calls.
A call center can be described as an office environment that handles a lot of calls. It is a central location where call center agents can handle outgoing and incoming phone calls from potential customers. The call center workers perform many operations, including:
There are many types of contact centers. There are many types of contact centers. Some focus on market research and others act as answering service. Others specialize in a particular industry like healthcare or telemarketing.
BPO stands for business process outsourcing. This refers to companies that outsource business processes (external) to third-party companies. The main goal of outsourcing is to reduce costs and free up time so that the business can focus on its core competencies. There are two types of BPO: front-office or back-office.
BPO (business process outsourcing) is when an organization (often called an “outsourcer”) contracts to outsource some of its back-office or front office functions to other companies. A company might contract with a BPO provider to outsource its accounting functions. BPO companies are experts in the business processes they support. Other organizations often outsource to them to gain this expertise and offload core business functions.
The area they operate in is a key distinction between a BPO and a Call Center. BPO vendors are able to handle many other functions such as loan underwriting and back-end admin. Call centers focus exclusively on customer support.
