What Are BPO and Call Centers in Business, and How Are They Used Today?

Connexions global IN
5 min readAug 25, 2023

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What Are BPO and Call Centers in Business, and How Are They Used Today?

What Is BPO Call Center in Business?

Companies hire a BPO to handle incoming and outgoing customer service calls. Business process outsourcing (BPO) involves the delegation of certain operations to third-party vendors. Call centers answer and make incoming and outbound calls.

BPO call centers handle outsourced answering services and customer service. But, BPO call centers do more than answer phones. When you use a BPO call center, you get a team of agents to handle all customer service tickets.

Roles of BPO Call Centers

A BPO call center is a common and effective way for companies to get help with a task they don’t know how to do or aren’t good at. They can add or remove team members to save money for company projects.

If your company can’t handle all the calls coming in and going out, you might want to think about outsourcing.

Here are some examples of tasks that a BPO company can assist you with:

  • Customer service via many channels
  • Calls both inbound and outbound
  • Sales and lead generation
  • Telemarketing
  • Market investigation
  • Technical help
  • Services for the help desk

Uses of BPO Call Centers in Modern Businesses

1. Provide Outstanding Customer Service

How your customers feel when they work with you can make or break your business. Not every company has the people and tools to meet customers, solve tickets, and reduce wait times. BPO call centers step in to provide excellent customer service.

2. Increase team scalability and flexibility

Adaptability in call centers is critical as customer demands and expectations change. Customers now expect many communication channels to reach you. Your clients can receive omnichannel support from BPO call centers.

3. Get High-Quality Technology

Setting up a call center is costly, given the tools and technology required to keep it running. A BPO call center can improve KPIs and consumer data.

SMEs and established businesses can outsource business processes to a customer-service-savvy call center.

4. Provide 24/7 Support

24/7 call center teams let you communicate with customers even after business hours. Your customers can reach you anywhere with the most outsourced call centers.

5. Assist in reducing employee workload

Even though your employees are what make your business run, it takes time and money to find, train, and keep them. Using a third-party call center, you can prevent or end this problem. It will handle all personnel issues for you.

6. Cut expenses

Save up to 70% on overhead by outsourcing to a third-party call center. You don’t have to set up facilities, install new software, rent an office, find and train new agents, etc.

Choosing a BPO provider is easier than building a call center from scratch.

What Are the Different Types of BPO Call Centers?

Inbound and outbound BPO call centers offer different services. Others use a hybrid model that combines outbound and inbound functions.

Hiring a BPO call center appears risky to some businesses. Full-time employees may know more about your business, culture, and products than contractors.

BPO call centers have adaptable experts. They can learn your systems and technologies to identify customer-service resources.

Third-party call centers use greater technology to finish tasks fast.

Let’s take a look at the various BPO call centers, their functions, and their services.

Inbound Call Center Services

An inbound call center is in charge of answering customer calls and messages as they come in. An inbound call handles three major tasks:

1. Support Concerns

Customer support inquiries are higher for brands that sell complex goods or services. Call center agents handle inbound calls for large companies with many customers.

Healthcare professionals may receive hundreds of queries every day about billing, perks, etc.

Banking, finance, and insurance outsource call center services.

Companies outsource BPO call centers to lower labor costs. Companies that offer regulated services and plans have a BPO resource. These resources make training and hiring call center agents easy.

2. Order Fulfillment

Some customers still prefer to make their purchases over the phone. Order processing includes inputting client information, confirming payment, and alerting fulfillment.

By outsourcing order processing, you can focus on higher-value tasks like product development. Outsourcing over-the-phone purchases help process foreign orders and shipping after-hours. It also aids in the management of overflow during peak seasons such as the holidays.

BPO keeps money flowing into your business so you don’t have to pay overtime or shift resources.

3. Distribution

Customers that want a company’s services phone dispatchers. For example, a cab company may receive a dispatch call from an individual requesting to book a car. The agent who answers the dispatch call will assign a driver to complete the service.

Some organizations outsource this role to call centers, which pay agents as needed. A courier company that only delivers between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. could save money by outsourcing dispatch services.

You don’t have to pay a full-time employee on a slow day when the dispatch call volume is low with this solution.

Outbound Call Center Services

Outbound call center agents place calls while inbound call center agents answer them. Outsourcing time-consuming outbound call center services. A corporation may call thousands of clients to do market research.

You can outsource these tasks to a BPO call center, which will manage them for you. Here are three more functions managed by an outbound call center:

1. Promotional telemarketing

Despite its bad reputation, some companies use telemarketing because it’s efficient and cost-effective. If your agents can’t do cold calls, telemarketing will have a low return on investment.

This is where BPO call centers’ expertise, experience, and tools come into play. Companies gain access to skilled agents who can captivate and persuade cold-calling consumers. These agents charm customers and explain your company’s mission.

2. Telesales

The goal of telesales is to close deals over the phone. In telemarketing, You call qualified leads.

Some businesses lack the tools to increase revenue through telesales. For instance, suppose you have 3,000 leads in your pipeline but only 12 agents on your team. You could spend weeks making calls and still not get the right leads.

A third-party call center helps you reach pipeline leads faster. It can assist you in generating more sales.

Call centers contain sales technology, thus some organizations outsource telesales. Companies save money and time by using a BPO staff with a CRM system.

3. Market Analysis

Companies conduct phone surveys to better understand their customer base. Market research data might reveal customer problem issues, consumer preferences, etc.

Market research calls follow a script, so you can outsource them. Outsourcing this function can provide important market insights at a low cost.

conclusion

We hope our information helped you decide whether to outsource call center services. Investing in a BPO call center is a sound business decision. remember to weigh the pros and cons, identify your specific needs, and seek out the best provider for you.

Consider your outsourcing partner an extension of your business. A close partnership strengthens your outsourcing, which benefits your business and customers.

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