What Is Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)?

Business process outsourcing, or BPO, subcontracts some business functions to a third-party company. The contracted company performs the work on behalf of the other business just as they would if they were direct business employees. 

Customers calling into a BPO call center don’t know they are talking to a third party handling the business’s inquiries. Large organizations such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Verizon have hired BPOs. 

Outsourcing customer service to call centers can reduce costs and improve your bottom line. 

Benefits of Business Process Outsourcing

Many business leaders turn to BPO for some of their business functions because of the cost savings. Nowadays, many businesses hire BPOs specializing in call centers to handle all of their customer service needs. 

Consumers today have higher expectations than ever before when it comes to customer service. Savvy business leaders understand the importance of providing exceptional customer service, so they contract with a call center experienced in delivering first-call customer service. 

Here are some of the benefits of BPO:

• Reduced cost – When a company hires a third-party call center, especially one overseas, there’s a huge cost savings. Outsourcing the customer service functions to a call center saves the company on additional overhead, payroll cost, and taxes if they were to handle it in-house. They also avoid the need to purchase and maintain extra operations costs like software and communication equipment. 
• Improve efficiency – When executives and other staff are not spending time and energy handling customer service needs, they can focus on the core business functions to improve efficiency. The additional time allows a business leader to plan business growth strategically. 
• Advanced talent pool – Let’s face it, there are a lot of moving parts and functions to run a business successfully. Sometimes specific tasks require a higher skill set you may not have on staff. Hiring BPOs allows a company to have access to the talent they need to get the job done for less money. 
• Availability – Consumers want customer service agents to be available to help them when needed. Many customers will reach out to a company for assistance after standard business hours. To be competitive in the market, companies need to step up and be available during these times. Call centers typically are available 24/7/365 to service your customers. 
• Omni-channel – The days of only contacting a company by phone are gone. In today's tech-savvy world, customers want access to service through whichever channel they prefer. Many call centers offer customer service through a multitude of channels, including phone, SMS, email, online chat, and social media. 
• Multilingual support – Most BPOs will have multilingual staff that can care for your clients in their fluent language. 
• Quality – BPOs focus on providing excellent service to their contracted clients and their clients' customers. They have dedicated teams that a manager oversees to ensure they deliver the highest quality of service. 

Industries That Benefit From BPO

From small mom and pops to large Fortune 100 companies, almost any business could benefit from hiring a BPO company. Outsourcing one or many business functions helps an organization get the job done successfully without breaking the bank. 

Here’s a list of industries that benefit most from hiring BPOs:

The Tech Industry 

Many of the tech giants have turned to BPO services to offload some of their work. Technology and telecommunications businesses are some of the primary users of call centers for customer service. 

These companies rely on call centers to service their customers' needs while they focus on more pressing and strategic work in-house. Some of the functions they pass onto a call center to handle are general customer support, tech issues, and payment/billing matters.

Some tech and telecommunications businesses also choose to rely on BPO services for back-office duties such as data entry or order entry. These tasks are often simple but time-consuming, so rather than tying up their payrolled team with these duties, they outsource it. 

The Financial Industry 

The financial industry hires BPO services for various tasks, including marketing, accounting, payroll, and human resources. While the company may have the skillset on staff to handle some of these functions, they can choose to outsource. Passing the torch on some functions allows their in-house professionals to focus on more complex tasks that add to the company's success. 

Many financial institutions hire call centers to care for their customers, as they understand the importance of delivering excellent service to retain their clientele. When they crunch the numbers, it just makes financial sense. 

The Healthcare Industry 

The healthcare industry is one of the top users of BPO call centers. There are a lot of branches of healthcare, including hospitals, doctor’s offices, surgeons, specialists, and more. Many of these organizations have a high volume of patient inquiries that take a large team of staff members to handle.

Outsourcing non-urgent tasks like basic customer service, healthcare facilities can focus on providing excellent care to patients who are in the office. A call center can take inbound calls from customers to book appointments, answer general questions, and accept payments. 

Many call centers also make outbound calls for the healthcare industry for appointment setting, collecting payment, or getting additional information. Some will also send and collect surveys, compile the data, and supply it to organization leaders so they can see how their on-site team is performing and satisfying the needs of patients. 

The healthcare industry also includes pharmaceutical companies, which have turned to BPO services to handle many business functions like sales, customer service, and manufacturing. 

The Travel and Hospitality Industry 

The travel and hospitality industry is huge, as it includes a wide range of companies such as airlines, cruise lines, hotels, resorts, auto rental, private transportation, and tour operators. Many of these companies hire BPO call centers to take all of their inbound customer service calls. 

The call center agents provide updates to bookings, make necessary changes to existing bookings, help with cancellations, take payments, and process upgrades, among many, many other tasks.

The Utility Industry

The utility industry is used by every home and business, making utility companies have an extensive customer database. With so many customers comes a ton of customer inquiries. 

Utility companies hire BPO call centers to handle all of their customer service functions. The call center agents will manage things like billing issues, payments, start and stop service, account transfers, other customer inquiries.

The Retail and eCommerce Industry

Retail and eCommerce businesses are other users of BPO call centers. Some of these companies are very large with a high volume of customer service calls, while others are small but want to focus their in-house staff on operations. Both find outsourcing customer service functions to a BPO provider extremely beneficial. 

The small companies don’t have the workforce to successfully handle all of the business functions, including marketing, business development, and fulfillment, and then also take all the customer service inquiries. 

Outsourcing to a call center allows their business to be available to their customers 24/7 through all of the common channels without burning out their smaller staff.

Common BPO services

There are a variety of business functions commonly outsourced. BPO companies typically specialize in one or a few services. 

When searching for a BPO service, be sure to choose one that is an expert in the tasks you want to outsource. You wouldn’t call a plumber to do electrical work, and you don’t hire a BPO that only specializes in tech support when you need bill collection. 

Here is a list of common services offered by BPO services:

1. Inbound and outbound call center for customer support, sales, and lead generation
2. IT-enabled service 
3. Accounting 
4. Payroll
5. Human Resources
6. Business process automation 
7. Tech support
8. Marketing 
9. App and website development 
10. Data entry
11. Order entering/processing

Benefits of BPO Call Centers

One thing is certain: There are many benefits to outsourcing work to a BPO service. 

Hiring a third-party company to help you get the job done successfully for less money? It’s a no-brainer. 

Many businesses find customer service is one of their busiest and most time-consuming functions. Without a doubt, customer service is necessary and extremely important for any business. 

Because of this, many businesses find that outsourcing inbound and outbound inquiries to a call center is the best choice for their company. Call center duties are one of the top tasks handled by BPO companies. 

Customers are the lifeline to a company. Without a steady stream of customers, a business cannot thrive. The most successful companies focus on providing an exceptional customer experience, which includes personalized service. 

The truth is, good customer service is a company's best asset. When your customers are taken care of and satisfied with the products and service, you can be sure they will return. While there may be a lot of choices a consumer can choose to buy from, they are likely to purchase from a company they can trust to provide excellent care, even if it costs more. 

When you outsource your customer service to a BPO call center, you can feel confident knowing that they specifically specialize in customer service. It’s what they do best. To retain you as a client, they go above and beyond to quickly satisfy your customers’ needs quickly. 

When your customers get friendly, efficient service no matter the time of day and no matter which channel they use, they will leave feeling satisfied and cared for. This level of care is what commonly separates top companies from struggling ones. 

With that being said, if you want to grow your business, you must focus on providing an exceptional customer experience. If you do nothing else to bring in revenue, do that and watch the line graph move in the right direction. 

A happy customer satisfied with your service will become loyal to your brand or possibly even a brand advocate doing quite a bit of marketing for you. They may refer friends and family to your business and write positive reviews online. Awesome, right? All it takes is a little effort and a customer-first mindset.

What To Look For in a BPO Call Center

When looking for a company to hire for some of your business functions, you want to be cautious. This company will be communicating with your customers, so it must go right. Keep in mind, not every BPO service is created equal. 

Shopping for a BPO service by price might sink your profits faster than you think. You want to be sure you find a quality company that takes pride in its work and can handle the huge task of serving your clients successfully. 

Here are some tips to keep in mind when choosing a BPO service:

Quality Assurance 

First and foremost, you want to be sure the BPO company you choose as a call center provides the quality service your customers expect. The BPO service should provide you with a dedicated team, including a dedicated manager responsible for overseeing the operations to ensure your customers get quality service consistently. 

It’s a smart idea to look at their track record and past performances to be sure their words are backed up by actions. Check to ensure they have the skill set you need and the number of agents needed to handle your call volume. 

Technology and Equipment 

When searching for a BPO company with a call center, you’ll want to ask about the technology and equipment they have to ensure it meets your needs. Staying up to date with technology is costly, so you’ll find companies that don’t have the same capabilities as others.

Leadership and Culture

A business is only as good as the people in it. Meet with the leaders of the organization to see how you vibe with them. You don’t need to be best friends with the people within the company, but you should have similar cultures, work ethics, and attitudes to build a great working relationship.

A call center should model the culture of your organization while connecting with customers. For example, if your customers are primarily millennials, an upbeat and friendly agent with an easygoing but professional way of doing things is the best way to engage. 

Conversely, older target audiences prefer polite agents that make time for a little small talk, usually with a calmer demeanor than the “get it done fast” pace that millennials prefer. 

Company culture is important, as it’s the way individuals within the company work together and experience work every day. A positive company culture that includes encouraging others, acknowledgment of good work, goal setting, and making little time for fun adds to the employees’ happiness. 

Work doesn’t have to be serious and stale, especially in this modern age of prioritizing employees as people first.

When call center agents are happy at work and feel appreciated and valued, it shows through their work – increasing the chance of successfully satisfying your customers’ needs. 

Be sure the BPO company values its employees and provides a positive work environment that aligns with your own company’s values. 

Statistics 

Check out the call statistics from the BPO company’s past. In the world of call centers, call statistics matter.

Check to see the averages of how long the hold time was and how many calls dropped. If they send out surveys to customers to rate their service, check out the scores. 

Be sure the company you choose provides five-star service consistently. 

Availability and Flexibility

Check to see if the BPO company has the availability you need.

• What hours and days are they not available? 
• What hours are they available for meetings to get updates and feedback? 
• Do they offer flexibility with their services? 
• Are they able to handle any specialized project you have? 
• Can you provide custom scripts for the agents to use?

Growth Potential 

As your business grows, you want to be sure the BPO company you choose can scale with you. Check to be sure they can expand when needed. If hyper-growth is what you’re aiming for, discuss this with the BPO company to ensure they are the right fit for your business. 

In Summary

Hiring a BPO provider as a call center for your business is an excellent way to increase efficiency and lower costs, but not all BPO providers are created equal. 

When shopping for a call center to handle your customer service, be picky. 

The call center will be the voice of your company in the eyes of your customers, so they should match your company culture. Your call center team should be friendly, professional, and efficient to service your customers and provide totally awesome service that will leave your customers coming back for more. 

Are you ready to reap the sweet benefits of BPO services? If so, contact Awesome CX today, and we’ll show you the way! 

Sources:

Customers Will Pay More For This | Forbes

Understanding Customer Experience | HBR

10 Small Business Functions That Can Be Easily Outsourced | SBA