A BPO call center is a company that helps other businesses by handling their customer service calls. They have trained staff who answer questions and solve problems on behalf of the business that hires them.
Is your business getting more calls than your team can handle? It’s high time that you took help from a BPO call center.
It is a fact that not every company has enough staff, the right tools, or the skills to provide fast customer service. In today’s times, when customers expect a response within 15 minutes, this can be hard for small businesses or startups.
So, what’s the solution? Here, a BPO call center can take over your inbound and outbound calls. It can make sure your customers get quick and professional support.
Want to know more? In this article, let’s understand BPO call center meaning and see what all services a BPO provides.
What Do You Mean by a BPO Call Center?
A BPO call center is a team of customer service agents. They help different businesses by handling their calls. Usually, these agents work for multiple companies at the same time. However, they make sure customers feel like they are speaking directly to the company they are calling.
Most call center BPO agents are well-trained and possess a deep understanding of a company’s products and services. This knowledge allows them to give accurate answers to customer questions.
What Services Does a BPO Call Center Provide?
As mentioned above, a BPO call center handles customer calls of your business. Now, these calls can be divided into:
- Incoming calls (inbound services)
- Outgoing calls (outbound services)
Based on your agreement, a call center BPO can easily handle both these types of calls. Let’s see how:
A) Inbound Services (Receiving Calls from Customers)
While handling inbound calls, a BPO call center offers the following services:
- Answering Support Questions
Some companies sell complicated products or services that customers may need help with. While large companies have their own customer support teams, smaller businesses do not have enough staff. Instead, they hire a BPO call center to answer customer questions and provide assistance.
- Providing Dispatch Services
Some businesses (like taxi companies) need to connect quickly with customers. A BPO call center handles this by answering customer calls and coordinating services (such as booking a taxi or scheduling a repair). This allows companies to avoid hiring full-time staff for dispatch services.
- Processing Orders by Phone
Some businesses allow customers to place orders over the phone. Here, a BPO call center performs the following tasks:
- Takes these orders
- Enter customer details into the system
- Process payments
- Send order information to the shipping team
Such services particularly help companies that experience high order volumes during busy seasons.
B) Outbound Services (Making Calls to Customers)
While handling outbound calls, a BPO call center offers the following services:
- Handling Telemarketing
Telemarketing is when businesses call potential customers to promote their products or services. Instead of hiring your own telemarketing team, you can use a BPO call center to handle these calls and generate sales.
- Doing Telesales
Telesales is the process of selling products directly over the phone. Here, BPO call center agents perform the following activities:
- Call potential customers
- Explain the benefits of the product
- Try to convince them to buy (persuasion)
As a business owner, if you don’t have the time or resources to train a sales team, you can outsource this job to a BPO call center.
- Performing Market Research
You must understand what your customers think about your products or services. One way to do this is through surveys over the phone. Usually, a BPO call center:
- Calls customers
- Ask them pre-written questions
- Collect their answers
To boost sales and increase customer experience (CX), you can outsource market research to leading agencies like Atidiv. Our expert team at Atidiv specialises in data-driven outsourcing solutions and allows your business to scale!
Advantages of a BPO Call Center
If you own a small business and do not have the budget or ability to handle customer service on a large scale, outsourcing to a BPO call center can be a great solution. Let’s check out some key benefits of using a call center BPO:
1. Reduces Costs
Hiring and managing an in-house customer service team can be expensive. As a business owner, you need to:
- Recruit employees
- Train them
- Buy new software
- Keep upgrading their technology as they grow
All of this adds up quickly and impacts your profits! By hiring a BPO call center, you can let them take care of these expenses. These agencies have trained agents, the right tools, and advanced technology to handle customer service.
When you outsource to a BPO, you pay a fixed fee or a cost based on the number of calls handled by agents. This makes it easier to budget customer service expenses. Also, you are no longer required to build a customer support department from scratch!
2. Provides 24/7 Customer Support
Some industries (healthcare, hotels, transportation, and utilities) need customer service available 24/7. Customers might need help at any time of day, especially if a company serves people in different time zones. For your hiring staff to work around the clock can be difficult and expensive.
A BPO call center solves this problem by offering customer support at all hours (including nights, weekends, and holidays). Many BPOs also have agents in different countries, so businesses can provide support in multiple languages.
Even if no agents are available at a certain time, BPO call centers use digital tools like chatbots and automated ticketing systems to help customers.
3. No Need to Constantly Hire and Train Employees
By outsourcing customer service to a BPO call center, you can save your HR department from constantly hiring and training new employees. Please note that call centers often have a high employee turnover. This requires companies to frequently replace staff and provide extensive training on their products and services.
You can avoid these problems by hiring a BPO call center. It will handle recruitment, training, and ensure a skilled team is always available to assist customers.
Disadvantages of a BPO Call Center
Outsourcing customer service to a BPO call center creates issues like:
- Communication barriers
- Lack of product knowledge
- Security risks
However, these problems can often be managed with the right precautions. Still, let’s have a look at some of the main drawbacks of working with a BPO call center:
1. Communication Issues with Customers
If a BPO call center is located in another country, some agents may have trouble communicating clearly with customers. Even if they follow a script, there are chances of misunderstandings, due to differences in:
- Language,
- Accents
- Cultural understanding can sometimes cause
This can lead to customer frustration and lower satisfaction. To avoid this, carefully choose a BPO provider that has agents fluent in the required language. Before partnering, you can even test the agents’ communication skills.
2. Limited Product and Company Knowledge
Unlike your in-house customer service teams, BPO call center agents will not work directly within your company. This means they may not have complete knowledge about your company’s products, services, or internal processes.
In such cases, if customers ask complex questions, the agents might struggle to provide accurate answers. This leads to poor service. To solve this problem, you should regularly provide BPO agents with:
- Updated learning materials
- Product training
- Detailed FAQs
3. Security Risks
As a business owner, when you work with a BPO call center, you must share important customer information, such as:
- Names
- Phone numbers
- Addresses
If the BPO call center does not have strong security measures, this data could be at risk of being stolen or misused. Such a data breach can damage your company’s reputation and harm customer trust.
To reduce security risks, you should only share the necessary information with the BPO call center. Also, choose a provider that follows strict security protocols and has necessary certifications to protect customer data.
Use a BPO and Deliver Excellent Customer Service
A recent study predicts the global call center outsourcing market to grow by over $14 billion between 2020 and 2025. That’s largely because companies have realised that delivering exceptional customer service is the key to business success.
By hiring a BPO call center, you can boost CX by letting them handle your business’s inbound and outbound calls. Hiring them offers you several benefits like:
- 24/7 support to your customers
- Reduced hiring efforts
- Access to skilled agents
This allows you to focus on more core operations. Want to boost your customer service? At Atidiv, we offer data-driven outsourcing solutions to help your business scale seamlessly. Partner with Atidiv today!
FAQs On BPO Call Center
1. How can a BPO call center reduce my business costs?
Hiring and managing an in-house customer support team is expensive. You must pay for salaries, training, software, and equipment. A BPO call center already has trained agents and technology. So, you only pay for the services you need. This saves money and allows you to focus on growing your business.
2. Will outsourcing customer service affect my brand’s reputation?
If you choose the right BPO call center, it won’t. Professional call centers train their agents to represent your brand just like an in-house team would. Still, to maintain quality, you can provide them with:
- Regular training
- Important FAQs
- Product updates
This will allow agents to offer accurate information and excellent customer service.
3. What if my customers need support 24/7?
Hiring employees for round-the-clock service is costly. A cheaper alternative is a BPO call center that provides 24/7 support (including nights, weekends, and holidays). Some even have multilingual agents for global customers. This ensures your customers always get help when they need it.
4. How can I ensure my customer data is secure with a BPO?
It is a fact that data security is a big concern when outsourcing. To manage this problem, you can choose a BPO provider with strong security measures, such as:
- Encryption
- Secure servers
- Compliance with data protection laws
Also, share only necessary information and ask about their certifications to ensure your customer data remains safe.
5. Will BPO agents understand my products and services?
Please understand that BPO agents don’t work inside your company. Hence, they may need extra training. To ensure they have the right knowledge, you should provide detailed product guides and FAQs.
