Meeting customer expectations can be challenging for any business, irrespective of its size and industry. Despite having the resources and the skill to meet customer needs, a business can still struggle to optimize its customer service, trying to keep the waiting period short and resolving issues faster. A BPO can help deliver quality call center services without taking up any of your resources. This allows the business to focus on its core functions, like product development and marketing.
Business Process Outsourcing is a business or call center that handles your call center services to improve customer relationships without taking any of your time or resources. From small startups to large corporations, many companies choose to outsource their processes to grow and be successful in today’s ever-changing and highly competitive business environment.
What is a BPO call center?
A BPO Call Center is a group of employees who work with companies that outsource customer service. The majority of BPO centers act as simultaneous agents for many organizations, ensuring that anyone who contacts them believes they are communicating with the organizations’ official representatives. These agents are well-informed about the products or services of the organization and highly skilled in handling a wide range of inquiries and complaints.
Services offered by a BPO call center
BPO call centers handle inbound call center outsourcing services and outbound call center outsourcing services. Inbound services involve responding to customer calls and messages, while outbound services refer to actively engaging with existing and potential customers. Let us look at the various services offered under each category.
Inbound Services
The main inbound services offered by BPO call centers are:
1. Answer support questions: An inbound call center service is required by businesses that sell complex goods or services to explain their features and advantages to clients. Mostly, small organizations choose to outsource this task to BPO due to financial constraints. On the other hand, large organizations usually have internal departments devoted to handling consumer inquiries.
2. Provide dispatch services: Some businesses routinely get calls from clients asking for a particular service. A common example is a taxi company that connects customers to available taxis. Rather than hiring full-time employees to handle dispatch services, some organizations that provide such services prefer to outsource to BPO call centers.
3. Process orders by phone: For organizations that offer their customers the option to order by phone, a team of experts answers the phone and guides them through the entire purchasing process. These agents go beyond answering calls to enter customer information into the company’s database, record payments, and send orders to the shipping department. This eliminates the need to set up new departments and, at the same time, provides the flexibility needed during busy periods such as the holiday season.
Outbound Services
BPO call centers provide the following outbound services to their clients:
1. Conduct telemarketing activities: Some organizations outsource their telemarketing operations to BPO call centers as it provides an excellent opportunity to generate more sales.
2. Conduct telesales: Persuading prospects to buy a product or service requires skill. Businesses that cannot hire and train a competent telesales team use the skilled and experienced agents of a BPO call center to handle telesales.
3. Conduct market research: Some companies attempt to learn how existing and potential customers view their products and services by making phone calls or conducting surveys. Outsourcing this task to a BPO call center is easier for the business, as the agents make calls and ask some pre-designed questions.
Pros and cons of a BPO call center
BPO call centers adopt the latest technologies and practices to improve their processes. There are many benefits to outsourcing customer service to BPO, but at the same time, there are some disadvantages as well. Let us understand the various pros and cons of BPO call center services.
Pros of a BPO call center
Reduces costs: Typically, businesses that employ BPO contact centers do so because it is much less expensive than setting up and maintaining an effective customer service department. Businesses also reduce their operations costs by outsourcing activities to nations with lower income taxes and cheaper labor costs.
Provides uninterrupted support: BPO services are available in multiple geographic locations and time zones, making it easy to provide 24/7 support.
Eliminates hiring and training: Outsourcing customer service reduces the workload of the company’s human resources department as most call centers have a high employer turnover rate and new hires require extensive training on the client company’s products and services.
Cons of a BPO call center
Security risks: There is a possibility of a data breach when working with a BPO. To ensure data security, you must ensure the BPO follows the required protocols and also has proper certifications.
Communication issues: Call center agents from other countries may face language and communication problems even with scripts. This can be avoided by properly analyzing the BPO before outsourcing services to them.
Incomplete information: Sometimes BPO call center agents may not have complete information about the company policies and the product or services offered by the company. This can be a hindrance in providing effective customer service. This can be avoided by providing product knowledge and updates through the learning material.
Conclusion
Every business does not have the resources to deliver the level of IT competence that customers want, maintain minimal wait times, or promptly handle tickets. The most effective course of action in this situation is to hire professionals from a BPO call center. BPO can reduce costs, boost productivity, and offer flexibility for businesses.
Outsourcing Business Solutions has an experienced team of professionals with multi-platform knowledge and experience across various industry segments to meet your diverse call center outsourcing needs. Our call center team has extensive experience in accent neutralization, problem understanding, customer empathy, and documentation skills. Contact us today for your call center outsourcing service needs.