Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the practice of outsourcing any business-related operations to third-party vendors. This can be as simple as subcontracting a company to do small administrative tasks or having agencies manage your marketing, IT, logistics, and more. Of course, this can also include overseeing your customer support.
Taking advantage of BPO is excellent for SMEs and big companies, as you can focus on only hiring the workforce required for your core operations. For example, suppose you run a small marketing company; you might not want to invest in dedicated HR personnel to pay wages or taxes. Instead, you can opt for outsourcing these minor tasks to another company, which not only dedicates all of its time to improving its own accounting services, but is also more affordable than hiring an accounting team.
But what about customer support? BPO call centers provide specialized customer agents to handle all inbound tasks – agents even answer calls as if they were part of your company. By providing specific training about your services and allocating agents to answer your requests, the customer won’t even notice the difference. Because of this, it might be the best way for you to offer 24/7 customer support without incurring steep expenses.
Advantages of a BPO Call Center
Lower Costs
While running a contact center has become more affordable in recent times, it can still take a considerable toll on small companies. On top of paying a monthly fee for the service, companies need to hire customer support agents, who cost more than just their salary. You also need to invest in the recruitment process, training, benefits, and more. In fact, it can take up to six months for a company to break even on its investment in a new hire. Meanwhile, BPO call centers only charge a monthly fee that depends on the amount of customer support provided. In other words, you won’t have to invest in human resources or anything else necessary to run a contact center.
More Reliable
When you hire a company to handle customer support, you can be sure it will do its best to be available for the subcontracted time. Since BPO call centers focus on delivering client service to various companies, they have enough agents to help even when there’s an overflow of customer requests, and they invest deeply in their infrastructure to secure 100% uptime.
Disadvantages of a BPO Call Center
Lack of Collaboration
Having your contact center agents working from a third-party office may result in a lack of collaboration between them and your employees. This can be harmful to your customers’ journey and experience, as they might not receive the best support possible. For example, suppose you updated your service and this information didn’t get to the BPO call center. Agents won’t be able to answer customer requests about the update, and they can’t quickly grab the phone to speak with the corresponding department.
Agents’ Focus Might Be Divided
Depending on how much you’re willing to invest, you might not get fully dedicated agents to your service. In these cases, the agent answering your customers will simultaneously handle contacts from other companies. This means that they won’t be completely focused on your business, which can lead to unsatisfied customers. Agents may take longer to respond, provide wrong information due to human error, etc.
Is Investing in a BPO Call Center Worthwhile?
It really depends on what you’re looking for. If you want to provide personal customer support where you have full control over who’s handling requests, then a BPO call center isn’t for you. However, if you own a small business where you need to invest all your earnings into your core service, hiring a BPO call center might be your only option to answer all of your customers’ questions at an affordable price.
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