What is a BPO Call Center?

As your business grows and begins bringing in more customers, scaling up can be a time-consuming process that leads to a drop off in customer satisfaction.

That’s where BPO call centers come in.

Consider this Deloitte report on the industry, which found that 59% of companies cite outsourcing as a cost-cutting tool and the primary reason they embrace a BPO center. Using a BPO call center allowed respondents to:

• Focus on their core business (57%)
• Address capacity issues (47%)
• Enhance service quality (31%)
• Access intellectual capital (28%)

What’s more, BPO contact center services have been proven to drive revenue growth, making them an ideal solution for a company on the rise.

There’s a lot to be gained from making use of a BPO company.

But before we get into the specifics of what your business stands to gain by partnering with a BPO call center, let’s first answer the fundamental question: what is a BPO call center?

BPO stands for business process outsourcing. Essentially, BPO companies will handle aspects of your business operations that you don’t have the resources available to properly address.

A BPO call center provides support for:

• Call center outsourcing
• Inbound and outbound customer calls
• Customer service calls
• And more

With its ability to scale quickly and precisely with a growing business’s demands, the BPO industry has seen an explosion in value and use cases. The global market for outsourced services doubled to over $90 billion from 2000-2019.

Let’s break down the composite services BPO call centers offer and how they can boost your business’s productivity.

Call Center Outsourcing

While many will use call centers and BPO interchangeably, there’s actually a subtle but important difference.

Typically a call center is primarily focused on telecommunications exclusively, like customer service calls – while call centers and BPOs can offer a wider range of services beyond that.

One of the most popular forms of BPO services is call center service – so it’s easy to get these terms mixed up.

BPO, as it relates to call centers, will usually encompass a number of customer-facing interactions alongside customer service, like:

• Customer support
• Technical support
• Sales support
• Customer experience
• And more

In other words, a BPO call center can handle a variety of your business functions.

Call centers with BPO supplementary services can also significantly boost revenue through customer retention.

Consider that 62% of customers using call centers have switched to a competitor due to superior customer service, according to a Gladly study. While customer attrition (losing customers over time) is part of every business, great customer service can help to mitigate this significantly – and that’s where skilled BPO call centers come in.

 

Customer Service Calls

Narrowing it down a little further, customer service calls are a huge part of what BPOs typically offer.

Many call centers handle:

• All telephone calls for customer support
• Front office duties
• Technical support
• And more

Essentially, a BPO can manage your customer service calls, providing the human resources (and tech-based software and tools) so you can handle higher call volumes, or simply to free up human capital to refocus efforts on other important tasks.

A skilled call center can also increase customer satisfaction (by decreasing wait times via automated software like AI) and a large pool of customer service agents – all while decreasing operating costs as well.

Cost-Cutting Measures Not the Only Priority

But current industry trends don’t just focus purely on cutting costs – with a shift in priorities more towards overall customer service and customer satisfaction.

A Gartner study found that two-thirds of companies are now directly focusing on customer experience as a main differentiating factor between competing businesses, opposed to 36% in 2010.

And for good reason, as this effort is paying dividends: 84% of companies that work to improve their customer experience report a revenue increase.

A BPO contact center will help boost customer satisfaction by offering a number of services and products that can help modernize your business’s customer experience.

 

Inbound and Outbound Calls

You’re almost always looking to grow your customer base. After all, more customers means more revenue.

But getting leads and nurturing them into sales can be a long, time-consuming process. It requires attention to detail, personable and dedicated sales associates, and in most cases, a healthy mix of inbound and outbound sales efforts.

A quick definition of the terms:

• Inbound sales is where a lead originates from a potential customer contacting your business to inquire about a product or service
• Outbound marketing is a lead gained by directly contacting a potential customer who has yet to express interest in your business’s product or service

Depending on a number of factors including industry, company size, marketing strategy, etc., your business may benefit more from one than the other. (You can even use BPO digital agents to boost sales)

In most instances, these two sales tactics work best in tandem.

Some BPO companies will offer these services on top of customer service management, which is pretty much universal.

With a proficient BPO, you’ll be able to:

• Retain customers through higher satisfaction rates
• Increase customer lifetime value by cross-selling existing customers
• Automate many of your customer service processes, reducing wait times
• Modernize your process with software and tools, like AI technology and other innovations
• Secure new clients through inbound and outbound calls

How to Boost Your Business with a BPO Contact Center in 2023

Now that we understand what a BPO call center is and the different services it can offer, let’s take a brief look at what it can do to improve and optimize your business in 2023.

With customer service being of the utmost importance for modern businesses, BPO call centers can help you:

• Generate sales-qualified leads with outbound/inbound calls
• Retain customers throughs superior customer service
• Boost ROI with cost-effective automated support services like chatbots
• Provide expert live agents to supplement your team
• Easily scale up alongside your business as it grows

 

A BPO Call Center that Grows Your Business

So now that we have an answer to ‘what is a BPO call center’, it’s time to put that knowledge into practice.

If your business is growing fast and needs a scalable and reliable BPO partner, Humach is ready to help.

We are an industry-leading business services and technology partner that understands your business and offers flexible pricing models to help you achieve your goals.

We will custom-build a plan for your business so you can make use of any or all of the services we offer, including:

• Outbound and inbound call support
• AI-powered digital agents
• Omnichannel support across all your customer service touchpoints
• Humach Labs – which allows you to test your new call center solutions before you implement them
• And much more

A leader in business process outsourcing for over the last 33 years, we’re completely committed to customer service excellence. From on-premise agents with world-class software, to remote agents and advanced technology solutions – Humach is here to empower your business for growth. Contact us today to find out more.