8 mins read
The early 1990s marked the rise of BPO around the globe, with companies like Coca Cola and Kodak outsourcing their operations to third party entities.
Three decades later, the BPO industry has spread its branches wide across the global market. Modern companies outsource their operations to gain several advantages such as cost savings, scalability, access to expertise, better customer experience etc.
This blog focuses on BPO contact centers systems, exploring how outsourcing your business’s operations can benefit you on various avenues.
What is a BPO Contact Center System?
Contact center systems delegated for specific business functions are known as BPO contact centers. They offer front line communication services to businesses for operations like customer support, marketing and even learning and development. Unlike traditional in-house contact centers, BPO contact centers operate externally and independently, catering to multiple clients.
It’s also essential to understand the difference between BPO contact centers and call centers. A call center focuses on handling calls, whereas a BPO contact center offers a broader range of services.
Such BPO contact centers offer a wide range of services like voice calls, email support, live chat, and social media services. By leveraging BPO contact centers equipped with advanced technology, you can ensure efficient and effective communication with your customers.
Benefits of BPO Contact Centers Systems for Your Business
Irrespective of the type of BPO contact center system you outsource your operations to, there are some common benefits across all industries.
1. Cost Effectiveness
Outsourcing operations to a BPO contact center can lead to significant cost savings for your business. By leveraging specialized expertise and talented professionals from different regions, contact centers can deliver high-quality services at lower costs.
2. Remote Work Friendly
BPO contact centers employ skilled personnel with diverse expertise and skills. They also enable professionals to work from the comfort of their homes. This diversity enables businesses to access a broader range of expertise, specialized skills, and language capabilities.
3. Enhanced Scalability
One of the key upsides of outsourcing your business functions to BPO contact centers is scalability. These contact centers are equipped to handle high call volumes as well as fluctuations, allowing you to scale your business based on your requirements. You can do all that without making significant investments in infrastructure or new recruitment.
4. Focus on Core Business Activities
You can redirect resources and attention towards more strategic initiatives and ROI-centric activities by leveraging on business outsourcing. It enables you to drive innovation, improve core efficiency, and achieve long-term goals faster.
5. Enhanced Customer Experience
BPO contact centers are built to provide superior customer services. With professionals available 24/7, multilingual support, and tailored interactions, contact centers can help your business deliver exceptional customer experiences.
How to Choose the Right BPO Contact Center for Your Business
You must consider several factors when evaluating potential BPO contact centers for your business. One wrong choice can lead to cascading failure in the future:
1. Industry expertise
The first item on the list is relevant experience and expertise in your industry. Understanding your industry dynamics, customer preferences, and regulatory requirements is crucial for delivering tailored services that meet your specific needs.
2. Services offered
Evaluate the range of services the BPO contact center offers you. You must ensure the services align with your business requirements. Whether you need inbound support, sales outreach, technical assistance, or back-office functions, the contact center should be capable of meeting your needs effectively.
3. Technological Advancement
Evaluate the software and other solutions the BPO contact center relies upon to deliver their services. Observe their calling solution, CRM systems, analytical tools, servers, network firewall etc. A balanced technology bundle is essential for delivering seamless and efficient services. The solutions enable integration with your systems and providing real-time insights into customer interactions seamless.
4. Safety Measures
You must prioritize data security and privacy when choosing a BPO contact center. Ensure that the contact center has robust security protocols, compliance certifications, and failsafe measures to protect any leakage of sensitive information and mitigate the associated risks.
5. Cultural Alignment
Partnering with a BPO contact center whose values, work culture, and communication style align with your organization’s ethics is an added benefit. It makes collaboration between both entities smoother, fostering prompt communication, clear goal understanding and a harmonious partnership.
6. Pricing
Evaluate the pricing structures and service level agreements (SLAs) to ensure the contact center has adequate transparency and alignment with your budget constraints. Once you understand the contact center pricing model, look for any additional fees/ charges, to avoid unprecedented expenses.
How to Outsource Operations to a BPO Contact Center System
Outsourcing your operations to a BPO contact center can be strategically advantageous for your business. It helps streamline various processes, enhance customer services, and drive team efficiency. Also, about 93% of organizations have implemented or are planning cloud services for their BPO contact centers worldwide.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can outsource your operations to a BPO contact center:
Step 1: Define Objective
You must define your business objectives before outsourcing the operations. Determine the specific functions you intend to outsource and why. You should also define the desired outcomes you aim to achieve with the collaboration.
Step 2: Evaluate Business Needs
Conduct a thorough evaluation of your operations, identifying areas that you need to outsource to the BPO contact center. Consider factors such as call volume (inbound & outbound), resource allotment, phone service infrastructure and service standards.
Step 3: Research Potential BPO Contact Centers
Research potential BPO contact center vendors based on the factors mentioned above. You must also consider paying office visits if they’re an onshore contact center, request proposals and gather references and reviews from their previous customers.
Step 4: Define Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
Lay out definite service level agreements with the potential BPO contact center vendors. Define the parameters for performance expectations, response time, and other key metrics that hold critical value to your business operations.
Step 5: Establish Communication Channels
Set up efficient communication channels and protocols between your business and the potential BPO contact center vendor. Assign a dedicated POC (point of contact) in your business to ensure smooth communication and valuable collaboration.
Step 6: Align Training and Resources
Plan and schedule learning sessions and required resources for the BPO contact center team to ensure clear understanding of your product/ services, brand values and service standards. Ensure that the delegated team gets access to the required tools, systems and knowledge base to enable seamless service delivery.
Step 7: Integrate Business Systems
Integrate your communication systems with the BPO contact center’s solutions. Successful integration facilitates effortless data transfer and workflow continuity.
Step 8: Review and Optimize
Once the BPO contact center is in place, review the operations and evaluate the performance frequently. Also conduct surveys to gather feedback from your customers to identify improvement areas on both ends (your business and contact center vendor).
Read More: Top 10 KPIs to ensure the success of BPOs
Investing in BPO Contact Centers
We hope this blog post provides you with sufficient information about BPO contact centers. To put it in a nutshell, outsourcing operations to such contact centers gives you the opportunity to save costs on unwanted expenses and resources. You can shift your attention toward enhancing your core functions, ensuring your business flourishes better.
Collaborating with a BPO contact center can allow you to experience the mentioned benefits with minimal risks. To ensure that your BPO contact center performs well, you can check out our hosted contact center solution that was designed to make outsourcing an effortless process.
Book your demo call today.
