Are BPOs and call centers the same?

“He works in a call center.” “He works in a BPO company.” Is there a difference between the two?

BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) and Call Centers are always used interchangeably, but in fact, they are different. BPO is a business strategy that already existed in the 1980s but became widespread during the 1990s until the 2000s. It is a process where companies outsource various business-related activities to external suppliers. It originally only applied to manufacturing units, but now BPO applies to various outsourcing services.

Business process outsourcing is divided into two categories – back office and front office business. Back office services refer to accounting, payment management, IT services, human resources, content management, social media marketing, and other business activities. These services are transferred to external professionals who ensure that the business will run smoothly. Meanwhile, front office services include customer-related services such as technical support, sales, and telemarketing. Many job services are offered through BPO, such as outsourcing of influencer marketing, content management, and outsourced customer service.

A call center is a subcategory of a BPO that mainly focuses on telephone-based processes. It receives and sends large volumes of calls over a telephone. Outsourcing customer support mainly focuses on receiving calls from customers for their questions, complaints, and other issues. It’s called an incoming call. On the other hand, outsourcing of customer service is about CSR, calls for potential customers to offer new products or services. They inform the customers about the products and it is called outgoing. Call center offers services such as invoicing and collection, lead generation (survey generation, meeting settings, and order takers), customer service (manages customer care to solve problems and problems and email support), and technical support (systems technicians and networks) engineers).

BPO and call centers require different skills. Because BPO has different job services, they require higher skills such as excellent communication skills, advanced computer skills, and a high level of education. Customers who need these jobs want their employees to have a degree in the specific area. But sometimes two years in college are enough if the positions require the applicants’ talent and skills. In Call Centers, the basic proficiency requirements are excellent communication skills, good negotiation skills, and basic computer skills. Higher education is usually not required to be a customer service representative (especially telephone calls). The most important factor is excellent communication skills, patience, handling pressure and receptivity to changing hours. Because the main task of customer support is to manage customer care at companies that outsource their customer service, they meet the needs of customers worldwide. Thus, online customer support must always be open around the clock.

To shorten the difference between BPOs and Call Centers, they are some similarities because call centers are part of the outsourcing of business processes. Yet they are different in many areas. The essential part is that outsourcing of various business services and customer care has many benefits that will benefit both companies and outsourcing companies that help run the business, especially for start-ups that have limited resources.

Outsourcing customer service is best done through OnlineFactory.