BPO stands for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), the practice of outsourcing aspects of your business’s operation to a third-party vendor or service provider. Using BPO for a contact center can provide you with a team of outsourced agents who handle customer interactions for other businesses regardless of channel – voice, chat, SMS, and social.
Why would a contact center need to consider BPO?
Many organizations are struggling with employee attrition and headcount, and that includes the contact center. It can be difficult and costly for an organization to hire, train, and retain quality agents. Without BPO, you are likely working with multiple staffing agencies, managing job postings on several employment sites, and dealing with recruiters and their fees, not to mention navigating the interview process. Not only does that take a substantial amount of your organization’s time, but you run the risk of those agents failing—and then you’re back spending more time and money to replace that headcount to keep business running as usual.
If any of these issues resonate with you, it may be a good time to look into BPO:
- High operating costs per agent (could be costs in a specific geographic location, costs of benefits to retain talent)
- High internal attrition and/or difficulty obtaining skilled labor
- Need to scale quickly or seasonally (retail clients needing to increase headcount ahead of the holidays or a big sale season)
- Need to staff for after-hours or peak hours
- Issues with customer service experience or quality
- The desire to expand into channels your agents aren’t skilled in, for example chat or social media-based channels
- Wanting to increase hours of operation: think 24×7 or providing service in other languages
What are the benefits?
With BPO, you get:
- Predictable costs
- Guaranteed headcount
- The ability to scale quickly for holidays, after hours, and peak times
- The ability to scale into channels your customers might want but your agents don’t have access to.
How much would it all cost?
There are two components of BPO:
- Hourly per agent fee, which ranges in price dependent on your needs and level of expertise
- Implementation fees, which include setting up technical integrations and training the agents.
BPO can end up being less expensive than the traditional model when accounting for expenses tied to acquiring and retaining a traditional agent, such as benefits, recruiting and training costs, and incentives to hold the agent.
Working with vCom to get the best option.
For years vCom has been helping our customers manage their technology and sourcing needs. Now we can help solve your human capital needs as well.
vCom’s team of agnostic advisors can help narrow down the list of our BPO partners to find the few that will best fit your specific needs. From there, it’s up to you to pick your favorite and start selecting your agents. It’s a faster and less expensive way for you to make sure you’re getting the best in the business. And if you’re a vCom customer, you already have access to our subject matter experts. Just reach out and we can have this set up for you in a matter of days.
Still want to learn more? Catch our newest Braindrop podcast: Why Should Your Company Consider BPO for your Contact Center?
