Introduction
The term BPO and call center is used as alternates in some cases. It happens so often that people may think of these two terms as the same. But you need to understand that they are not the same thing.
They indeed share some similarities in their work but are not the same.
There are some apparent differences between these two terms, and this article will explain them to you.
BPO Services
First, let us get acquainted with the term BPO. BPO stands for business process outsourcing. These companies provide business process services to their clients. So, BPO companies offer different kinds of business services. Their work usually involves the results that are common across organizations. And these can be accounting, financing, marketing, bookkeeping, Customer Care Support Services, etc.
When you hire a BPO service company to handle a specific department's work, all the responsibility falls on that BPO company's shoulders. BPO companies have many benefits. They ensure the quality and efficiency of the task and are ready to provide all kinds of services related to their work. So, in summary, a BPO service company can handle different business processes.
Call Center Services
Now, let's take a look at what call center services refer to. A call center service manages customer/ client queries via call. For example, a Samsung call center in India will handle all Samsung customer queries and complaints in that region.
So, the task of call centers is to take questions and, if needed, route the calls to the person the caller is asking. Usually, all work of a call center is around phone calls. Thus, they are not as diversified as the BPO service providers. Still, we cannot deny some similarities between them.
Difference Between BPO Services and Call Center Services
So, the difference between BPO and Call center service companies can be summarized by pointing out some factors. We have discussed them below.
Requirement of Knowledge
The first difference comes in the requirement of knowledge of the two types of businesses. The BPO service company employees require more understanding than the employees of the call center company. The BPO service company employee requires basic computer knowledge. But in some cases, the employees need more skills.
For example, if it is for a marketing task, then the BPO employees will require knowledge of photoshop and illustrator. Thus, if you hire a BPO company for bookkeeping, the employees must know accounting and finance to do the work. Of course, an employee cannot process all knowledge. Hence, the BPO company must keep experts from different subjects on board to undertake other orders.
On the other hand, the call center company employees will also require basic computer knowledge and customer query handling. But if you compare them, the BPO company will need more ability to run their business.
Variety
The work of BPO companies has more variety than that of a call center company. The call center companies undertake the work of a customer call center department. So, companies hire them to handle all customer queries for them. And they are not required to take any more than that.
But on the other hand, a BPO company does more than that. A BPO company can undertake the work of a call center. But they can also launch the task of bookkeeping, marketing, data entry, research conducting, payroll creation, auditing, and many more. So, BPO companies provide more diversified services than call center companies.
Work Division
By work division, we are referring to the division of front-end and back-end. The front-end division includes basic office management tasks and customer handling tasks. The back-end work division has functions of data entry, bookkeeping, payroll management, and all internal affairs of an organization.
The BPO companies work on both the front-end and back-end. Thus, they require more knowledge and have to make their service more diversified. On the other hand, the call center companies handle the front-end division only. They are limited to working on responding to customer queries and complaints.
Service Level
You can easily guess that a BPO company provides a higher level of service than a call center company. A BPO service company handles front-end and back-end work divisions and provides diversified services.
On the other hand, a call center company only handles customer queries and complaints. Thus, they provide a lower level of services.
Functionality
The functionality of a BPO service company is much higher than a call center company. You can hire and deploy BPO service companies for different business processes. You can hire them for your accounting department. Additionally, you can hire them for your very different marketing department. So, you can hire a BPO service company to take over a call center's responsibility.
On the other hand, a call center company can only be used to serve as a customer call center department. They can only handle customer queries and complaints. You cannot hire a call center company to handle any back-end function of your business. But a BPO service company can manage the back-end functions. So, a BPO company has more functionality than a call center company.
Conclusion
So those were the main differences between a BPO company and a call center company. Let us summarize it once again. A BPO service company provides front-end and back-end services and is diverse for different business functions. They can be used as an alternative to a call center outsourcing company.
But a call center company cannot provide business process services other than handling customer queries and complaints. Thus, they cannot be an alternative to the BPO service companies. That is all there is to it.