4 Benefits of Hiring a BPO Company

In this increasingly global economy, geographical boundaries pose less of a barrier to professional partnerships than ever.

This connection expands the marketplace for every company but also increases the number of competitors you and your team have vying for the attention of your target client base.

To keep up and remain agile in your marketplace, you and your team need to ensure that the auxiliary functions of your business run just as smoothly as your core functions.

For instance, recent Salesforce research found that 79% of business buyers and 69% of consumers have made purchasing decisions based on the quality of their customer experience with the vendor. Though customer service is not a core business function, it clearly affects companies’ abilities to maintain and expand their customer bases.

If you’re looking to scale up auxiliary business activities without significantly growing your overhead costs, bringing in a BPO company to help may be the right decision.

Hiring a BPO service provider can bring significant cost savings, increased efficiency, improved focus on core business activities, specialized expertise, and scalability to a company. These benefits make BPO an attractive option for businesses of all sizes looking to improve their operations and bottom line.

What is Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)?

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the practice of outsourcing certain business functions to a third-party service provider.

BPO companies provide various outsourcing services, including both front-office and back-office functions. Front-office functions are customer-facing activities such as customer service and sales, while back-office functions are administrative tasks like data entry and accounting.

When outsourcing work to a BPO service provider, you should be able to tailor the engagement to the specific needs of your business.

In a typical BPO engagement, you’ll have an account manager who you’ll work with to define the level of support, number of resources, competencies covered, and other specifics of the engagement. As your business needs change, you should be able to come back and rework this agreement.

BPO Services Examples

There are several services that outsourcing companies can handle.

These types of BPO services include:

• Contact Center/Call Center Services
• Customer Support
• Data Management
• Managed IT Services
• Payroll/Accounting
• Human Resources Services
• Digital Marketing
• Social Media Management
• Automation

This list of outsourced functions is certainly not all-encompassing. Rather, there are many competencies not listed here that BPO service providers large and small can take on for you and your team.

Why Hire a BPO Company?

With the number of business needs a BPO firm can meet, it’s probably easy to envision where one would fit within the organizational infrastructure of your company. However, the wealth of benefits of partnering with a BPO company may be less apparent to you.

Here are 4 major reasons that business leaders such as yourself will cite when hiring a BPO company:

1. BPO services offer scalability
2. BPO firms let your in-house team focus on their primary responsibilities
3. BPO companies provide lower costs than hiring new employees internally
4. BPO partners extend your remote service across time zones

Read on for an in-depth look into how these reasons can translate to tangible benefits for your business.

1. BPO Services Offer Scalability

Particularly if you lead a startup or small business, operational growth represents a significant victory for your business and a potential roadblock for the day-to-day efficiency of your processes.
Hiring new full-time employees is hardly a quick fix to keep up with this growth.

A recent study from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that the average time to fill an open position is 36 days. From there, you’ll need to onboard and train any new employees to ensure their quality of work is up to your team’s standards.

BPO companies, on the other hand, often can scale their services to meet the needs of a company as it grows. This can be especially beneficial for small and medium-sized businesses that may not have the resources to handle all the functions in-house.

The scalability benefits of BPOs are rooted in data. Nearly 20% of companies with staffs of 251 to 500 people primarily use outsourcing to help grow their operations, according to a 2021 Clutch survey.

By leveraging the existing staff of BPO companies, you can take advantage of scalability capabilities that would be difficult to replicate in-house.

2. BPO Firms Let In-House Teams Focus on Primary Responsibilities

Another advantage of using a BPO service provider is letting your internal team focus on core business activities.

By outsourcing non-core functions, companies can free up resources and personnel to focus on their core competencies. This can lead to increased productivity and improved performance in key business areas.

BPO companies also bring expertise and experience that can be difficult for a single company to match.

They have teams of trained and experienced professionals in specific areas such as customer relations, data entry, CRM management, or accounting. This can help a company improve its service quality and customer satisfaction while reducing the risk of errors and mistakes that may be made if in-house staff were to take on the same functions.

Smart business leaders have caught on to the benefits of outsourcing these functions. In fact, 65% of companies reported outsourcing business functions to allow the internal team to focus on their core responsibilities according to a Deloitte study.

By buying into the BPO industry for non-core business activities, you and your team can ensure that both primary and auxiliary functions run smoothly throughout your organizational framework.

3. BPO Companies Provide Lower Costs than Hiring New Employees Internally

One of the most significant advantages of hiring a BPO service provider is cost savings.

Several cost savings avenues are available to companies that outsource business functions. Hiring a BPO company based in a low-cost area, for instance, companies headquartered in high-cost areas can meet legitimate business needs at a fraction of the cost of bringing in someone locally.

Outside of this though, embracing BPO will limit your operational costs. SHRM’s 2022 HR Talent Acquisition Benchmarking Report shows that the average cost-per-hire is nearly $4,700. Between these costs and other overhead costs such as office space and software licenses, internal hiring can greatly impact your bottom line.

In addition to limiting these costs, outsourcing non-core business activities can help a company operate more cost-effectively. BPO companies often have access to specialized tools and technologies that can automate and streamline processes, resulting in faster and more accurate work.

4. BPO Partners Extend Remote Services Across Time Zones

With the COVID-19 pandemic accelerating companies’ comfort levels with remote workflows, it would be a mistake not to discuss how BPO service providers can enhance your business’ remote capabilities.

Some business owners may hesitate to outsource business functions to remote companies, particularly those in drastically different time zones. However, there are huge benefits to having business operations expand to include more hours of the day.

Take, for example, a hypothetical call center in the Philippines. This facility would be based in a time zone 12 to 13 hours ahead of that of the eastern seaboard of the United States depending on the time of year.

Even if your Eastern US-based business can handle all your normal customer care needs on-site during normal business hours, by contracting the Filipino call center you’ll be able to field any customer concerns around the clock without exceeding normal business hours in either location.

With 9% of the Philippines’ GDP coming from the BPO industry, it’s clear that business leaders are taking advantage of the latest technology and remote work trends to harness BPO’s remote service benefits.

Business Process Outsourcing Can Improve Your Efficiency Across All Business Functions

By hiring a BPO company, you can open yourself and your team up to a host of benefits that can supercharge your operational excellence.

Utilizing BPO services affords your business scalability, lets your in-house team focus on their core responsibilities, is more cost-effective than increasing the size of your internal team, and allows you to expand the operational hours of your business.

Partnering with a BPO service provider can be a huge differentiator in both your core and auxiliary business functions.