Glossary
BPO (business process outsourcing)
Business process outsourcing (BPO) means handing part of a company's work – customer support, phone sales, back office – to an outside provider. In customer service, the provider runs the contact center for the client: hires and trains agents, builds schedules, and is accountable for the agreed metrics.
Why it mattersThe provider needs a platform that keeps client projects apart, and the client needs access to recordings and reports.
Also called: business process outsourcing, outsourced contact center, outsourced call center
How it works
How it works
The client and the provider agree on channels, hours, volumes, call scripts, and target metrics. The provider hires and trains agents, builds schedules, and reports on results. Payment is usually per hour, per agent, or per contact, and sometimes per outcome, such as a booked meeting.
What companies most often outsource:
- Inbound support and hotlines
- Outbound sales and surveys
- Chat and email support
- Back office: data entry, order processing
Comparison
Pros and cons
Many companies mix the two: their own team keeps key customers and complex questions, while the provider takes peaks, night shifts, and outbound campaigns. More in the comparison In-house or outsourced contact center.
Practice
What to agree on
- Target metrics: service level (say, 80/20), average speed of answer, abandonment rate
- Quality criteria: who scores calls, how, and how many
- Access to call recordings, reports, and raw data
- Data protection and who owns customer data
- How fast the provider adds agents for peaks and seasons
Features
What an outsourcer needs from the platform
- Many clients on one platform, each seeing only their own data
- Fast launch of a new project: queues, IVR, call scripts
- Volume forecasts and shift schedules per project
- Quality assurance and reports you can show the client
In CONTACT.WORK
How CONTACT.WORK uses it
An outsourced contact center runs projects for many clients in CONTACT.WORK: each has its own queues, scripts, and reports, and role-based access shows agents and supervisors only the data and recordings of their own project. The provider gets an auto dialer with three modes, shift planning per project, quality scoring across all channels, speech analytics, and AI agents. Project reports include CSAT and NPS, AHT broken down by component, and repeat contacts, and data can be passed to the client via API. The system runs in the CONTACT.WORK cloud or on the provider's own servers.
A company that outsources part of its work can let the provider's agents into its own platform – they work through a browser-based softphone. Then recordings, chats, and reports stay with the client, and both teams are scored the same way.
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Where to use it
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Glossary