How to answer: A) What do you know about the Call Center Industry? B) What is your Idea of BPO? C) What is your knowledge about the Contact Centre?
Above is a few questions you need to answer in an interview. This is usually being asked during the initial one on one or panel interview.
Let start with the basic and differentiate the call center, contact center and business process outsourcing.
What is the call center? According to Wikipedia, It is a centralized office used for receiving or transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone. Each call center provides a workspace and workstation for each call center agent. The workstation includes a computer, a telephone set/headset connected to a telecom switch, and to one or more supervisor stations.
a) Inbound Calls – it is an incoming call answered by frontline call center agents. Inbound Calls are either Product Support or Service Enquiries from consumers.
The consumer calls in to ask assistance on how to set up or troubleshoot a specific product. Product Supports are usually done by what we call the Technical Support Representative. They’ll provide easy to understand troubleshooting steps and will educate you on what to avoid or do next time.
A good example is that a consumer lost his/her internet connection at home. The consumer will call the provider to check if there is an outage in the area. A support agent will help check if there is a problem with the network or with the customer modem/router. These support agents will ensure that they have exhausted all troubleshooting steps or resolve your concerns.
b) Outbound Calls – It is an outgoing call done by call center agents to solicit for charity or political donations, do telemarketing, collect a debt, market research, etc.
Outbound calls are essential to keep in touch with your new and existing customers. However, only a fraction of telemarketing calls is for the existing consumers. Telemarketers target new customers depending on the Product or Services they are selling. Collections, on the other hand, calls the customers who have unpaid overdue bills.
For example, the Call Centre Agent will call a random number from a list of their possible buyers. They will try to sell their product to you. These telemarketing agents will persuade you until you buy their product.
A contact center handles different individual communications, including letters, faxes, live support software, social media, instant message, and e-mail.
The Contact Center and Call Center’s key differences are that call centers only handle calls from customers, while contact centers also communicate using other forms of communication such as Email, Fax, Chat, and social media.
Chat support is the best example of services in the Contact Center replacing both inbound and outbound support by using an online communication platform.
What is BPO? It is an acronym for business process outsourcing. BPO is a contracting of a specific business task. These tasks might be payroll, accounting, human resources to a third party service provider.
BPO is a cost-saving measure specially implemented offshore wherein they could pay only a quarter to half versus if they will hire and pay the minimum of their local employees.
The services of Call Centres and Contact Centres are just part of the specific tasks contracted to a third party service provider. Making the said services under the BPO.
After learning the basics, how can you now answer the questions mentioned above? We listed down a few answers that might impress your interviewer.
First is the researcher, You may start with “I’ve searched for it online and” letting the recruiter know that you have the initiative is a plus point.
“I’ve searched for it online and I found out that agents in call centre either receive calls to answer customer inquiry or make calls to sell something”
“I’ve searched for it online and to what I understand is that contact centres have email or chat supports wherein they answer customer inquiry, product support, send surveys and sell online.”
“I’ve searched for it online and BPO is either specific task or set of tasks that are outsourced to a third party service provider. samples of these tasks are payroll, accounting, human resources and customer service”
Second is the BPO friend/relative, You may start with “I’ve asked a friend of mine who worked in the industry and” letting your recruiter know that you are really interested might impress him/her.
“I’ve asked a friend of mine who worked in the industry and he mentioned to me that agents in call centre either receive calls to answer customer inquiry or make calls to sell something”
Third, the wanderer, If you don’t know anything please don’t apply and answer I don’t know. It would be just a waste of time. But there is always a way, however, there is no guarantee that you’ll pass if you use this answer.
“I wonder if the call centre just answers or make calls. To be honest that’s the only thing I know….”
We are not saying that these answers are the best answers. We wrote this to guide you in your interview. We wish you the best of luck!