Call centre and customer service outsourcing companies

Call centre outsourcing means engaging a specialist provider, often called a BPO (business process outsourcer), to run customer conversations or back-office work on your behalf. The provider supplies the people, management, technology and workspace; you set the standards and the results you expect.

Customer service outsourcing (also called contact centre outsourcing, or call center outsourcing in the US) covers everything from simple message taking to complex sales and AI-supported service. The work splits into two broad areas.

Front office: talking to your customers

Calls, live chat, email, social messaging, sales, technical support and collections. Find specialists by service:

• Customer service and support for inbound enquiries across every channel
• Sales and lead generation, including telemarketing and appointment setting
• Collections and hardship handled with the right care and compliance
• Technical support and help desk for products, software and IT
• After-hours, overflow and answering services so no call is missed
• Digital and social care for chat, messaging and social channels

Back office: the work behind the scenes

Finance, HR, administration, data entry and quality checking. See back-office outsourcing and virtual assistants and remote staff.

Many BPOs now deliver both, managing the full customer journey from first contact to fulfilment.

It's easy to assume no one will care about your customers as much as your own team. But specialist outsourcers stake their whole reputation on service, and the best of them are very good at it.

• Expertise: customer contact is their core business, with the recruitment, training and quality systems to match.
• Scalability: add or reduce agents with demand, for seasonal peaks, launches or growth, without hiring cycles.
• Extended hours and languages: cover evenings, weekends and 24/7, and serve customers in their own language.
• Technology: access modern contact centre platforms, AI and reporting without buying them yourself.
• Lower costs: savings through efficiency, shared infrastructure and, where it suits, offshore locations.
• Focus: your team concentrates on the core business while the BPO looks after customer contact.

The right location depends on the work, your customers and how sensitive the data is.

• Onshore (in your own country) suits complex, regulated or brand-sensitive work, and anything where data must stay in-country. It costs more but carries the least risk.
• Nearshore (a nearby country with similar culture and hours) balances quality and savings.
• Offshore (further afield, such as the Philippines, India, South Africa or Egypt) gives the biggest savings and large talent pools, and suits high-volume, well-defined work. See offshoring in the ACXPA glossary.
• Blended models are common: complex or sensitive contacts stay onshore while high-volume or after-hours work goes offshore.

• Which clients like us do you work with today, and can we speak to them?
• How do you recruit, train and keep agents, and what's your typical staff turnover?
• Which contact centre platform, quality tools and reporting will we get?
• How do you protect our customers' data, and where is it stored?
• What does the price include, and what costs extra?
• Which performance measures will you commit to in the contract?
• How will you handle peaks, outages and business continuity?
• What happens at the end of the contract if we bring the work back or move providers?