What's the difference between a BPO and a Call Center?

A BPO is the acronym for Business Process Outsourcing.

"Business process outsourcing (BPO) is a subset of outsourcing that involves the contracting of the operations and responsibilities of specific business functions or processes to a third-party service provider.  It is typically categorized into back office outsourcing - which includes internal business functions such as human resources or finance and accounting, and front office outsourcing - which includes customer-related services such as contact center services.

A BPO that is contracted outside a company's country is called offshore outsourcing."

The above mentioned definition may sound so technical to you.  To make it simple, BPO is the process of hiring another company to handle business activities for them ranging from data processing, back office support, recruitment, payroll, sales, customer service or technical support, to telemarketing and the like. 

A Call Center, on the other hand, is a form of BPO that deals with inbound and outbound calls providing sales, customer service, technical support, telemarketing, & phone surveys for their clients.

In short, all call centers are BPO's but not all BPO's are call centers.

You might ask why do they (the clients) hire another company to do these business activities for them, especially for offshore outsourcing? The main answer to that question is "Cost Savings".  We can't deny the fact that labor in the Philippines is much cheaper compared to that of the U.S.  Access to lower cost economies through offshoring is called "labor arbitrage" which is generated by the wage gap between industrialized and developing nations.

What is a Call Center?

You might ask what is a Call Center?  Here are some definitions gathered from different sources:

• a center equipped to handle a large volume of telephone calls (especially for taking orders or serving customers)
  wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
• A call center or call center is a centralized office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone. A call center is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or information inquiries from consumers.                                                         en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_Center
• A business location where a person can call for such things as customer service, to place an order, etc; A business location where large numbers of telemarketing calls are placed.
  en.wiktionary.org/wiki/call_center
• A centralized office where calls are transmitted and received.
  www.fusionbposervices.com/glossary.html
• A company, or department of a company, that offers operator-supported voice services. A large number of operators handle inbound calls via a hotline and/or outbound calls as part of a direct marketing campaign.
  www.annualreport2008.telekom.de/en/co/glossar/index.php
• A help desk where customers can communicate by telephone, fax, and e-mail.
  ecommerce.etsu.edu/Glossary.htm
• A  call center is a facility that answers inbound, or places outbound telephone calls. Call centers, also known as contact centers or customer care centers, use sophisticated software to provide a full range of services.
  on-linetechnologies.com/directResponseTerms.php
• An establishment that takes telephone orders and forwards them either directly to the merchant or to a fulfillment center. Common uses are DRTV (Direct TV) and Radio Broadcast campaigns.
  achsolutionsgroup.com/glossary.php
• An organization that handles a high number of customer interactions including requests, information, provisioning, sales or services via the telephone or multiple contact channels either through inbound transactions, outbound transactions or both.
  campus.blueprintaudits.com/mod/glossary/view.php