Trends that are Going to Prevail in the Forecast Period of the BPO Industry

Since the BPO industry's inception, it has never witnessed a downfall. Especially, India is the biggest aggregator of all kinds of BPO solutions encompassing call center outsourcing, chat support, and email support. Call centers in India have operated seamlessly since they came into the limelight. Also, call center outsourcing companies have contributed significantly to the increase in employment in India.

The Perception of the BPO Industry

Two decades ago, businesses were completely oblivious to the idea of call center outsourcing. During those times people were quite cynical about sharing the company’s information with a third party for availing the outsourcing services. But as the call centers in India started manifesting their promising results, the companies started rushing into getting call center outsourcing services. The results were quite overwhelming in some cases too.

So, evidently, the whole BPO industry has been operating seamlessly throughout the last decade, what are the prospects for the future? What are the things that we can expect to be changing in the BPO industry? Today, we are going to shed some light on the trends and techniques of the BPO industry that will prevail in the upcoming years. Also, readers will get some insight into the work methodologies of call center outsourcing in the future.

• We live in a volatile world. Things tend to change every now and then. Everything can’t be extrapolated and we can’t avert all future risks. Just like any other business, the BPO industry is also vulnerable at times. During uncertain times, we can only use our intellect and experiences from past events, to devise a counteractive strategy to surpass all the issues.
• Despite all this, the BPO industry has constantly proven that nothing can stop it from operating. The COVID pandemic is one great example that the BPO industry will remain unaffected during an environmental or man-made crisis. Interestingly, we were instantly able to switch remote working methods with the least amount of friction. The BPO industry operated just as smoothly as silk during these times.
• But how did call center outsourcing services able to adapt to the new work model so easily? It is all because of the technologies we had. Technology has given access to robust communication tools and user-interface that are enough for the successful operations of BPO services seamlessly.

Discontinuance of Conventional BPO Contracts

We all have heard of back-office services that require intense manual labor. The agents need to manually update the transactions, data records, and many other things. These back-office operations consume a lot of time and energy.

As our technologies are becoming more progressive, we are witnessing the adaptation of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). All these technologies can be leveraged to provide human-like interactions.

We also have a lot of interactive tools like AI-powered chatbot systems that can easily provide solutions based on the customers’ input. Hence, the whole industry is trying to adapt to novice artificial intelligence methods for better customer experience.

However, that is not the endgame though. We will still be needing real humans for empathizing with customers during crises related to unfulfilled services. Customer grievances still need the intervention of real humans for better customer satisfaction.

Acquiring Actionable Insights and Better Agility

Due to the innovation in technology, call center services and other BPO services are benefitting tremendously. The technologies like Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Meta Data, and the latest analytical tools, third-party companies are able to draw better actional insights. Having the access to latest analytical tools, we can monitor the performance of calling agents and customer satisfaction rate on a real-time basis.

The client companies are easily able to integrate with the BPOs due to technology so, it saves a lot of time and manpower. The special analytics tools are proving to be a boon for BPOs as we are able to instantly rectify the problems. After rectifying problems, the companies are able to devise more effective strategies. For example, a call redirecting facility helps the customer to get connected with the available agents quickly.

Therefore, it saves customers precious time which would otherwise be wasted during waiting hours. Undoubtedly, we are going to have a more productive BPO service in the future.

Improvement in Supply-Chain and Logistics

During the COVID pandemic, supply chain and logistics companies were among the companies that got worse affected. Conversely, the BPO industry and all the business sectors that were able to adapt to remote working regimes were able to sustain their businesses despite the crisis. Now that the whole world has witnessed the vulnerabilities containing the supply chain and logistics, they would soon be adopting digitalization.

Whenever a company embraces digitalization, it always gets the larger end of the stick, meaning more business empowerment. All the sales, marketing, accounting, finance, and communication-related maneuvers can be easily carried out using BPO services. With all that being said, a new prospect of managing supply chain operations will soon be done via outsourcing agencies. The experts are still working on it.

Again there will be the adoption of RPA and AI to avert the threats and discrepancies incurring in the regular BAU. Most of the transactions running in the supply chain and logistics will be completely digitalized with advanced security protocols.

A Surge in Data Outsourcing

Strategic suppliers are also considering the potential of outsourcing services; especially data outsourcing. All this time they have been dealing with all their transaction through manual labor. RPA offers a comprehensive solution for implementing online transactions. Using the RPA technique will allow government and private strategic suppliers to accomplish online transactions easily.

Business process outsourcing is not just limited to call center services, it also entails data process and outsourcing. In the future, all the major players in strategies supply will be expanding their approach using RPA, which will also allow them to make better connections with the other stakeholders. Since digitalization directly reduces the risks associated with natural and man-made disasters, the BPO services are going to get a piece from it too.

Healthcare and Diagnostic Institutions

Let us not forget how desperately we needed medical attention during the COVID pandemic. During the quarantine, the hospitals were not able to provide medical facilities to unfathomable patient numbers. Especially, the people who already had comorbidities and were not able to seek medical facilities due to a lack of access to doctors, nurses, and diagnosis. This was a very painful lesson that all countries learned during the pandemic.

Fortunately, the solution was not too far. Now we have access to medical tools that can assess the entire medical record and the current predicament of patients. Doctors are able to better diagnose patients while sitting in a remote location. Digitalization is helping medical stakeholders with advanced communication systems.

Using RPA, NLP, AI, portable medical diagnostic devices, and communication tools, the medical industry is yet to witness a drastic change in the way they operate and help patients from a remote place. The BPO industry is going to play an important role in transacting medical records and critical pieces of information through a secured network.

FinTech Sector

Financial institutions are the ones that make the most transactions daily. Since they are all monetary transactions, a secured gateway is required. Many highly accomplished outsourcing agencies offer cloud-based services with strong software solutions.

The rate of customer satisfaction is a priority for fintech companies. In order to provide their customers with online assistance, immunity against cyber security, and fast transaction privileges, fintech companies are going to outsource some of the transactional operations to a third party.

Currently, we have technologies like blockchain and artificial intelligence, these technologies are intuitive and highly secure at the same time. Therefore, surely we are going see a drastic increase in the rendering of BPO services by fintech companies.

Outsourcing Destinations

Most of us know that India is a hotspot for BPO services. Given the fact that BPO services are extremely beneficial for the growth of companies, many industries are trying to invest in India. Soon there will be a massive surge in the adoption of BPO services, especially in India. This will directly contribute to the increase in the country’s economy. Call centers in India are a great example of it.

Conclusion:

Hence, from the above points, we know that BPO services are going to expand their services in the business areas that conventionally did not embrace the benefits of digitization. Every challenge is an opportunity. Though the whole world was distraught during the COVID pandemic as many businesses were collapsing, now all the companies have learned an important lesson.

As we are becoming more inclined towards digital empowerment, the prospects for BPO services will become more extensive. Previously, call center services were the only BPO service we knew. Now, the entire BPO industry has become an ecosystem where everyone is interconnected. Indeed, outsourcing some of our business operations is beneficial in so many ways. That is why industries are trying to adopt outsourcing methods.