KPO vs BPO: Difference between KPO and BPO

Outsourcing of routine or peripheral business functions is in vogue. It implies contracting with the third party service provider, with respect to operations and responsibilities of business processes. At present, there is hardly any multinational company which is left untouched from outsourcing its business operations. Over the time, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has gained ample importance, by providing services related to marketing, human resources, customer support, technical support, etc.

 Knowledge Processing Outsourcing or KPO is a subset of BPO. KPO involves outsourcing of core functions which may or may not give cost benefit to the parent company but surely helps in value addition. The processes which are outsourced to KPOs are usually more specialized and knowledge based as compared to BPOs. Services included in KPO are related to R&D, Capital and insurance market services, legal services, biotechnology, animation and design, etc. are the usual activities that are outsourced to KPOs. LPO or Legal Process Outsourcing is special type of KPO dealing with legal services.

	BPO	KPO
Definition	BPO provides services like customer care, technical support through voice processes, tele-marketing, sales, etc.	KPO provides in-depth knowledge, expertise and analysis on complex areas like Legal Services, Business and Market Research, etc.
Stands for	Business Processing Outsourcing	Knowledge Processing Outsourcing
Requires	Good communication skills and basic computer knowledge	Specialized knowledge
Services	Low end services	High end services
Process	Pre-defined process	Requires application and understanding of business
Employees	Not so qualified employees	Skill and expertise of knowledge employees
Expertise in	Process	Knowledge
Relies on	Cost arbitrage	Knowledge arbitrage
Driving force	Volume driven	Insights driven

A BPO is capable of handling both front end and back end operations of an entity. BPO provides an array of services such as:

• Customer care, i.e. call center, help desk, etc.
• Human resources, i.e. recruitment and selection, training and placement, payroll processing, etc.
• Technical support
• Services related to finance and accounting.
• Website services, i.e. web hosting, etc.
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The spectrum of services provided by KPO includes:           

• Investment research services
• Market research services
• Data analytics
• Business research services
• Others: Legal Process Outsourcing, Financial Process Outsourcing, Media Process Outsourcing.

Conclusion

Almost all the transnational companies, today, outsource their non-core activities, just to pay attention to their primary business. Both forms of outsourcing work in a B2B environment where the service provider and buyer of services both are business organizations.
One thing must be kept in mind that KPO is nothing but an extended version of BPO. Over the time, it has been observed that with the expansion of KPO, the BPO is losing its existence. Now, the service provider companies provide both BPO and KPO services simultaneously to the organization.

THE FEW REASONS WHICH PROVE THAT CALL CENTRES ASPIRE TO THE PERFECTION OF QUALITY

“Quality gauges the happiness and satisfaction of a customer”. People are ready to spend much but look for the best of quality in the products and services. They need an assurance that they are getting the worth of the money spent. Something which has endurance. Call centres are a pivotal lead and they revolve around the customer satisfaction and keep targeting at maximizing sales and also keeping the customer base intact.

The present scenario has seen a steadfast transition to the call centres. It was in the latter half of 20^th century that the transnational companies took a decision to move overseas as they wanted to cut down on the operational costs and upsurge efficiency. India was one of the first countries to have faced that challenge and today the call centres In India have a quantum of quality. In the present times, the Indian capitalists are stimulating the growth of the call centre world and have made India identical to the overseas call centre services and the country even mandates a large share in the overseas trade and industry.

In terms of the expertise used, the call centres in Delhi have surpassed the other companies in the race as they have efficaciously commenced the first and unique CISCO centred IP grid. When the issue is of call centre quality, the main focus is to enhance and preserve quality assured customer service... By following a plan like this the industry can harvest maximum benefits for the customer understanding and reliability.

The Call centre is a forum which enables in transmitting a large amount of data and helps in handling voice-based queries.

The experts of quality assurance present a trained and adept team that sometimes is not manageable within the call centre limits itself, hence a third party is always encompassed to get an unprejudiced view which also guarantees that the reports and proposals are rational and even-handed. In order to enhance the quality of the call centre services in India and to preserve it in the long run, few undermentioned quality assurance features are followed:

• Monitoring of calls
• Agents are in accordance with the compliance benchmarks
• Having quantifiable yardsticks
• Analyse the data
• Barging into the calls
• Reviews of the customer
• Live coach for assistance
• Impart training sessions as per the needs
• Offer better incentives to drive maximum productivity

All the above-mentioned features help in constant monitoring of calls and derive maximum satisfaction for the customers which is more than just listening to calls but also detecting any issues, for which training can be given.

Quality assurance standards are the keystone of a call centre management as enhancing quality procedures helps in boosting the quality of the service that the team of agents provide to the customers, foster the efficiency and minimise extravagant spending. The services which serve as a backbone for those services which are offered by a call centre are the call centre support services and they need to have the consistency of quality for smoother functioning. Given below are the few quality procedures which are followed by the call centre support services:

• High- end technical assistance  
• Debugging services
• Advisory services offered
• Corporate Helpdesk assistance
• Service Delivery
• Troubleshooting Options
• Support to Business Applications
• Internet service Assistance
• Software and Hardware Assistance
• Benchmarking
• IVR Provision

The call centre services play a crucial role in ascertaining the business competency, enhanced transformations and advanced customer satisfaction level. It is imperative for the call centres to perform exceptionally well in order to impart great customer service. In order to get the maximum output and increase in quality standards, few undermentioned points can be kept under consideration:

• Revamping of the hiring and training team
• Motivation of agents
• Mandatory Call monitoring
• Awareness of Key Performance Indicators
• Importance of external yardsticks
• Diminish Agent Attrition rate
• Enhancement of Primary Interaction
• Offering solutions to resolve issues

The part of the company which is into lead generation is what is referred as the outbound sales call centre. It is a process in which a seller, symbolized by a sales agent tries to make a customer rendezvous from their end. It starts with making cold calls to the prospective buyers. A quality oriented outbound sales approach helps in establishing steadfast revenue generation and growth process... Certain points are the indicators for a good quality of call and they are:

• It depends on how a call list is generated.
• The time is preferred by the customer to be called
• Short and sweet communication and to the point
• Mandatory follow up with the customer

The highest level of quality is expected from any sort of customer transaction, in an outbound call centre. The monitoring, auditing and analysis as well as testifying is mandatory to assure that there are compliance and operation standards being adhered together. The persistent enhancement in the activities that are the result of effectual management of quality is a prima facia in the present calling ethos. The quality is adhered by following means:

• Working on the soft skills
• Having a product knowledge
• Awareness of Compliance Standards
• Data Accuracy
• Six Sigma Certification

The time when a company wants to outsource the business needs, one has to be vigilant enough to decide on an outsourcing call centre which ensures quality and promises higher standards of service, stable enhancement and expert tactics that are appropriate for the company. The call centre quality policy is a set of procedures, means which help in assessing the efficiency of the customer interface and even enhance the service.

Thus, the call centre aims at the aptness of quality and also target at the reasons for the failure of meeting the pre-set standards and find solutions to it.  Quality assurance is a smooth and easy procedure that yields substantial results for a company and it is a binding feature for all the call centres who wish to enhance the service standards.