What Is a BPO Job?

A business process outsourcing (BPO) job is when an individual is employed at a company that has been contracted by another business to provide certain services to assist with its activities and functions. Work completed at a BPO job for a business includes customer service, technical support, and administrative tasks. Individuals employed at a BPO job answer phones, type documents, and handle customer claims. Companies hire a BPO business to streamline services that would otherwise be handled in-house. One BPO company may work with many different businesses, though it may choose to focus on providing services for a particular industry.

Working a BPO job is much like being employed at any other company, aside from the fact that the services are provided to another company's customers. BPO workers generally adhere to the business model of the contracting company, meaning that each BPO employee is responsible for knowing a variety of distinct business standards. A BPO business is often set up in a call center like environment, with individual workers assigned to partitioned workspaces.

It is typical for the BPO company to be located in a different country than the contracting business that hires them, though this is not always the case. The BPO business model allows services to be offered by a company that specializes in the efficient completion of support and clerical work, saving money overall for the contracting company's bottom-line. One company may hire a business to handle all of its business process outsourcing or may choose to employ different companies for different tasks.

Types of jobs handled by individuals working a BPO job include phone and chat support, data entry, and records management. Employees may work with customers from many different countries, so mastery of a second language is often necessary for employment. Support services may be offered around the clock by a company, so BPO jobs may require working a variety of shifts. Given that a company's customers may be located in a different time-zone, a BPO worker's primary hours could be different than the local business day.

A BPO job does not necessarily require working in a traditional business environment. With a computer and phone connection, business process outsourcing can be accomplished by home-based workers. BPO workers can also choose to contract themselves out individually to business owners on a freelance basis. One BPO job that is often offered to individual workers is that of personal assistant, where the BPO employee handles an individual's email, phone calls, and basic day-to-day tasks.