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Artificial intelligence (AI) significantly transforms business process outsourcing (BPO) operations. The modern solution automates repetitive tasks and helps address common customer inquiries quickly, letting providers offer cost-effective services.
However, what if the tables are turned? What if AI companies must streamline their front- and back-office workflows without overspending?
Stay on this page to learn how BPO firms assist in boosting your AI projects.
What Is AI Outsourcing?
AI outsourcing involves entrusting AI development, implementation, or maintenance to third-party service providers. These vendors employ skilled professionals and modern tools to improve mundane business functions.
By only charging hourly or monthly fees, BPO companies take over tedious processes to let your in-house team focus on your core competencies. Below are BPO roles and responsibilities focused on supporting AI projects:
- Software developers help build and test AI-based applications.
- Annotators and labelers make data points for machine learning (ML).
- Model developers and trainers fine-tune and optimize ML algorithms.
- Computer vision engineers streamline efforts involving image or video analysis.
- AI consulting specialists help develop AI product and service strategies.
- AI model evaluators validate AI solutions’ performance, accuracy, and fairness.
- Data scientists simplify information-related tasks, such as statistical analysis.
- Customer service representatives answer inquiries regarding AI software products.
- Technical support agents help troubleshoot AI system issues before they escalate.
- Technicians handle AI infrastructure maintenance, repair, and management.
- Data entry officers facilitate accurate information input and handling.
- Human resources (HR) managers oversee workforce-related functions.
Ways BPO Improves AI Projects
The global AI market rapidly grows as the need to keep up with the fast-paced business landscape increases. In 2023 alone, the sector gained $196.63 billion in revenue. Grand View Research expects companies to continuously adopt AI technologies for a better customer experience and enhanced enterprise digitalization.
The goal of improving customer satisfaction and operational efficiency drives generative AI’s explosive growth. According to McKinsey’s latest report, 40% of polled organizations plan to boost their overall AI investment due to advances in generative AI. They anticipate that these capabilities will transform their industries.
Because of that demand, AI businesses encounter accumulating paperwork. The need to streamline back- and front-office tasks hinders them from prioritizing their core functions. Acquiring BPO services helps address such gaps in the ways detailed below.
Support AI Software Development and Testing
BPO firms provide affordable access to a dynamic talent pool to support AI software development and testing. The skilled third-party professionals help lessen the workloads of your in-house developers by handling these simple but tedious tasks:
- Annotate and label large datasets necessary for training ML models. This activity involves adding accurate tags and categorizing data points to enable supervised learning.
- Perform data preparation and cleaning. BPO workers ensure high-quality and consistent information for training and testing AI solutions.
- Complete basic AI model development and training tasks. These include sorting algorithms and optimizing models based on the specific requirements of AI-powered software.
- Assist in quality assurance and testing. Third-party specialists help identify and mitigate software bugs, errors, and inconsistencies during the trial phase. They conduct performance, security, user experience (UX), and compliance testing.
- Document testing processes, issues, and results. These records are crucial to monitoring and measuring software quality, performance, and needed enhancements.
Simplify Recruitment and HR Management
BPO providers simplify the hiring and onboarding of experts for your complex AI projects. These talent acquisition agencies use advanced tools and strategies to quickly source and screen potential candidates. They handle background checks and identity verifications, ensuring applicants match your unique criteria.
Once they gather the talent you need, BPO firms will initiate new hire onboarding. They facilitate document processing, orientation, and training, enabling a seamless transition for employees joining your AI development efforts.
The BPO team’s work can extend to HR administration, depending on the scope of your service-level agreement (SLA). Vendors reduce your in-house burdens by taking over routine HR tasks, such as employee records management and payroll processing.
Deliver User-friendly Customer Operations
Although AI businesses can just deploy AI-based platforms to answer customer inquiries automatically, they still need to incorporate a human touch for interactions. Recent statistics show that 51% of consumers consider the absence of human support to be a deal-breaker.
Another 77% stated they prefer human agents over automated support, regardless of longer wait times. BPO call centers help fill this demand by providing skilled customer service representatives.
These professionals are regularly trained to handle complex issues that AI chatbots cannot resolve. For instance, they understand emotional nuances and can help calm frustrated customers over damaged goods.
Third-party agents are proficient in addressing concerns across multiple communication channels. They use an omnichannel solution to seamlessly answer inquiries without losing critical customer data. This capability also lets consumers reach out based on their preferences.
Streamline Back-office Functions
Developing AI platforms requires well-organized paperwork. However, assigning this tedious task to an in-house team adds to the burden of complicated software building. BPO firms thus take charge of the following back-office processes to let clients prioritize their primary AI projects:
- Data entry and management. Service providers ensure the accuracy and proper categorization of large datasets for ML, analytics, and natural language processing (NLP).
- Data cleansing and validation. BPO workers use their specialized skills and tools to pinpoint and rectify errors and inconsistencies in datasets.
- Document processing. Support vendors to scan, digitize, and categorize documents, allowing easy access to critical information.
- Compliance and regulatory reporting. BPO firms help AI companies comply with industry regulations, especially when this sector involves processing sensitive information. They conduct regular audits and prepare crucial reports.
- Information technology (IT) support. Providers implement innovative methods to ensure the smooth operation of AI companies’ IT infrastructure. They help troubleshoot issues and deploy software updates in real time.
Factors To Note When Seeking AI BPO Partners
With the prevalence of AI for enterprise digital transformation, subject matter experts set best practices to ensure the tech’s proper utilization. AI businesses seeking third-party support also need practical tips to optimize outsourcing effectively.
If your AI company is among them, you should understand what BPO factors are essential in hiring a service provider. This knowledge helps align your work strategies and budget allocations with your outsourcing investment. Note the following when seeking a BPO partner:
- Verify the provider’s expertise in AI technologies. Evaluate their industry-specific knowledge and experience in executing AI-driven processes. Sufficient expertise ensures the potential vendor can tailor solutions that meet your unique requirements.
- Assess the reputation and track record of prospective AI BPO partners. Check their client testimonials, case studies, and references. These sources let you gauge their performance and reliability.
- Prioritize a BPO vendor with robust data security measures. Given the sensitive nature of AI and data, pay attention to this critical factor. Ensure the provider adheres to relevant information security regulations and has necessary certifications.
- Select a vendor that can scale operations based on your business needs. Validate the BPO company’s flexibility and scalability, especially if your AI projects involve fluctuating workloads and growth phases.
- Examine the provider’s technology infrastructure. Make sure its systems are compatible with your existing ones to avoid operational disruptions and project delays.
- Check the BPO firm’s quality assurance processes and performance metrics. Key performance indicators (KPIs) help monitor and measure the effectiveness of your outsourced non-core functions.
- Establish strong communication even before the partnership begins. Verify how responsive the BPO provider is. Note its country of operations and ensure it aligns with your organizational culture and language.
- Inquire about the provider’s disaster recovery and business continuity strategies. Well-structured plans ensure operations continue smoothly amid emergencies.
- Highlight intellectual property (IP) when choosing the right BPO partner. This step is especially crucial to AI software development efforts. Detailed agreements on IP ownership and confidentiality safeguard your proprietary technology and processes.
- Understand the provider’s pricing and payment options. Discuss the costs and potential additional charges as you negotiate an SLA with your selected provider. Make sure it matches your budget and payment channel.
The Bottom Line
While AI has become instrumental in speeding up daily operations, AI firms still need support to streamline their workloads without overspending. Outsourcing has been their cost-effective solution to achieve that goal.
With skilled professionals and advanced approaches, BPO companies help AI businesses expedite software development and back-office functions. If you aim to experience similar benefits, let’s connect and discuss a potential BPO deal that meets the requirements of your AI projects.
