When your ecommerce store starts taking off, scaling customer support can be a real headache.
All of a sudden, your small team has to deal with a lot of calls, and most of them are simple questions like "where is my order?".
It's a classic sign of growth, but it's still a pain.
Many businesses turn to traditional Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) partners like Unity Communications to add more human agents to their team. This means delegating tasks to an external workforce. Alternatively, AI-powered technology offers a specialized and scalable option that may fit different budget needs.
This guide will walk you through the differences between a traditional BPO and a modern AI phone agent, helping you understand the options available.
Understanding your options: BPO vs. AI phone agents
Before we put them head-to-head, it helps to know what makes these two approaches to customer service so different. One is all about managing people, and the other is about using a specialized tech platform to do the work.
What is Unity Communications?
Unity Communications is a BPO company that provides outsourced human agents for all sorts of tasks, from customer service and data entry to back-office support. Their motto is "Powered by AI. Driven by people," which indicates their core service is centered around a human workforce.
They hire and manage teams in places like the Philippines and Mexico to handle business processes for you. While they do use some AI tools, their main offering is human-powered outsourcing.
Getting started with them involves a detailed launch plan where agent training usually starts around the 30-45 day mark. Unity Communications is a generalist BPO, so they work with a wide range of industries like finance, healthcare, and real estate, not just ecommerce.
What is an AI phone agent?
An AI phone agent is a smart piece of software that uses artificial intelligence to answer customer calls 24/7. It can figure out what a customer is asking and provide automated answers and solutions, often without needing human intervention.
For example, Ringly.io offers Seth, an AI phone support rep built specifically for Shopify stores. Seth can look up order details, process returns and exchanges, and answer common questions all by itself. Unlike a BPO, an AI agent is a technology platform that you can set up in about three minutes.
It connects directly to your store's data to give customers instant, accurate answers and has been shown to resolve around 73% of calls autonomously.
Comparing service models: People vs. platform
The biggest difference between using a BPO like Unity Communications and an AI agent from Ringly.io is how they operate. One is about managing people; the other is about configuring a platform.
Onboarding and speed
Getting started with Unity Communications is a structured process that takes 30 to 45 days just to begin agent training. On the other hand, Ringly.io's AI agent, Seth, can be fully set up and taking calls in about three minutes.
You just have to connect your Shopify store.
Scalability
With a BPO, scaling up for a busy season or scaling down afterward means adding or removing human agents, which takes time and a lot of planning. An AI agent scales instantly and automatically.
Whether you get 10 calls a day or 1,000 during a Black Friday sale, the AI can handle them all without a dip in performance, which is a key feature of AI-based systems.
Management overhead
Working with a BPO involves regular meetings, checking in on quality, and tracking agent performance. An AI platform like Ringly.io gives you a self-service dashboard with analytics, call recordings, and transcripts.
You can check on performance whenever you want, without scheduling a meeting.
24/7 coverage
Unity Communications can offer round-the-clock teams, but this requires juggling multiple human shifts to cover all 24 hours. An AI agent is always on. It provides consistent service 24/7/365 at no extra cost, working all 168 hours of the week.
A detailed breakdown of cost and ROI
For any ecommerce business, the bottom line is key. Let’s take a look at how the pricing structures of Unity Communications and Ringly.io compare and what kind of return on investment you can expect.
Unity Communications pricing
Unity Communications mainly prices its services based on human labor and time. You’re paying for a person's hours.
- BPO Services: Their rates start at $8.00 per hour for agents in the Philippines or $9.25 per hour for agents in Mexico. If you hired one full-time agent working a standard 40-hour week, you’d be looking at a bill of over $1,280 per month.
Ringly.io pricing
Ringly.io uses a tiered SaaS model. You pay a flat monthly fee for a set number of call minutes, which makes budgeting predictable.
- Grow Plan: For $349/month, you get 1,000 call minutes. This plan includes a self-learning AI and the deep Shopify integrations needed to handle returns and order lookups. If you go over your minutes, it’s $0.19/minute.
- Scale Plan: Starting at $1,099/month, this plan includes over 3,000 call minutes, a private Slack channel for support, and options for custom integrations.
- Ringly.io also makes it easy to get a started with a 14-day free trial. Plus, they offer a unique guarantee: you pay nothing until Seth resolves at least 60% of your calls, so you can validate its performance.
Which approach offers a better return?
The BPO model provides a dedicated person, which can be a good fit if you need agents for complex, non-repetitive tasks that require a lot of emotional intelligence.
On the other hand, the AI agent model is cost-effective for handling the high volume of repetitive questions every ecommerce store gets.
With Seth resolving over 73% of calls automatically, a store can handle hundreds of customer inquiries for a fraction of what it would cost to hire just one full-time human agent.
The potential ROI with an AI agent stems from a lower cost per call, the ability to free up human teams for more complex conversations, and the provision of instant, 24/7 support.
Ecommerce specialization: A critical difference
A key point to consider when choosing a support solution is how well it understands your business. This highlights a difference between a generalist BPO and a specialist AI platform.
Generalist vs. specialist knowledge
Unity Communications works with a wide range of industries, from healthcare to real estate. Their agents are trained to be versatile, but they aren't ecommerce experts from day one. They need training on your specific products, policies, and systems.
Deep ecommerce integration
Ringly.io was built from the ground up just for Shopify. Its AI agent, Seth, connects directly to your store to access real-time order information, your product catalog, and your return policies. This means when a customer asks, "Where is my order?", Seth can pull up the exact tracking status instantly.
When someone wants to make a return, Seth can process it according to your store's rules.
High resolution rate
Because of this deep integration, Seth successfully resolves about 73% of calls without needing to escalate to a human. That level of specialized efficiency can be challenging for a generalist BPO agent to match without extensive training and direct access to backend systems.
Multilingual support
Ringly.io supports over 40 languages right out of the box, which is a big deal if you sell to customers around the world. Scaling multilingual support with a BPO usually means you have to find and hire agents with specific language skills, which can be expensive and time-consuming.
For comparison, Unity Communications highlights bilingual (English-Spanish) support as a key feature for its teams in Mexico.
Finding the right solution for your store
So, how do you choose? It really comes down to what you need most. If your call volume is full of complex, nuanced issues that need human empathy and creative problem-solving, a BPO like Unity Communications could be a good fit.
But if your support lines are ringing with repetitive questions about orders, returns, and product details, then an AI phone agent can be an effective solution. For Shopify stores looking to scale efficiently, cut costs, and offer 24/7 support, a specialized tool like Ringly.io offers a different approach to scaling support.
Ready to automate your phone support?
If repetitive calls are taking up your team's time and energy, it may be time to explore automation. See how an AI phone agent can impact your customer service and support your business growth.
Start your free 14-day trial with Ringly.io today. You can set up your own AI phone agent in just three minutes and see the difference for yourself.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main difference between a BPO and an AI agent for ecommerce support?
The primary difference is the model. A BPO provides human agents as a service, while an AI agent is a technology platform. This generally results in different approaches to setup speed, scalability, and management overhead.
How quickly can you set up an AI phone agent compared to a BPO?
It varies. A traditional BPO can take 30-45 days just to start agent training. A specialized AI phone agent like Ringly.io, however, can be set up and ready to take calls in about three minutes by connecting directly to your Shopify store.
Is an AI agent more cost-effective than a BPO?
Often, yes. An AI agent is typically more cost-effective for handling high volumes of common questions. Ringly.io offers flat-rate plans that cover thousands of call minutes for a fraction of the cost of hiring a single full-time BPO agent.
Why is industry specialization important for ecommerce support?
Specialization is key for efficiency. A generalist BPO agent needs extensive training on your products and systems. An ecommerce-specific AI like Ringly.io integrates directly with platforms like Shopify, so it can instantly access order details and process returns, resolving around 73% of calls on its own.
How do AI agents and BPOs handle multilingual support?
While a BPO would need to hire agents fluent in different languages, an AI platform like Ringly.io supports over 40 languages right away, making it possible to offer global customer support without hiring for each language.
What tasks are AI phone agents best suited for?
An AI-powered alternative excels at handling repetitive, high-volume inquiries like "Where is my order?", return requests, and frequently asked product questions. This frees up your human team to focus on more complex, high-touch customer issues.
