When the business reaches a particular level of customers, providing them with the proper customer support is essential to remaining competitive.
Maintaining an in-house customer support team might be expensive. To overcome this challenge, call center outsourcing is the best option to provide timely support to resolve your customers queries.
Let us understand what call center outsourcing is and its benefits in detail.
What is a call center?
A call center is a dedicated department that is entirely responsible for handling incoming and outgoing customer calls. Businesses usually have their call centers within their premises, or else they might hire call center outsourcing companies with all the infrastructure supporting world-class delivery services. The staff working in call centers are called call center agents and need to be well-versed in solid communication and problem-solving skills. In addition, they can address the different requirements of the businesses.
What is call center outsourcing?
Call center outsourcing is the process of delegating responsibilities to a third-party customer support service provider to handle customer queries, sales activities, surveys, etc.
As a result, those service providers will be capable of ensuring high-quality service outcomes, manifesting a loyal and satisfied customer base, renewals, and increased sales.
Differences between call center services and answering services
Having some services in common, both these services are different.
Call center services
- Call center services are generic and comprehensive, having many dedicated agents to attend large volumes of calls daily.
- They are well-trained to serve any industry in any niche.
- The role of agents includes extending assistance, compiling orders to customers and sending reports or feedback to the clients.
- Every interaction is archived and sent to the company in an actionable report.
Answering services
- Helps in handling complicated tasks of a specialized nature.
- This process requires a deep understanding of the client’s organization, as different vertical markets are served.
- Answering services staff should have a critical thought process and quick decision-making skills.
- Sensitive calls are relayed instantly to the clients.
Useful Read: Important outsourcing questions to ask with an answering service provider.
Key call center concepts and terminologies
Domestic vs. International
Agencies offer specialized and personalized services to attract more clients. But you have to be careful and differentiate various niche call center companies by asking them some of the most specific domain related questions. You must first understand all the different features offered and then leverage the service accordingly.
When deciding on outsourcing, you will have to first inquire about the location of the contact center. The agent’s native language also plays a significant role, and you can also save on charges by outsourcing your requirements to offshore contact centers with excellent infrastructure. International call centers will have a lower number of services than domestic centers. Businesses with less turnover can opt for Domestic services; however, you may opt for international contact center services if you have a large-scale budget.
Inbound vs. Outbound Call Support
Inbound call centers focus mainly on customer service, and outbound services often focus on sales. Inbound support includes technical and specialized support, taking orders, and processing payments over the phone. These services are traditionally associated with call centers by businesses to help maintain a sustained relationship with customers. In Outbound support services, executives help your businesses generate leads through cold calling.
They are responsible for following up with customers who have already availed of the services. This will help assess their satisfaction index with the company’s services. The agents can connect with the direct customer and understand their pain points and feedback. Companies can strategize different ways to win back these customers based on those reviews. Outbound services increase the number of customers, helping them enter into new professional relationships and earn more. Analyze your organization’s requirements and decide on the services you need to fulfill your objectives.
Dedicated vs. Shared Agents
Agents exclusively devoted to catering to your business requirements are the dedicated agents who provide you with complete attention and their time. For comprehensive and specific needs, hiring dedicated agents is necessary.
As the name suggests, shared agents cater to the needs of different clients through proper time distribution. They are not the people who will be engaged in your whole business. This is a cost-effective alternative. If your budget is low to meet the expensive hiring models, you can opt for a semi-dedicated service model. They are the agents entrusted with 1 or 2 accounts in addition to yours. Cost and quality get the perfect balance with this model.
Availability
You must enquire about the number of hours that the call center executives will be available. Reputed companies offer 24X7 phone answering services round. You must ally with a company known for its reliability and ensure constant availability for the period you desire.
Reporting
Call center executives would be interacting and exchanging conversations with your customers directly. Your business’s image depends largely on how efficiently, smartly, and empathically call-center agents deal with customers. Before outsourcing your requirements, you must review the call centre’s level of transparency. This would be valuable in securing focused, meaningful, and actionable reports.
Call Volume Per Month
You must appreciate that call centers may specify a threshold regarding the minimum number of calls to be handled per month. This is important for their financial survival. Therefore, before inking any contract, you should accurately estimate the call volume you anticipate per month and the number of agents handling the calls efficiently.
Multilingual Services
If your business caters to domestic and offshore customers, you have to outsource your requirements to a company that can offer multilingual support. For example, you can hire agencies that offer native language support for Spanish, German and other international languages or dialects. If so, you must enquire about the supported languages and languages for which translation services are extended.
Why should you outsource call center services?
Outsourcing the call center requirements can save 30% for different organizations. Companies get more time to focus on their primary business activities. Matchless service quality and smooth processing are assured when outsourcing your requirements to an Indian company. Companies here are equipped with the technical sophistication of international standards and have extensive experience. If you outsource to the right people, you can make the most of your investments in terms of:
Scalability and flexibility
The volume of calls may fall or rise rapidly. Dealing with such abrupt fluctuations can be challenging for your in-house team, but it is easily manageable for call center outsourcing consultants as they are used to it. Agents are well-trained, and such outsourcing companies always have resources in reserve to scale up as and when needed.
Cost management tools
Business models of outsourcers are most of the time based on transaction costs. Therefore, such companies invest considerably in expertise and tools to correctly measure the costs per call to ensure profitability.
Fewer costs
Setting up your in-house contact center is a significant investment that is not recommended in typical cases. A lot of costs is involved in various tangible and intangible elements. Outsourcers have the provision of sharing their resources with multiple customers. This shared approach helps them minimize idle time because they can deliver services at lower rates. Fully engaged employees are an asset, and an excellent offshore company with enough clients can ensure it.
Exceptional call operators
Your in-house agents may be trained and skilled to deal only with a particular service or product. At the same time, there are agents having expertise in many client processes in an outsourced destination.
Knowledge of the industry
Call center agencies may have worked with almost all industries, and hence they are equipped with specific knowledge of even the most specialized industries. Experts here are capable of providing you with tips and tricks that work well with your business.
Collection of data and its analysis
Top call center outsourcing companies are well acquainted with the relevance of capturing and scrutinizing call information for insights that can considerably improve clients’ processes. Such contact centers have the experience of working for multiple clients and know in detail about information generated by different advertising programs.
Quality monitoring
When you sign service level agreements with a call center outsourcing company, it is mandated that all the communications, let it be via phone, chat, or email, should be dealt most professionally.
Round the clock support
Customers would like to contact you any time, maybe at weekends or even odd hours. You can’t make your in-house people work and attend to the queries during that time. This is not the case with outsourcing call centers. They are available 24/7 throughout the year.
Conclusion
Considering all these aspects, you can decide on outsourcing customer services to a proficient and experienced strategic partner. PGBS is a contact center outsourcing solution provider you can trust.
