It takes great customer service to earn and retain customers in today’s times. One way to increase customer satisfaction is to ensure amazing customer support that can be extended through a call center. Call centers address customer queries and offer resolutions to their problems via calls, IMs, or texts. While some companies can afford to have in-house call centers, it makes sense for most enterprises to outsource call center support to a specialized provider.
Here are some reasons why outsourcing call centers makes a lot of sense:
1. Decreased costs
The initial investment in the form of capital expenditure is massive that will be used for staffing, electronics equipment, utilities, and more. This setup cost can be avoided entirely, and the company can only pay for the services required hourly for their respective clients. There are other benefits of using outsourced call centers that are inexpensive compared to in-house facilities, such as shared call agents with multiple clients. This approach decreases any downtime and can also lead to lower rates per call when hired.
2. Flexibility and scalability
After a call center is set up, there will be recurring costs of staff salaries and benefits, computer annual maintenance contracts, office space, and related utilities. However, a company will see a rise and fall in calls as per business and related customer volumes. This means in-house call centers won’t justify year-round operating costs. Also, the efficiency of the call center will fluctuate due to unpredictable call volumes. With outsourced call center support services, there will be a steady stream of clients throughout the year, justifying operating costs, and the efficiency of the call support will be high. Another benefit of outsourcing call centers is the ability to scale support on short notice. This is helpful during unpredictable spikes of call volumes.
3. Specialized industry knowledge
Call centers that take on outsourcing requests have extensive industry knowledge in their respective domains. This can range from shipping processes in logistics and transportation to credit-card companies. Staff working in such call centers have years of experience handling customer support over call and are well-versed with time-tested strategies and insights.
4. Call agents with versatile skills
In-house call center executives have their training centered around the company’s product or service, which can hamper the call agents’ and managers’ problem-solving ability to handle unexpected queries. Specialized call centers usually deal with various products and services across industries and domains. Their staff is highly efficient with on-the-spot problem-solving and versatile call management abilities, leading to satisfied customers.
5. Better cost management
In-house call centers will calculate costs on a broad basis: monthly, quarterly, or annually. This makes cost management less granular and harder to track and manage. However, when you employ a contact center outsourcing, the business model will be on a cost-per-transaction basis. The outsourced call centers have comprehensive tools to accurately measure the cost per call, so their clients can be billed monthly with detailed quotations. You can then easily measure the effectiveness of operations or a specific marketing campaign.
6. Data collection and analysis
Outsourced call centers have extensive experience recording and evaluating call information to extract actionable insights that can enhance client performance. Their investment in technology to extract the required data can be split by costs borne by various clients over time.
7. Quality Control
You might have heard this statement several times before “Your call might be recorded for quality control purposes,” when you called a customer care line. This refers to the training the call agents undergo and adjust to before and during their tenure as call agents. This is part of the service level agreements (SLAs) that ensure all client communications, including calls, chats, and emails should be handled professionally. Metrics measuring these communications include first-time call resolution and answer time. Most in-house call centers do not have the massive resources to meet the required quality standards for call management.
8. Adopting cutting-edge technology
As mentioned earlier, call centers that take on outsourcing call management services will be able to invest heavily in the latest technology required for call management. This tech can range from the latest in IMs, VoIP, web chat, and other cloud-based mediums. Since dedicated call centers must deal only with calls, such an investment will pay good dividends in the long run.
9. Round-the-clock call centers
Most enterprises today have products and services that are globally marketed, sold, and serviced. This would require call centers catering to customers in different time zones worldwide. In-house call centers will need alternating shifts to cater to such a broad customer base and will be quite expensive to set up and run. When you outsource such requirements to a call center that handles different time zones, the one-time setup cost and high operational costs can be avoided.
Outsourcing call center support helps maximize customer satisfaction, reduce operational costs, and increase the efficiency of in-house staff and managers. Companies may choose to outsource a part or all their customer service responsibility to reduce overheads and time. The success of any business lies in happy and satisfied customers, so we advise collaborating with a specialized provider.