Best Practices For Outsourcing Your Call Center

A common challenge for fast-growing companies is how they manage an ever-increasing volume of customer support calls.

Selling a product or service is not where customer interaction ends. Your business needs to be accessible for ongoing customer queries, and if the service is poor, they will take their business elsewhere. Thankfully there are call centers for outsourcing front line support and other services.

Besides, call centers can do a lot more for your business, including being part of the marketing and sales process.

Did you know helpdesk are excellent places to understand more about your clients, capture data that can be used to boost your business?

But you need to choose your outsourcing provider with care. An excellent call center outsourcing company can, for all intents and purposes, act as an extension of your business, helping with customer support, sales, and so much more.

Outsourcing is new, and the service providers can become significant partners delivering services for technology, hr, bookkeeping, sales and marketing.

This article looks at outsourcing to a call center.

Customer Support

It’s not only companies growing too quickly that struggle with customer support. Are you having a hard time with call center efficacy?

Operating your own help desks, i.e. customer support, is costly, and for smaller businesses, it’s untenable; therefore, outsourcing both inbound and outbound call center requirements makes good business sense.

Outbound and Inbound Call Centers

Call centers categorize their services into inbound and outbound services.

Outbound

An outbound call center includes making outgoing calls on behalf of your business.

The main aim of outbound calls is to make sales or market your business to attain new levels in the market. Plus, it could be about making reservations, giving directions, or providing information that will help your trade grow.

Inbound

Similarly, an inbound call center that handles incoming calls regarding your venture. They include anything that revolves around your business, such as inquiries. However, inbound calls mainly focus on customer service and support to resolve various issues.

Therefore, you must understand your business and what you need before outsourcing.

For example, you will need inbound services to provide customer support and technical assistance for software and programs. On the other hand, outbound is necessary for ventures that need help to reach their customers.

Plus, call centers do a lot more than manage customer enquiries. For example, your business can engage the call center to manage buyer enquiries, and as such, they can work with any marketing campaign and market intelligence initiatives.

Marketing is far-reaching, and the initial response for a campaign is vast and requires careful management as it can be the first real interaction a prospective customer has with your business.  Therefore for improved productivity, the call center can be your first line of response.

Dedicated and Shared Agents

An ideal call center offers both dedicated and shared agents.  So what is the difference between shared and dedicated agents?

Dedicated

Dedicated agents are those assigned only to your account.  You can ensure they devote their time to your service and requirements.  For specialised response that requires upskilling and specific knowledge, you would use dedicated agents as your front line ‘staff.

Shared

For more generalised front line support, you’d make use of shared agents. These agents attend to different clients and do not necessarily respond to your business call 100%. Shared agents are cheaper but still meet the needs of businesses that do not need particular attention daily.

Keep an Eye on Artificial Intelligence Trends

Call centers are realising opportunities to augment human ability with artificial intelligence. AI is already taking root in the call center insofar as it’s being used in contextualizing massive data received from call centers.

For example, AI is being used to predict the buying behavior of customers manages mundane tasks. Escalate calls to agents when required and also monitor agents and their performance.

Moving Forward With Outsourcing – Get References

Just like any outsourcing service contract, it’s vital to do your homework before choosing a provider.

As part of your selection process, conduct customer reviews and appraisals. Your focus is to delve deep into how the partnership is working.

While you need to know the service is professional and productive, you all need to know how the call center business responds to any challenges during the contracted term.

Summing Up

Outsourcing your front line support and other tasks like managing sales should be financially beneficial to your business.  Take your time with the provider selection process and make sure you know your requirements will be serviced, so there’s an improvement in operational and sales efficiency.