Things to consider when outsourcing your call center.

This week’s guest blogger is Bill Samuels, President of Telesales Services a call center referral agency.  He answers some common questions that he encounters regarding outsourced call center work. Bill is a call center industry expert that is highly acclaimed as a call center outsourcing consultant.

1.) What are the key benefits of call center outsourcing?

Call centers provide companies a method of interacting with current and prospective customers to handle their telesales, telemarketing and customer service requirements.

With the advent of technology, call center service providers have more capabilities than ever before. Businesses are exploring ways to reduce expenses and overhead, maximize their profits and expand their capabilities by using call centers that specialize in specific areas. Therefore, call center outsourcing has proven to be beneficial especially without having to sacrifice the quality of services provided.

The benefits of call center outsourcing include the cost savings that can be derived from the reduction in overhead and labor costs required to host the call centers in-house. Call center outsourcing allows a business to reduce the labor and infrastructure costs of a call center by contracting the work to a third party that specializes in call center activities. Labor cost reduction is by far the most significant benefit of using call center outsourcing.

Another benefit for a business utilizing call center outsourcing is that it allows the business to take advantage of the new technologies that an outsourced call center may provide. The growth of technologies that utilize the internet by many outsourced call centers gives businesses a likely edge over their competitors. The outsourced call centers often use the latest customer relationship management tools to achieve the best in customer service. The new call center technologies provide better interaction between businesses and their customers and allow businesses to reach new customers and achieve greater market penetration.

If you do not have the capability to provide an in-house call center then outsourcing is a great option. A small business can gain greater market share, reach a wider audience, and provide better services when employing an outsourced call center. For a new business using call center outsourcing, it gives them an immediate entrée into the market and allows them to have a ready made support staff.

For most businesses call center outsourcing is beneficial because it allows them to focus on their core business and reduces or eliminates the need to have a call center in-house. These businesses can devote their staff to performing the duties of the business and eliminate the need to deal with tasks such as commodity telesales, product troubleshooting and customer service issues.

2.) What are the key elements a client should consider when choosing an outsourced call center?

• Flexibility: Do they have the flexibility to scale their services and to support increases or decreases in call volume?
• Experience: Does the call center have the experience with the type of calls I am outsourcing?  Do they have experience in my industry?
• Financial Strength: Does the call center have the financial stability to be a long term partner?
• Management: Is the management of the company committed to its success and to mine? How long have key management members been with the company?
• Employee turnover: Do the employees of the company stay with it? What is the attrition rate?
• Technology: Does the company have the capacity and the technology to support my needs? Is the infrastructure sound? Is there in-house expertise available for collaboration?
• Feedback and Reporting: How fast and how easily will I be able to get feedback on the customer experience? What reports are available and how often will I get them?
• Quality: Do they have digital recording, remote call monitoring and web based quality reporting tools?  What are their quality best practices?
• Training: What training is provided to the people representing my business?

3.) What do you look for in a call-center agent?

There are a number of factors for consideration when evaluating the benefits of an outsourced call center and it starts with their call center agents. The extensive interaction between a customer and the call center agent requires a sophisticated call center agent. The call center agent with the appropriate skill set utilizing the latest technology is enabled to deliver a high level of service to the customers.

Call center agents require more skills today. Strong phone skills are mandatory. In addition the ability to craft an email response or handle online text chat sessions to the customer’s satisfaction is critical. Call center agents are expected to access the customer’s contact information utilizing the applicable scripts and knowledge base to address questions during a live conversation to ensure an excellent customer experience.