No matter what industry any company in the world is a part of, call center operations are a must. Whether products or services are offered inshore or offshore, call centers are an integral part of the organization. These agents and representatives are a part of the company, as technical support providers, chat support agents, etc. In most cases, these external services provide are tasked with hiring and training agents.
Any department within an organization can benefit such as the marketing department, sales, HR, etc. Here are few pros of outsourcing your operations to call centers.
1. Customer Satisfaction
When you’re choosing call center services, look for businesses that have a proven track record of answering phones/calls for major global companies. Those are the answering services that have a high number of satisfied customers and clients.
2. Reduce Costs
Anyone in the industry knows that setting up call centers is not cheap. They tend to cause a lot of headaches even when skilled people are hired. You have to train agents, maintain infrastructure, and manage the books daily.
Hiring offshore balances all these headaches; they are circumvented, because the specialists you hire are usually experienced and require little to no training. This reduces costs dramatically compared to hiring a full-time staff.
3. Workloads
The whole premise of outsourcing revolves around putting functions in someone else’s hands. Thus lessening your own workload. However, the downside of this means that those business functions are vulnerable to being run amok. It becomes more difficult to monitor quality assurance and to enforce policies. The more operations and departments you outsource—whether it’s to one company or several–, the more you’re stretching thin your control over those operations.
Your business’ eggs take more effort and energy to manage effectively, since every call center service has its own strategic way of working. This is a major con that many managers and business executives deal with everyday. However interestingly, those who made peace with the fact that their own organization isn’t “taking on all business operations” find this a pro as well.
4. Tech
Call center managers who are the head of offshore services, if they are worth their weight in salt, are plugged into the digital culture. This means they’re well-equipped with the latest and greatest technology the market has to offer – that day, if necessary. They are familiar with a lot of software, systems (and hardware) as well as gadgets. This is a big advantage for business owners who need an insider to get a leg up on competition.
It’s common for these managers to know which software will help you tackle any particular problem.
5. Freed Time
Customer support requires its own process, taking orders requires its own system, making outbound sales has its own process, taking inbound calls has its own systems. Managing all of these protocols takes a lot of time away from you for running your business. The downside? You spend more time managing the outsourced center.
Think of a freelancer you hire to design your website – while this left you freed time to focus on other aspects of your business, you had to keep an eye on what the designer did. This mean asking for daily updates. Though, still better than managing all the call operations at your premises.
Conclusion
These are just a few common pros of hiring “outsiders” to handle aspects of your company. It’s easy to see that there are benefits and drawbacks to outsourcing; however, a large part of it has to do with the company you hire. Do your due diligence before signing the contract.