In recent years, outsourcing call center services have become increasingly popular just like other types of outsourcing. Outsourcing call center is simply a process whereby a company or business leverages technical assistance outside of its structure to offer support and help to its customers. Just like other forms of outsourcing, the major goal behind call center outsourcing is to minimize expenses that come with customer care service without neglecting the needs of customers.
Is Call Center Outsourcing Really Beneficial?
Obviously, the increased popularity of call center outsourcing is an indication that some benefits accrue from the process and would include the following;
Minimized Expenses
Whether it is call center outsourcing or other forms of outsourcing, the major goal behind outsourcing is to save cost and increase profit margin. A company saves a lot of money by letting a third party use its business premises to offer customer assistance to their clients. This is because the outsourcing company will take responsibility of paying for office space, overhead costs and other expenses that come with call centers. Ultimately, a company that outsources its customer help desk will plough back the money saved into growing and expanding the business.
Increased Access to Expertise
Sometimes, a company may not have sufficient resources to recruit real professionals for technical support and assistance. This is particularly true about small and medium-scale businesses, especially the ones that are just getting started. So, by contracting qualified outsourcing call center services, a small business or a company with limited resources is able to access professional technical support that they may not have been able to afford in-house. Customers are the life blood of any business – no customer, no sales, hence no income. Therefore, one of the best ways to ensure that a company does not jeopardize its customers’ patronage is to offer quality customer support through outsourcing.
24/7 Customer Support
Most outsourcing call center services offer round-the-clock customer support in the 7 days of the week. So, a company that leverages customer support or call center outsourcing is able to provide support for its customers even outside of normal business operating hours. This type of benefit that comes from help desk outsourcing particularly helps companies to gain competitive edge, especially if the competitors do not offer round-the-clock customer support. In essence, consumers will be automatically drawn to the one who provides support and technical assistance just any time. However, if getting 24/7 customer support is your main purpose for outsourcing call center, ensure that the outsourcing service provider will meet this need.
Customer Complaints are Resolved Faster
Since the call center service provider has no other task but to respond to the complaints of the customers, complaints are resolved faster. This in turn promotes increased customer satisfaction. On the other hand, in-house customer support team is often charged with other responsibilities that result in divided attention to the needs of customers. This explains why busy tones, call-waiting, and un-answered calls were the order of the day prior to the advent of call center outsourcing.
However, in order to get the best from outsourcing call center services, insist on hiring only the most competent provider.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! inspires entrepreneurs build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
The best way to ensure your customers and clients are completely satisfied is to step up to the 21st century customer service that is completely innovative. Top customer service outsourcing companies are leveraging such innovative customer care systems to keep their clients’ customers consistently satisfied. The pioneering, 21st century customer care systems can range from traditional phone call to real-time chat, voicing, email management, website queries or orders, fax, interactive voice response(IVR) menus, call routing, mobile SMS, automated call backs, multimedia queuing, and more. The best part is that the top customer care outsourcing providers usually provide 24/7 service, so that your clients are attended to even at odd hours.
That’s not all, you are also provided with choices of operations when you hire top-notch customer service providers. For instance, some customer service centers have all agents working under one roof, while others recruit work-from-home agents who log in remotely. You can also choose on-shore call center outsourcing or the off-shore version. You can choose between small or big high-performing centers (in terms of size), and will find agents who work with in-house servers, or the ones working with land lines. On the other hand, others may rely on voice over internet protocol (VoIP) as well as cloud-based applications. Obviously, the choices are versatile and extensive.
Today’s successful customer service outsourcing providers are poised to ‘right the wrongs’ of the past. The agents have been trained on how to communicate effectively with the clients’ customers and know how to personalize every single call in such way that customers will have no doubt they are speaking with the company, and that there is high priority in ensuring their issues are resolved.
Conduct a Risk-Benefit Analysis
While the 21st century customer service outsourcing companies are doing great job in satisfying their clients’ customers, you should not hurry into outsourcing your customer care. First, you need to carry out a risk-benefit analysis to determine if outsourcing will best suit your customer service need. So, evaluate the culture and service needs of your company, including your current staff skills in regards to customer service as well as available resources. After proper cost-benefit analysis, you can decide on relinquishing control to a skilled third party who will handle your customer care.
Examine Your Customers’ Experience Thoroughly
Examining your customers’ experience is another essential consideration as you seek to outsource your customer service. For instance, are your customers getting personal touch and attention from your in-house customer care team? For small businesses, personal touch has always been seen as their hallmark, but this is not so with a lot of small businesses. Except you sit back as the CEO or owner to take a hard and long look at the type of experience your customers are getting, you may conclude all is going well. Sometimes, tons of your customers must have migrated to your competitor long before you realize what is happening. This type of massive departure is usually linked to unsatisfactory customer care service. The truth is, a good number of smaller enterprises do not have specially trained staff that are dedicated to just customer service. These enterprises will usually appoint just any less-busy employee to attend to a customer’s complaint, whether or not the person has the required skill.
So, the best route for most businesses is to resort to customer service outsourcing companies.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! inspires entrepreneurs build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
Outsourcing customer service has grown increasingly popular because of the numerous advantages such as cost savings. In this practice, a company allows a third party to handle its customer service calls. A good number of companies find this practice to be both cost-effective and convenient versus hiring employees to do the job on site. Some of the popular call center outsourcing destinations include India and the Philippines.
Features of Outsourced Customer Service
Typically, customer service or call service centers feature rows of cubicles and are equipped with computers and telephones. These call centers usually operate 24/7 and typically operate shift duties. The customer service providers make outbound and inbound calls from their cubicles.
The calls that customer service outsourcing representatives receive from the clients or customers of the outsourced company is known as inbound phone calls. On the other hand, the calls made to the company’s clients or customers (outgoing calls) on behalf of the company are known as outbound phone calls. When you opt for customer service outsourcing, you will be provided with a telephone number for your customer communications. The outsourcing providers will take customer calls on behalf of the company on the contact numbers provided. The outsourcing customer service providers provide valuable information about the client’s company to its customers and help resolve any problem that the clients/customers may have. They make and receive calls with the company’s name and ultimately represent the company.
Benefits
Customer Satisfaction and Sustained Loyalty
The reason for making outbound calls on behalf of a company may include following up on previous service issues. Customer service has become one of the most important business functions that help keep a company in a competitive mode in the present day’s marketplace. It is important to contact customers to find out how they view the company’s products and/or services, and whether or not they are satisfied with such products and/or services. It is a great way to help keep up customer loyalty.
Increased Sales
Also, outsourcing customer service offers businesses some marketing benefits. For instance, companies hire call center outsourcing services for marketing purposes, to contact customers and let them know about new products and special offers, which ultimately helps to boost sales significantly.
24/7 Customer Service
Another great benefit that comes with outsourcing customer service is that businesses are able to provide round-the-clock customer service throughout the week and year. So, as customers are able to call at their own convenience and get help even during off-business hours and odd hours, they are most likely to increase their patronage, become loyal customers and even refer others to the business. And, the company also achieves extra benefits such as avoiding overtime costs as well as extra-training costs that would have come with hiring customer service employees in-house.
Finally, there are additional services from multimedia call centers such as ecommerce activities (e.g. order taking and resolving customer queries) and email/website support.
Indeed, there are tons of benefits that come with outsourcing customer service.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! inspires entrepreneurs build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
No doubts, there are tons of benefits that come with contracting call center outsourcing services. From profit margin increase to time saving, competitive edge and access to highly qualified manpower skills, the benefits are simply numerous. However, in order to ensure the best possible outcome from outsourcing your call center, there are some core concepts you need to pay attention to, especially in the area of hiring the right provider.
So, for increased success with call center outsourcing, here are the top 4 essential steps to take;
1: Outline Your Objectives in a Clear Manner
Before taking decision on contracting an outsourced call center service, sit back and spell out your objectives for this decision. And, as you pen these objectives down in a succinct and clear manner, it will be clearer to you whether or not you are making the right decision. A helpful tip is to outline your business processes that may potentially require call center service – e.g. customer care, social media listening/engagement and so on. Do you feel there is a vacuum in any of these aspects? If yes, then consider a call center outsourcing service and weigh the benefits against the potential cons in your consideration.
2: Look Out for the Right Outsourcing Provider
When you’ve decided that you need a call center outsourcing service, the next step is to find the right provider for the job. There are several ways to get the right outsourcing company for the task. You can ask people in your industry or go straight to online freelance platforms to hire. Whichever way you choose, the most important thing is to ensure the potential provider has the right qualifications for call center service. Check the portfolio and credentials of the provider to see if they will meet your expectations satisfactorily. You should focus on hiring a provider with substantial experience. Interview as many as you can and finally narrow down your choice based on the most potentially capable provider for your company’s call center outsourcing need.
3: Spell Out Your Requirements in Clear Terms
Before even signing the contract, ensure that your call center requirements are written clearly and unambiguously, and that the provider has read and understood every detail of the requirements. For instance, if you are outsourcing your call center to handle your customer support, you may insist on having native speakers manage the calls as part of your requirements. So, ensure that such details are spelt out and that the provider understands and confirms they possess the right skill for your specific requirements. To ensure you are on the same page with the provider, ask direct questions related to your specific requirements to see what response you will get from the provider.
4: Make the Contract Binding to Both Parties
One of the best ways to ensure that no party defaults in an outsourcing relationship is to make the contract binding to both parties. In essence, let there be terms and conditions that both parties will sign in regards to the contract. This will make each party to the contract committed and ready to take responsibility.
Finally, if you do not know the right step to take in contracting call center outsourcing services, consult an expert.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! inspires entrepreneurs build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
It is no longer news that outsourcing is taking over the business environment. Companies and businesses can virtually outsource any business function – from legal to accounting, administrative, information technology, help desk, manufacturing, content development, just any business function. This massive demand for outsourcing company is tied to one huge factor – cost-saving, as well as tons of other benefits such as competitive advantage and leveraging skills that are lacking in-house. If your business is not yet leveraging outsourcing, chances are you are missing out on increased earning opportunities!
Different Types of Outsourcing Services
There are different types of outsourcing services that businesses can contract with an outsourcing company. Basically, outsourcing services are grouped into four;
Professional service
Manufacturing service
Process-specific service
Operational service
As more businesses seek to cut back on their overhead costs, these outsourcing services have grown increasingly popular. As mentioned earlier, the most benefit that comes from outsourcing is the cost savings, both in terms of labor costs and equipment costs. However, there is concern in the aspect of quality and control. But, there is no cause for alarm in these areas as long as a business adopts due process and diligence in hiring an outsource service provider.
Let’s examine each of the above outsourcing services;
Professional Outsourcing Service
The business functions listed under professional outsourcing services include legal, accounting, information technology, purchasing, as well as other specialized services. This type of arrangement offers potentially increased cost savings, making outsourcing in these areas a popular trend. The most outstanding advantage is that a company gains access to high quality resources and does not pay beyond the services used. The ultimate outcome is significant reduction in a company’s overhead costs.
Manufacturing Outsourcing Services
This type of outsourcing service is often industry-specific in its nature. A typical example is a car manufacturing company that can decide to contract an outsourcing service for making and installing windows in their automobiles. The biggest advantage that comes from using manufacturing outsourcing service is cost saving, plus decreased assembling time. However, there are also some concerns such as quality issues and interception of the product time. As mentioned earlier, these concerns can be greatly reduced by ensuring due process is followed in hiring an outsourcing company.
Process Specific Service
Outsourcing service can also be specific to an internal procedure or unique process. This is a suitable option for service organizations where the specific areas of the service can be contracted to another organization, so that the business can concentrate on the core areas of the service. A typical example is a bakery company; here, the delivery aspect of the business can be outsourced to a distribution company, providing it with customer contacts, delivery contacts as well as costs.
Operational Outsourcing Service
This type of outsourcing arrangement is common in the manufacturing industry. This is because there are tons of specific operational functions required in the manufacturing industry. For instance, equipment repairs and machine maintenance can be outsourced to a specialized outsourcing company.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! inspires entrepreneurs build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
The commercial director of MoneyPenny emphasizes on the importance of outsourcing a company’s reception services in order to deliver more effective and excellent customer support, and to provide better opportunities for staff to focus on the core aspects of the business. The ultimate outcome is cost savings and highly satisfied customers, especially when a company hires the right outsourced reception services. Economic analysts and experts forecast that tougher economic crises are ahead of us. Therefore, smart organizations and businesses should take advantage of every possible opportunity to cut back on operation costs, while attaining to the needs of their clients satisfactorily.
Shocking Statistics of What Happens When Customers are Neglected
Complacency in offering customer support is bound to take place when the company’s staff members handling calls and complaints of customers are also engaged with other tasks and responsibilities. Here’s a shocking statistics of what happens when customers are neglected: Research has shown that “more than 60 percent of consumers will not call back when met with engaged tone, and when a call is not answered, nearly 70 percent of callers will never try again!”one message is clear from this statistics; customers only always expect the best from a business.
So, What’s the Solution?
It is a giant stride when a company or business embarks on outsourced reception services. This will help to greatly minimize the issues of engaged tones and unanswered calls. This is because the reception service provider has no other business but responding to the calls and complaints of your customers, and most of them even offer to do it round the clock, including weekends and holidays.
However, it is important for a company to make a right move in contracting outsourced reception service, bearing in mind that the life of your business depends on your customers’ patronage. If the vendor messes up, your business will ultimately bear the consequences.
Here are some proven ways to manage outsourced reception services more effectively;
Choose the Telephone Answering Solution that Best Suits Your Business
Decide whether outsourced, digital, or overflow reception will best suit your business. The reception technologies are ever evolving to help customize a suitable reception service to suit a company’s uniqueness. The most important thing is to ensure the company is offering you the full-version of whichever reception service you choose. And ensure you are getting the best possible service for your valued customers or clients.
Get to Know Your Outsourcing Partner
Build a solid relationship from the onset with your outsourced reception service provider. Ensure the outsourced receptionist understands your business operations and the needs of your customers fully. Build such a relationship that will give customers the impression that their calls are being handled by the company itself.
Maximize the Flexibility of the Reception Service to Meet Your Needs
You should be in control when it comes to how you prefer your customers’ calls to be handled. For instance, do you prefer call diversion on a permanent basis or when phones are busy, or do you want the service switched for cover at specific times? This is a great way to ensure you don’t pay for the reception services you are not using. Go ahead and maximize outsourced reception services with these valuable tips.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! inspires entrepreneurs build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
It doesn’t matter the type of business you do. Customer service is apparently an indispensable aspect that ensures you retain your customers, and you undeniably know that no business can survive without loyal customers. In fact, your business will not just survive as a result of loyal patronage, it will compete favorably and eventually be on the lead in the industry. Having made that clear, it is important to say that customers tend to speak their minds with their wallets – it takes a lot of ploy to earn repeat patronage, but if you do not relapse in providing quality service, you can be sure to win their loyal patronage as long as possible.
Quality Customer Service is Indispensable for Loyal Patronage
In essence, one of the sole most important ways to earn and sustain the loyalty of your customers is to offer them superb customer service. There are certain times that we lose control of the services we offer, and we should do everything we can to ensure that the customer does not go away with negative experience about their purchase at such moments.
So, What’s the Solution to the Cost-Intensive Nature of Quality Customer Service?
On the other hand, superb customer service can exert a lot of cost on the company’s budget, especially when you add up the costs of labor, facilities maintenance, infrastructure, and other logistics required to prevent any hitch. Indeed, these factors can make the cost rack up significantly.
Now, the question is, what is the solution to the cost-intensive nature of this highly important aspect of a business called customer service? You don’t have to look further – the answer simply lies in customer service outsourcing.
A good number of the largest businesses today are increasingly outsourcing their customer service nowadays – when you do a comparison analysis in terms of the cost of creating a customer-service department in-house versus the cost of outsourcing the service, you will discover it is far cheaper to let a customer service outsourcing company take care of your business’s customer needs. But, this does not come without concern about the quality of service that your customers may be getting when you allow others to attend to their needs.
There is nothing to worry about, the outsourcing services want your customers to remain loyal as much as you desire the same.
They are aware of their obligation to ensure your customers get nothing but superb service. Is this not evident in the way largest businesses are massively reaching out for customer service outsourcing? They’ve proven that it is possible to get top-notch customer service from outsourcing companies at just a fraction of the cost, helping you plough back the other bulk of the money to your business for its growth. Obviously, without doubts, customer service outsourcing solution is a very sensible step that any business can resort to.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! inspires entrepreneurs build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
If you own or are operating a business, these days it probably seems that just about everywhere you look you are being bombarded with the idea of outsourcing labor. Really, it’s no surprise that everyone is talking about easy and effective it is to outsource certain projects- technology has revolutionized the world and the way that we do business, and one of the major adaptations in the business world is just how easy it is to find and outsource employees, whether it be from outside the country or simply from outside your office.
Because of this, you may find that much of your competition is gaining an edge through increased productivity and lowered operating costs, but is outsourcing right for you?
There are a nearly endless number of different tasks that can effectively be outsourced. Nearly any task that you need to have done, as a matter a fact, can probably be successfully outsourced. Think about what functions you absolutely must have present in the workplace for these tasks to be able to be successfully completed- how many of those tasks can, in fact, be completed from the employee’s home or elsewhere?
There might be even more of these tasks than you think- such as call center work, customer service, accounting, any number of accounting tasks, as well as any number of tasks related to the upkeep of your online presence, such as SEO.
SEO outsourcing services are actually one of the hottest trends on the market right now. If you’re operating a successful business with a strong online presence, you absolutely must consider SEO, search engine optimization, as an option for increasing the flow of traffic to your website and business.
SEO is a process that helps your website to rise through the ranks of returned results from various search engines, ensuring that potential customers that search for products and services related to those that your business offers, ensuring that your website is seen before those of your competition.
SEO is not exactly the easiest task, however. The techniques that can help your website to rise through the rank can also cause your website to drop like a rock if handled incorrectly- these search engines have very specific algorithms designed to detect which sites should appear first, and those algorithms can also detect whenever they are being defrauded. Because of this it takes a professional to professional enhance search engine results to be in your favor. SEO outsourcing services employee only these professionals, helping you to reach brand new clients.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! inspires entrepreneurs build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
Competition for the best market share and brand recognition is fierce. To separate your business from your competitors, your business must be able to stand out from the crowd. And the best way to do that is by providing impeccable customer service. Whether your business is online based or a traditional brick-and-mortar, smart entrepreneurs understand that excellent customer service is not just an option; it is essential.
With the growing popularity of online based services, most companies start their customer service with online content that allows customers to learn about the product or service or solve their own problem. However, majority of customers today would rather have a real person to listen to their inquiries or help them find solution to their problem regarding the product or services instead of just reading the solution on the FAQ list. This is one of the reasons why companies, big or small, should have its own customer service department to handle this particular task alone.
But what if your company cannot afford to set up its own customer service department and train new personnel?
Training customer service staffs is not just a matter of typical classroom instruction. This requires informal and on the job training that usually happens in break rooms and company hallways and also during actual interactions with customers.For a company whose customer service department is not yet in place, how do you plan to handle this kind of situation?
When you outsource customer service, you will be relieved from a heavy burden of investing on the creation of an in-house customer service department. This is not just a simple matter of clearing a room and pulling out employees from their stations to handle the customer calls, emails and other form of inquiries. If you are finding it hard to manage of your own customer service and after sales service and yet you do not have the budget to set up an in- house customer service department, maybe it is time for you to consider your options to outsource customer service with professional and highly reliable third party customer service providers.
Providing the best possible customer service in the industry can make your business successful because it can help you establish your brand while developing rock-solid loyalty and trust from your customers.
And to top it all, the benefits you can get when you outsource customer service can help you focus on other core tasks and business processes of your company which in turn will help you achieve business growth and profitability. Dealing with your customer inquiries, calls, complains, suggestions etc. can require a lot of time and you can lose a lot of business opportunity if you will dedicate half of your time dealing with it yourself. But if you will outsource customer service, you can concentrate more on keeping your business successful while allowing the professionals to handle your customer service needs.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! inspires entrepreneurs build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
We all know that one of the most important elements of a successful business is the customer service aspect. While customer service is not actually the product that you are selling, unless, of course, you are operating a business dedicated to providing customer service as a product to other companies, it is undeniable that a strong, positive customer service experience is a very strong element of a positive sales force. Whenever your customers have a need to interact with the people that you have hired to represent your company in the customer service aspect it is very important that they come away with a positive impression.
A single negative interaction with a customer service representative can be enough to spawn any number of highly negative reviews online, damaging your reputation.
Since a strong customer service department is a requirement for operating a successful business there is really no way to get around operating one. What you do have, however, are options to reduce the costs and responsibility associated with the operation. The way that many modern business owners are finding to reduce these costs is actually fairly simply- outsourcing customer service. This allows you the liberty of shifting the overhead cost of setting up and maintaining the infrastructure of a customer service department to an outsourcing center that is already equipped to handling it, requiring you only to pay for the hours of labor cost you purchase from the center.
However, one of the primary benefits of outsourcing customer service may not be readily apparent on the surface.
While the tangible benefits to your business are obviously the monetary benefits of shifting the costs of operation to another operation and minimizing the labor costs, the intangible benefit comes from the freedom you acquire from shifting the managerial requirement onto another service. This liberates all of the time and energy that you would normally have to dedicate to making sure that the customer service center is operational and overseeing the employees of the center, letting you shift all of those resources towards other endeavors.
What you choose to do with your newfound free time is up to you- whether you want to dedicate that time to a hobby to improve your personal quality of life or reinvest that energy into your business to help it grow and expand is up to you. That being said, when the benefits of outsourcing customer service are so apparent it basically necessitates checking into outsourcing centers to see if this is the right decision of your business. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! inspires entrepreneurs build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
