Call centers are there to support your back office and such areas where you may not have the expertise to excel. Sometimes, the lack of skills or lags can be the reason for hiring a call center.
Besides, the rule of thumb says you should invest in support services as your customer base grows and inquiry calls turn skyrocketing. Your customers require you to listen to their grievances and administer their problems. So, you need to find a way out to assist them. Otherwise, their bad experience starts impacting your revenue and scalability.
Here, call center outsourcing can help you. Since the advent of globalization, it is absolutely fantastic in proving its worth through inbound and outbound support. But, there are certain limitations or downsides that you may not be happy about. However, you will find its benefits weigh more than those disadvantages.
This piece of writing will help you to know how it works, what its upsides and downsides are, and how you can use it as an opportunity to deliver an excellent customer experience.
Why Should You Consider Call Center Outsourcing?
Call center outsourcing refers to contracting out an external expert or third party that is extraordinary in handling calls, conducting surveys, and supporting customers on your behalf. You may consider any domestic or call center from India or any offshore BPO outsourcing company for this purpose.
Hiring such experts can spare your internal staff members to focus on core services. You find them really handy in running non-core operations smoothly for you. Moreover, you don’t need to outsource a complete project or service. Just find where your team lacks or does not devote adequate time for effective results. It can be just answering calls of grieved customers, lead generation, data research for prospective customers, etc. Outsource only specific tasks to your partner.
The main goal or advantage of call center outsourcing is to get sufficient time and resources for engaging in main practices. You can have more time for focusing on product development, marketing, sales, and other essential business operations.
Benefits of Call Center Outsourcing
Although you might have got an idea about its benefits, such as saving time and money, retaining customers, etc., here is a brief of some more advantages that you would love to explore.
Inexpensive Source
Such call centers take your calling process, which requires experienced and certified telecallers. This alternative helps you save money that you would otherwise incur on hiring, training, arranging assets & facilities, and managing infrastructure digitally. In short, this option saves up to 70% of the money that might be incurred on the team of customer support executives.
Better Customer Experience
Customers get delighted when you hear their queries and provide solutions. Take into account that this part is really crucial because it can engage or disengage your customers. Hiring an expert team can avail of 24/7 support to your own customers throughout the year. Even, you can expect opportunities to come on week offs also. It does not hamper your core practices. And, your customers increase over time.
Expertly Handle Customers’ Needs
Needless to say, all leading BPOs come up with a network of well-trained and certified support staff. It is known for handling customers adeptly. Their expertise reflects their technical capacities, such as supporting via a chatbot together with on-call support. Simply put, they do everything to make your customers happy and build their connection with your company. Their speed or turnaround time in closing a query defines their efficiency.
Actually, these call centers get ready with some video-based tutorials or automated responses to common queries. Here, they win half of the battle. And, the rest part is reserved for bespoke solutions. Above this, they use advanced data analytics tools to measure calls & responses’ quality. It helps in bettering the customer experience and developing branding.
Increases Customer Retention
By hiring a virtual customer support expert, your company ensures delivering a happy experience to a broader group of customers. A pleasurable response instinctively inspires them to refer more customers. This engagement helps in lead generation and maximizing conversion. Being experts, these call reps maximize their availability and personalize the experience for indigenous customers. Their dedication, gentle approach, and expertise attract and retain customers. Over time, they become loyal, which helps in gaining more opportunities. This is how you can pile up revenues.
Disadvantages of Call Center Outsourcing
There are a few drawbacks that fade the beauty of this outsourcing service. Here is their roundup.
Less Control & Incorporation
Being located outside somewhere, it’s hardly possible to connect with the outsourcing team physically. It lessens the collaboration between the support team and your company, especially the in-house sales and marketing team.
Besides, it’s really challenging to proactively control the way all things go on. Somewhere, you don’t find their all responses fit and are up to mark.
Less Industry Knowledge
This is possible that the hired party may not be aware of your core business. Or, somewhere it lacks understanding of exactly what you do or what your specialization is. It may be possible that the outsourcing partner may not be able to provide specialized solutions as you do since it does not work with your company. It may not be aware of your mission or goal, which certainly impacts the way it attends to customers. Not only that, it often leads to struggling in handling difficult customers.
Invaluable Feedback
Customers’ feedback is precious. It has customers’ opinions on how to get better services or products. Their complaints are helpful in addressing their downsides. When you hire an outsourcing company, it shares the data of processed queries and solved issues. But, you don’t get the list of complaints that your real customers face. You miss their pain points, which certainly hinder your growth.
Decide the Costing Carefully
Although the cost of outsourcing for customer support varies, there are multiple factors that actually make a difference. These can be location, experience or reputation of the company, and the type of service required.
For instance, the salary of an accountant in India is INR 19460/month, which is $238.28. On the other hand, the same professionals in the US charge $55,824 per month. It clearly shows a big difference. This difference can help in saving money and onboarding experts with skills at an affordable price.
Above that, call center agencies only receive amounts for their productivity. Typically, it is measured as 85% per hour, which means that the cost would be lesser than what you agreed with. This is where you save money because the in-house telecaller will certainly get the full amount, which is not applicable in the case of outsourcing. This cost difference is big and can help you to save on your employee’s wages.
In the nutshell, call center outsourcing can be truly helpful and economical if you smartly analyze your expectations and the expertise of your partner.
Summary
Call center outsourcing can be helpful in administering business practices at an affordable price with expertise. It can provide valuable support to customers, including difficult customers, which helps in customer retention and lead generation. But, you don’t collaborate and interfere in their activities. Nor can you get any idea about customers’ complaints.
