Outsourcing, in simple words, is the delegation of internal work to a third party, also known as an agency. The agency acts as an extended arm of the company. It assists the company to scale its operations without worrying about the less important process.
The decision of delegating a process to an agency generally vests on the management. Since the agency has a team of skilled members already, it saves a lot of time and money for the company that would otherwise be spent on hiring and training the employees.
The offloading of a process to an agency has been applauded by every major company in all industries. However, due care must be taken by conducting a quick assessment of the agency before handing it any work.
This article contains everything you need to know about call center outsourcing. We will discuss more such points as we proceed.
Things To Know
Here are a few things about call center outsourcing that you need to know.
Types
Companies retain all their major internal operations with them. The operations that are outsourced are of the kinds that deserve special attention in the most economic form. Some operations to be outsourced are social media marketing, email marketing, and customer support, to name a few.
A call center may either provide outbound call center services or inbound call center services. Both are different. The inbound call center services include taking calls from a customer, answering their questions, or resolving technical issues. Any major issues or any major reimbursement goes through the company first even if the nature is inbound.
The outbound call center services include generating leads. They may also be required to act upon the leads that have already been generated by the company. For example, a bank has the data of its customers. It may hire an outbound call center to pitch its credit card services to the customer.
Costing
A call center and a company generally sign a Service Level Agreement. A Service Level Agreement, also known as an SLA, generally highlights the Key Performance Indicators, payment terms, and other expectations of the company.
The payment terms can be set in various ways. The traditional way to pay a call center is based on the minutes of calls that it takes. The method draws criticism as the handling time per customer is often ignored by the agency. The other way is to hire an agency on a monthly basis and offer them basic pay. This is similar to hiring an employee for the company.
The monthly payment remains fixed and any extra pay that is given forms a part of the incentives. The agency with the best handling and resolution rate attracts higher incentives from the company.
Also Read: Role of Consultancy Services Business in Modern World
Suits Every Business
Irrespective of what the size and nature of a business are, call center outsourcing suits all of them. An established business may delegate the work to manage its productivity while a start-up may do it to scale its core operations.
Some companies also hire an agency during seasonal times. For example, a company that deals with Christmas Decorative Lighting may hire a call center to respond to the queries related to electric connection and malfunction of a product. A medical company, on the other hand, may hire a call center for 24/7 work.
The ultimate objective remains to scale a business by managing the limited staff and resources. Getting all those operations in-house is a solution but it may not be viable for every business. It takes a lot of time and money to hire and train the workforce for a particular task.
Access To Analytics
The company ultimately gets a set of data on hand based on which it can decide to customize its products and services. Some common analytics that a company receives is product feedback and the most used feature.
Another analytics that a company can access is the performance of the agency. Companies generally put forward a set of guidelines and marks that the agency is required to meet. These may be the number of issues resolved or the number of calls attended with full customer satisfaction.
The availability of customer-related data gives better insights to the company. For instance, CX analytics services dedicate themselves to collect and analyze the experience of a customer. This includes how best they were served and how satisfied they are with the experience of the company so far.
Organization Works Non-Stop
The operations of a company are performed even when everyone is asleep in the company. This involves going global and hiring the company that works during the daytime which, for the company, is the nighttime.
The daytime is most productive; however, the nighttime can be made useful by hiring an agency that works during those hours. If an accounting firm enters, say, 50 transactions during the day, then it does not have to wait for the next day to enter another 50 transactions. That can be done overnight by an agency and the accounting firm would have it in the morning.
This is widely adopted by tech companies. Since a customer can face a technical issue anytime, the tech company has to keep its helpline active 24/7.
Final Words
Companies providing customer care services are a part of an industry with endless solutions and endless opportunities. One just has to explore it.