If you’re running a business, then you’re certainly aware of how important customer support really is.
90% of Americans use customer service as a deciding factor in whether they’ll extend their patronage to a business, meaning that, without good customer service, you’ll lose a lot of customers.
This is why many businesses have their own, in-house call centers that specialize in dealing with the many requests customers have every day. However, a new trend is emerging fast, and it’s quickly turning out to be a lot more economical, a lot faster, and a lot more convenient for businesses around the globe.
This trend is the growing use of third-party call centers. These call centers specialize in customer support and service, and they offer their expertise for a fee, thus eliminating the need for, and the costs associated with, setting up your own call center.
You’re still not convinced call center providers aren’t a good idea? Then check out these 9 benefits a call center provider can offer your business today.
Cost Reduction
As we’ve already said, one of the biggest drives toward third-party call centers is the reduction in cost most businesses see when they decide to pay for their services.
Most call centers require a fixed fee for extending their services, which is agreed upon when a contract is made, and that’s about it for your expenses.
In contrast, to create your own call center, you have to rent a space, furnish it, obtain the necessary tools (phones, computers, etc.), obtain the tech to support your network (such as obtaining a CMS license), and, finally, train your people for the job.
On top of all that, it’s important to note that customer service centers have a very high turnover rate, too. Currently, the average turnover rate is anywhere between 30% and 45%, while some can have as much as 100% turnover by the end of the year.
This means you’ll spend a lot of time and money hiring, rehiring, and training new hires, whereas you’ll have none of those expenses if you just hired a third-party provider.
Focus on Core Tasks
With the turnover rate as high as it is, the reality is that you won’t be able to fill those empty cubicles as easily. Oftentimes, you’ll have to pull in your own employees and have them lend a hand in dealing with customers.
This creates a two-fold problem – your employees won’t be able to perform as well and as efficiently in their own positions, and you’ll start to frustrate your employees by adding more workload, and messing up their normal routine.
This frustration is then certain to spread all the way up the command chain. Your middle management will become frustrated with having people pulled away from their teams and having to deal with the constant shifting of employees around, and your senior management will be displeased with the lack of efficiency and poor performance of their subordinate teams.
Thus, outsourcing your customer support to a third-party provider becomes a much better alternative. These providers specialize in dealing with customers, so you can rest assured they’ll do a great job while allowing your own employees to focus on their own jobs. It’s a win-win situation all around!
Scalability
One good thing about third-party call centers is that they’re quite flexible with their workload and their clientele.
Because they specialize in customer support, these call centers often give their clients a good scalability opportunity. As your business grows, you might need more and more people manning the phones and dealing with your customers, and your provider can accommodate that, provided that you outlined this in your contract.
This gives a new business quite a bit of breathing room and saves quite a bit of money early on when they don’t have many customers to deal with, requiring only a few customer reps, while also allowing them to expand their customer service scope as the business attracts more consumers.
Expert Assistance
While it might be obvious at first, it still should be noted that, when you’re hiring call center service providers, you’re not only paying for the convenience of having somebody else deal with your customers, but you’re also paying for expert assistance.
As we mentioned before, these call centers have decided to specialize heavily in dealing with customers every day, and their skill at making customers happy and solving their problems is an invaluable asset to your business.
As you know, businesses sink or swim based on how they handle their customer service and support, and having an expert company backing you and handling your consumer-related matters can really elevate your business to the next level, and establish your brand as one that is trusted, capable, and professional.
Latest Technology
While being experts at their craft, third-party call centers also invest heavily in the latest tech in order to keep their competitive edge.
This means that most third-party customer service providers you look at are going to be equipped with some of the latest in automation and CMS technology, allowing them to further increase their effectiveness and efficiency in dealing with customers.
With that said, you can then rest assured that, whatever provider you end up going to bed with, your customers will receive some of the best service possible, thus ensuring your brand stays in your consumers’ minds and hearts for a long time.
24/7 Support
One of the biggest customer demands is being able to contact their brands at a moment’s notice, no matter the time of day, year and which day in the week it is. Now, while this might be a bit unrealistic, with a third-party customer service provider, you might just be able to get pretty close to that level of service.
By delegating some of your customer support efforts to a third party, you’re, effectively, in a position to extend your working hours and come very close to that desired 24/7, year-round availability.
This is why many businesses seek to establish contracts with off-shore call centers, which operate in different time zones, allowing them to extend their working hours without having to skirt labor laws and overwork their employees, or the employees of the provider they’ve hired.
International Coverage
Offshoring your customer service is also beneficial for large, multinational companies operating all over the world.
By off-shoring your customer service, you’re, essentially, able to deal with your international customers in their own native languages. If you have customers in Europe or Asia, as well as in the US, you can redirect their calls to a call center where their own language is spoken by the staff.
With that said, customers love the convenience, and being able to solve a problem in a language they’re familiar with is 100% guaranteed to increase their satisfaction with your service, which is your ultimate goal with customer support.
Better QA
Just like any business, the success of a call center depends on the quality of service they offer to their clients.
With that said, third-party call centers often go to great lengths to ensure their services are top-notch at all times. Because they specialize in what they do, they also have very specific standards they need to maintain, so their quality assurance processes have to be rigorous and thorough.
After all, when being hired by a company, a call center is also taking upon itself the responsibility of upholding and improving its client’s reputation with its customers.
This creates a need for very stringent quality assurance protocols within their call centers. The call center is looking out for its own reputation by upholding the reputation of its clients, so they have to maintain high standards at all times to remain competitive in their industry.
Ultimately, what this means for you as a client is that you’re getting good service while also not having to worry about having to QA-ing your own call center on top of all the QA-ing you do for the rest of your venture.
Customer Satisfaction
Finally, customer service is all about customer satisfaction. And, with a third-party call center, you’re guaranteed the maximum customer satisfaction possible.
With their expert service, their dedication toward upholding your brand’s reputation, and their investment in new and more efficient ways of solving customers’ problems, a call center offering their service is also offering to expand and upgrade your customers’ satisfaction.
This is what branding is all about! By offering unprecedented customer satisfaction, you’re putting yourself in a very competitive position in your industry, and you’re creating massive opportunities for growth.
Conclusion
All in all, the benefits of hiring a call center provider are very clear and self-evident. After all, no business can resist the opportunity for growth while saving cash along the way so that they can invest in even more growth.
This is, ultimately, why the practice is getting more popular, and, if you want to remain competitive, you may want to consider jumping on the bandwagon yourself in the near future.
Author bio:
Tomas is a digital marketing specialist and a freelance blogger. His work is focusing on new web tech trends and digital voice distribution across different channels.
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