Outsourcing of call centers occurs when a business hires staff from an external customer service organization and manages its call center from a different location. The customer service company recruits and trains its staff in such a situation to manage all customer contact for the company. Subcontracting call center services like tasks related to sales and customer care allows operators to manage several customer requests, including queries, reservations, refunds, from inbound to outbound, from all shapes and sizes of companies.

Inbound call center outsourcing helps to deal with messages from customers seeking help in getting product/service information, returns/refunds, making orders/reservations/bookings, dealing with defective products, and inconsistent service. 31west global service helps in lead generation, product/service sales, collection of overdue debts, appointment setting, dissemination of information, and conducting market research and surveys.

Why companies do it?

Most innovation & conventional companies are struggling as market competition increases. If a company only focuses on product development, sales, and marketing, while failing to create additional processes like customer support for customer satisfaction and retention, a key aspect of its success is lacking. Call center outsourcing for services that have a high volume, but low complexity is one of the ways how companies can continue to maintain their competitive edge by catering to customer needs and ensuring smooth operations while still focusing on more complex business processes that require closer business attention.

Companies make use of call center outsourcing services for the several benefits that such services offer, such as:

1. Reduced cost

Establishing an in-house customer service department entails large expenses in equipment procurement, recruiting, training, and high salary costs, particularly when it comes to providing 24/7 support. Using call center outsourcing services can result in an estimated cost savings of at least 50% over an in-house team, especially because in the third English-speaking world, the labor market rate is lower than that in other nations, allowing companies to direct their resources to build and improve the company and reducing the cost to the company.

2. Improved flexibility

Employees at the outsourced call centers work for businesses as needed, instead of working as full-time workers. Each time a company has changing needs, they can delegate outsourced outbound call center services to meet those needs quickly and easily, realizing they don’t need to apply for adjustments or pay overtime, resulting in greater flexibility in operations.

3. Time management

Call center staff interviewing, hiring, and training may take longer than expected, with the need to ensure that employees have the necessary skills to handle interpersonal communication, gain business and product knowledge, and solve customer issues. By managing ‘staffing,’ a call center outsourcing saves time and ensures that business can focus on in-house tasks that require immediate attention.

4. Expertise and improved efficiency

Customer service is a skill just like advertising, sales, or product development that most companies fail to provide because it does not form a part of their core know-how. Through call center outsourcing, businesses can easily gain high levels of expertise that are essential for fast and effective delivery of professional treatment and problem-solving. Call center agents should concentrate on receiving and making calls, as their position implies, and call centers implement quality assurance processes to ensure agents are meeting the optimal business KPIs. These factors improve the efficiency of business operations.

5. Scalability

With an uncertain business environment, companies need to manage their assets cost-effectively to meet volatility in demand. The concept also extends to supporting groups that need to remain flexible to meet demand changes. Scaling up or down the customer support team to manage any situation can be a difficult task, and using call center outsourcing services can be the way to ensure the scalability of business operations.

6. Diversity

Making use of call center outsourcing services will help to provide the company with tools necessary for carrying out various activities that extend beyond the role of inbound call center services. While inbound call center services are the core resources usually pursued by businesses, it is not unusual for companies to expand the scope of cooperation later and outsource additional activities and processes of the business to the call center.

7. International expansion

Using outsourced call centers is beneficial if your business is already a global business or if call centers are located in outside nations where you would like to begin doing business eventually as this allows your business access to an already operating local call center with workers who speak the same language and are part of the same community, facilitating international business expansion.

8. 24/7 customer service

Customer service is something that consumers have come to expect 24/7. Charging local employees to work overnight shifts is incredibly costly. With call center outsourcing, businesses can easily cover customer service requirements 24 hours of the day by making foreign employees work during the daytime. That way, extra shifts do not have to be allocated to employees, and differences in time zone will ensure customer service requirements are attended around the clock.

9. Sales assistance

Services from outsourced call centers like telemarketing, lead generation, telesales, and appointment setting can help to improve your business’ bottom line growth through the provision of sales assistance.

10. Mitigation of business risks

For call center outsourcing, a shared risk-sharing arrangement has to be made, which will guarantee that if something goes wrong, your business does not have to bear the burden alone, thereby, the risk to the business is reduced through the use of outsourcing services.

11. Transfer of overflow calls

Holiday seasons typically result in a higher call volume than usual for businesses, making it difficult for businesses to deal with the sudden increase in customer service calls. Call center outsourcing allows businesses to transfer calls to the call center without compromising on meeting customer service needs.

12. Enhanced customer service

Good customer service requires a great deal of compassion, patience, and understanding. Outsourced call centers prepare agents to deal with customers of different temperaments, desires, and interests. The training given improves the customer service provided and leads to greater customer satisfaction and retention by businesses.