Customer Service outsourcing is both an art and a science. Outsourcing customer service does not alleviate all problems and can easily create additional problems if not planned correctly. This post will share what is important to know before working with a call center and contact center outsourcing provider.
Companies must first conduct a needs assessment to understand what deficiencies exist in the overall customer journey and more specifically, in the contact center. The needs analysis should include a review of the telephony and technology stack employed, with emphasis in cloud versus premise based solutions, to understand the flexibility and ease of deployment around Work from Home and brick and mortar sites. Additional focus must be made around business continuity and the ability to serve customers in spite of interruptions.
Within a contact center operation, companies must evaluate their ability to hire the number of contact center team members their unique operation requires, including seasonality shifts in volume. Skill level for different positions in the contact center must be part of the review to ensure hiring not just for front line employees but also management and support staff. One thing companies often overlook or don’t understand how to calculate is the cost of overhead, which includes the cost of the physical space occupied by the in-house contact center, plus the cost of all the other elements that make up workstations and connectivity. Remember it is important know How to Navigate and Implement your Outsourcing Contract so you can be sure all those needs are being addressed.
The Dollars and Cents Behind Call Center and Contact Center Outsourcing
Costs certainly play a critical factor in deciding between in-sourcing and outsourcing. If the costs of labor, including the additional fixed and variable expenses, are superior to the all-inclusive pricing of an outsourced provider, then the balance will often tip in favor of the outsourcing provider. But costs alone do not an outsourcing decision make.
Companies generally should have some degree of customer care and contact center culture within their DNA, or brand voice, or mission/vision. Many, however, don’t. If there are qualified management staff to correctly administer an in-house operation, that goes a long way to being able to keep an operation onsite. If however, as many companies experience, there is no true understanding of how to run a contact center, or how to create customer journey, or if customers are truly never a part of discussions in corporate decision making, it is most likely the best decision to outsource these operations. If you are not sure yet of the benefits of outsource your contact center, we talked you about the benefits here.
Contact Center Operations
When looking at top customer service outsourcing companies, the concept of fit, is critical to understand. Companies looking to outsource must prioritize what is important for them in their outsourcing provider: size, number of years in business, experience in omni channel, geographic location, experience in a particular industry, technology stack, among other variables. The best fit typically occurs when the company looking to hire understands the depth of its own needs and makes decisions to truly fill that need. Size alone, for example, will never create good customer experience. Industry experience alone, won’t necessarily create good customer experience. The process to match as many of the list of top needs, is what will typically result in good chemistry between partners. A good check of current references, including questions about strengths and weakness and areas of challenge and conflict are usually a good way to understand a client’s perspective. Check every detail of the process of choosing an outsourced contact center in our complete guide for call center outsourcing.
A final recommendation for companies that have a contact center operation of a certain size would be to utilize a champion vs challenger model, to motivate outsourcing partners and to counter the risk of depending on one sole provider.
Outsourced call centers and contact centers are uniquely positioned to respond to customer needs, in the fastest, most satisfactory and resolution-based ways available in the marketplace. Get to know Callzilla, a company that provides call center services putting quality first. We provide outsourced call-center services for all types of industries, achieving excellent results.
About the Author: Neal Topf
