Outsourced Call Handling
When a company engages a third-party customer service agency to staff and administer their call center from a different location, call center outsourcing and outsourced call handling occur. In this case, a team that the company’s customer service department employs and equips with skills manages all client conversations. One of today’s wisest business moves is outsourcing call centers. Small and large firms are still searching for outsourcing partners who can handle their calls more affordably, provide outbound calling, address challenges connected to peak call volumes, and have access to CRM experts.
Call center outsourcing significantly increases the value of the non-core competencies. The subcontracting of a specific activity to a third-party supplier or a BPO provider, such as technical support, customer care, debt collection, and promotional marketing, is known as call center outsourcing, sometimes known as business process outsourcing (BPO).
Making phone calls, either inbound or outbound, is required. Many businesses collaborate with contact center outsourcing providers to remove specific responsibilities from their core business process services. Most call center outsourcing businesses have opened up shops in nations with high labor productivity but low labor prices.
Inbound Call Handling vs. Outbound Call Handling
The procedure when a customer contacts your company directly is referred to as inbound call handling. Answering calls enables companies to provide information about goods and services, schedule appointments, address problems, or increase company hours. The calls your staff makes to your prospects or client are referred to as outbound call handling. These calls include telemarketing, survey, sales, or subscription renewal calls. Businesses that routinely manage high numbers of incoming calls should prioritize customer-focused features like intelligent call routing and self-service capabilities.
Process of Call Center Services Outsourcing
The necessary actions to ensure your outsourced call-handling strategies are listed below.
Determine what you need
Understand your company’s needs before starting the call centre outsourcing process. Understanding your motivations for using call centre outsourcing providers is crucial. Here are some indicators that your business needs to contract out its call centre:
- The requirement to focus more on key capabilities
- A rise in call volume
- High operating costs for your call centre department
- Avoiding further personnel concerns
- Scaling up your level of customer service
- Plans to expand into other territories
These indicate that your business is ready to contract with a call centre. Create a scorecard with your team after you’ve decided on your needs so that you can compare potential providers.
Find potential vendors
After determining your contact center outsourcing requirements and goals, look for possible contractors online. You can look for businesses that specialize in outbound or incoming call centre outsourcing using a variety of platforms or by performing a quick Google search. Companies today aim to raise customer satisfaction levels consistently. The call center service provider with the highest ratings and most favorable reviews is the most likely to succeed in this endeavor.
Utilize innovative technology
Make sure you have the necessary tools before concluding the call center outsourcing process. Also, ensure you use the latest IT BPO services in call centers.
Customers want businesses to respond and resolve their inquiries right away. As a result, when working with a call center outsourcing provider, ensure the contact center has all the tools and infrastructure required to complete this task successfully.
In light of this, the top call center outsourcing businesses:
- Provide staff with additional information to help them complete their duties effectively.
- Direct calls to the appropriate agent
Check for appropriate skills
Picking a partner to run your call center should be done with prudence. Your success is closely correlated to the service provider’s abilities, and your call center agents’ abilities are crucial to providing good customer support.
Your representatives must quickly attend to all of your customers. The level of customer service provided affects consumer trust in a corporation. When you outsource your call centre, you give the job of keeping your clients happy to outside workers. The data mentioned above show that the agents need to have strong skill sets to handle the difficulties of the job.
Criteria for Outsourced Call Handling Provider
Before hiring a call centre outsourcing service provider, look for the following characteristics:
- Outstanding communication abilities
- Empathy
- Understanding of all products and services
- Organization
- Ability to solve issues
Pick a partner for outsourcing call center
The partner for the outsourcing call center you choose to work with will be your main point of contact with your clients. Start a collaboration in which the objectives of both businesses are the same. The selection of the ideal partner must adhere to a structured procedure with certain criteria for assessing the competencies. A Request for Proposals is the most effective way to accomplish this. Send the details to ten prospective partners who can fulfil your specified requirements.
Searches on the internet, referrals from professional contacts, and trade groups are all good places to look for possible partners. For instance, LogicBPO has a track record of outsourcing customer support to some of the biggest businesses in the world.
The request for proposal (RFP) covers the following:
- The mandatory coverage hours
- Supported languages
- The specifics of incorporating data into your systems
- The necessary sort of coverage, whether external or inside
- Delivery efficiency (fixed rates and response time
- Ongoing operation
To understand how the finalists function firsthand, speak with them in person and consider visiting their facility. Reassemble your team, make your final decision, and then communicate your choice to the other finalists and your partner. You are now prepared to hire the ideal agent for Outsourced Call Handing needs. Contract negotiations with the chosen partner should contain a Service Level Agreement (SLA). A thorough workload transition plan should also be created.
Manage the relationship
The continuing management of the collaboration will determine whether call center outsourcing is successful. It would help if you chose a dedicated relationship manager to handle this connection to ensure that everything is proceeding as planned and that expectations are appropriately established. Establish communication standards, arrange regular meetings, and review potential issues as you evaluate performance.
One of the best business moves you can make is outsourced call handling. Small and large organizations are still searching for outsourcing partners who can manage their calls for less money, provide outbound calls, and handle challenges connected to maximum need, and have accessibility to CRM experts. Call center outsourcing is a strategy for gaining strategic competitiveness and producing above-average returns by extracting real value from non-core competencies.
Outsourced Call Handling Best Practices
Do….
• Pick up the phone as soon as you can
Speed is the first key to effective call response. The sooner a caller may get an answer to their question or solve their problem typically by speaking with a live person who assists is better.
• Show your caller a cordial welcome
“Hello” is insufficient. Start the conversation by saying something kind, such as “Thank you for
Calling,” and end it with “How may I serve you?” Be sure to insert your business name in the center. It would help if you prioritized leaving callers with a favorable first impact.
• Increase the exchange’s uniqueness
Here’s where having access to reliable data and understanding how to use it are crucial. With data, you may learn more about a caller than just their name, including information about their history,
interactions with your business, and—ideally—the reason they may be calling. You can now customize chats for each caller using the information provided.
• Practice good behavior
Kindness and having a good sense of etiquette are really helpful. You can ask “May I have your name?” Use the words “please” and “thank you” regularly. Remember that everyone desires respect.
Don’t…
• Increase unnecessary barriers for your clients
Nobody enjoys conversing with a robot. Get rid of the phone tree and the multiple-choice routing system (such as “Press 1 for technical assistance, 2 for sales…”). Without involving your consumers, a good call handling system can handle the challenging logistics of routing and forwarding.
- Make an effort to solve any problem on your own
Excellent customer service representatives know that answering every question correctly is not as important as understanding what to say when you don’t know. Don’t just say, “I don’t know,” but
emphasize what you can. Both “Let me look into it for you” and “Let me connect you with the appropriate person to assist you” are excellent responses.
• Avoid errors in communication
At some point, everyone has made a mistake when speaking on the phone. The number of examples where agents overreached, overshared, or utilized a false name or form of address is endless. Remember that you are speaking to another person in person, so be ready to forgive yourself and be a decent person.
Advantages of outsourcing call handling for organizations
Incorporating call management processes improves customer interactions regardless of your industry or kind of business. It improves team efficiency, makes a favorable first impression, and offers sales chances. Here are some reasons to think about call handling if you’re debating whether your company needs it:
Improves Team Productivity
Agents are forced to spend most of their time forwarding calls to other departments and responding to routine questions. Therefore, team productivity is affected. Your staff will have the tools and abilities to concentrate on more crucial customer interactions when you implement outsourced call-handling capabilities like third-party integrations.
Optimum Customer Experience
Call handling provides additional assistance to provide 24/7 customer service. It facilitates quicker response times for your company and lowers call abandonment. Since the procedure is quicker and more dependable, personalized encounters gratify clients. Intelligent routing solutions are available to help consumers reach the appropriate agent or department more quickly.
Reduces Costs and Uses Fewer Resources
It costs money to employ many call center agents, especially if they must work nonstop. They are purchasing a business phone system with various call management tools instead of hiring more agents, which lowers operating costs and the cost per call resolution. With the ease of these practical instruments, businesses handle most of the standard duties, such as call routing, data reporting, and interaction recording.
Enables Data-Driven Decision-Making
The call handling process tells you much about how well your contact center runs. You can learn about the customer’s history, the reason for their call, and overall business experience if you have access to reliable data. You can adapt interactions for lead generation, support, and customer service with your collected information.
Final Thoughts
The advantages of using a call center that offers outsourcing services are crucial for your company. An outsourcing call center lowers production costs and provides the greatest customer service, enhancing the customer’s experience and increasing their happiness. To take advantage of all these advantages, you need to pick a reputed outsourced call-handling service, as this will ensure that they offer excellent services that will benefit your company.
