Why You Need to Outsource Your Contact Center
When one thinks of outsourcing, what usually first comes to mind is the contact center. We think of customer service and the employees who handle our phone calls, emails or chat. A contact center is different from a call center as they deal not only with calls but with communication through all channels. Every business needs a contact center. For businesses to go from good to great, they need to ensure that their contact center can deliver excellent service every time.
The contact center is a critical part of the business. It’s a primary touchpoint between the company and the customer. However, these tasks can be very demanding for businesses as they require a lot of focus and attention. This is why most companies outsource their contact center to a partner who has expertise in delivering this service.
In this article, we’ll discuss what a contact center is, the advantages of outsourcing your contact center, and how to choose the best partner. Whether you’re a business looking to outsource your contact center or an outsourced provider looking to grow your client base, Outsource Asia can help you find the perfect partnership.
What is a contact center?
Contact centers provide the means for omnichannel support. They revolve around multiple channels including phone calls, email, live chat, and more. They offer integrated support across various communication channels. This is part of the core work of any business that sells a product or service.
After-sales support, customer feedback, and questions or queries all fall under their area of focus. Usually done through digital channels, the contact center needs to be always on. Response time needs to be quick to retain customer satisfaction. Due to this, the contact center can be an extremely demanding task to handle if combined with other tasks.
Most companies, therefore, opt to outsource their contact center entirely. This saves them a lot of money from having to hire an in-house team, especially if their company is still starting up. At the same time, it ensures that you have a dedicated team focused on delivering quick and efficient service to your beloved customers.
What are the benefits of outsourcing your contact center?
Outsourcing your contact center provides proactive support
By having a dedicated team focused on dealing with your clients, you can take a more proactive approach to your contact center. There’s no need to wait for customers to seek and reach out to you only whenever they need help. Instead, the company can take the initiative to offer live chat on their site to encourage the clients to start a conversation. This allows the company the opportunity to get them to convert.
Outsourcing your contact center means shorter wait times and 24/7 support.
Virtual contact centers mean that agents can work from anywhere and that clients can reach out through almost any communication channel that they prefer. Outsourcing your contact center gives you an entire team that can cover multiple shifts and channels, making sure that you never miss a ticket.
With an outsourced contact center, the queries can be distributed among various agents versus being handled by one in-house point person or department. This means that wait times can be shorter than if the contact center is handled in-house.
The benefit of outsourcing your contact center is allowing your customers to reach out anytime and get the support and answers they need as soon as possible. This offers your company a great advantage as clients tend to patronize brands with the best customer service and support.
Outsourcing your contact center improves how you manage customer data.
Outsourcing partners who specialize in contact centers have access to advanced ticketing tools that automate ticket creation, updates, assignment and deadlines. This software allows them to collect and analyze data from every customer who reaches out to the company and assign them to the agent that can best assist them based on the information.
Contact center companies also use omnichannel software that connects the different channels that your company uses. Most companies can be reached through various channels – website, social media sites, email, and phone. With omnichannel tools, the data collected from all these sources are collated into a unified file that gives you a 360-degree view of your customer’s needs and preferences.
These allow the customer experience to be consistent across all channels and all agents that they may deal with. It lets the contact center reduce the wait times and increase customer satisfaction and they offer consistent support.
Outsourcing your contact center increases revenue
Outsourcing your contact center is a smart financial move because it cuts costs while helping you earn more money. This improves your revenue and contributes to your bottom line and overall growth.
When you outsource your contact center you save on operating costs from additional staffing and infrastructure costs from investing in new technology. According to data, businesses can save up to 40% through outsourcing. Outsourcing your contact center is an efficient yet economic alternative to provide the best customer support, software and equipment to your team.
Additionally, having an experienced partner who can improve your contact center and actively engage with customers will leverage your growth. Businesses who can take advantage of the huge shift towards the digital marketplace by consistent, efficient contact and solid customer satisfaction will retain loyal customers and gain many new ones. Investing in your contact center provides an almost immediate ROI.
How to choose the best partner contact center?
Consider their skills and expertise
What services will you be outsourcing to the partner? Check the company’s area of expertise and track record in the industry. As one of the primary points of contact with your customers, it’s important that your partner can deliver excellent written and verbal communication. They also need to be very well-trained in customer service.
Ensuring that your partner meets your standards is critical as it could either help or harm your company’s image. Customer service done well can keep a client loyal and champion your brand. However, when done poorly it can also work the other way and drive the client to destroy you on social media and to their friends and family. Do your research and thoroughly vet your partners before engaging with them.
Consider capability over cost
With contact centers handling a core business function, it’s not the place to decide based on price alone. Partner with a proven provider with the skills and experience to provide the absolute best possible customer service. Find out if your partner can provide customer support on multiple channels and if they can give a reasonable time frame to respond to queries. Check if your provider can handle multiple shifts and offer 24/7 support.
Consider their software and technology
With contact centers handling multiple channels, the software is very important. One of the key benefits of outsourcing a contact center is gaining access to the latest ticketing and omnichannel support software. Check that your potential partner has competitive and up-to-date infrastructure systems that will help your company run more smoothly and efficiently.
Consider their communication
As a partner that will deal with communicating with your clients, they should be excellent at communicating with you. Your partner should be responsive and easily reachable through different channels. They should speak in the same language that you and your clients use to avoid any problems or miscommunication.
As the company will deal with clients on your behalf, ensure that they have a high level of proficiency in English or whichever language you use to ensure the best customer experience. Also, see how responsive they are when it comes to communicating with you. If they can’t respond quickly and correctly to you as a partner, it is difficult to trust them with taking care of your company’s communication lines with your customers.
Consider the culture fit
Outsourcing companies employ people from all over the world. With contact centers, the team that you outsource will be at the forefront of your company, directly dealing with your clients every day. It’s important to ensure that you’re a good culture fit with your potential partner.
Ensure that your values and work ethic align so that you can enjoy a harmonious long-term professional relationship. Get to know the corporate culture of your partner organization and ensure that their working style, pricing, and strategies align with you.
Outsource Asia can do this for you. We work with a global team of thoroughly screened partners who meet our standards for excellent service. Entrust your contact center to a partner with an excellent track record and history of superb customer service through Outsource Asia.
Outsource Asia provides outsourcing advice through resources and consultation for businesses. We help small to large companies interested in outsourcing – from identifying their specific business needs to choose the most qualified service provider, to implementation.
Outsource Asia helps find the best match between outsourcing services and outsourcing partners. Are you a business owner that wants to find the best outsourcing partner? Or an outsourcing partner that wants to expand your global network of clients? Contact Outsource Asia today!
