As the business landscape is becoming more competitive and customer service has become an increasingly critical component in business success, companies are investing heavily in call center technologies and infrastructure.
Nevertheless, there are many companies that prefer call center outsourcing services over investing time and money in building in-house call centers.
Looking for Call Center Software? Check out SoftwareSuggest’s list of the best Call Center Software solutions.
In this blog cum guide on call center outsourcing services, we will learn about all of the fundamental aspects of call center outsourcing, such as its definition, types, benefits, and challenges of in-house call centers. Let’s begin with a definition of call center outsourcing.
What Is Call Center Outsourcing?
Call center outsourcing is a strategic and logical business decision or a kind of remote staffing in which management outsources its customer support or communications operations to a third party known as a call center outsourcing service provider.
Call center outsourcing services include customer communications such as complaint redressal, product marketing, payment reminders, installation assistance, and other services.
In this type of customer service management, the outsourced call center will be responsible for building the necessary infrastructure, hiring skilled agents and appropriately training them, and meeting the client’s expectations.
By outsourcing contact center operations, organizations can save money on infrastructure, provide better customer service, focus on core business activities, and scale their operations.
Again, there are three different types of call center outsourcing, as explained in the below section.
What Are Call Center Outsourcing Types?
We can classify call center outsourcing services into two categories: outbound services and inbound services. Let’s look at how these services differ from one another and what their goals are.
A. Outbound Call Center Outsourcing
As the names indicate, in the case of outbound contact center outsourcing, the service provider who manages your customer operations typically manages outbound customer service calls. Third-party agents will manage outbound calling campaigns or make calls to customers on behalf of the company. Outbound campaigns can have any of the following objectives:
- Lead generation
- Information verification
- Fundraising
- Telemarketing
- Payment reminders
- Market research
- Customer surveys
The next type is inbound contact center outsourcing.
B. Inbound Call Center Outsourcing
In the case of inbound call center outsourcing services, the outsourcing company will manage your inbound calls. Inbound calls are initiated by customers or prospects to the customer support team. Inbound calls usually aim to get a resolution to a query, get technical assistance about a product, or discuss pricing plans or policies. Some of the purposes of inbound calls are as follows:
- Managing customer queries
- Technical support
- Help desk
- Toll-free services
- System installation
- Product information
Choose the best call center outsourcing services provider based on your requirements or business goals.
For example, if you have just started a business and your primary goal is to market your products, you should join forces with an outbound call center service provider. Similarly, if you are a well-established e-commerce company that expects a high volume of customer support calls during the coming holiday season, you should collaborate with an inbound call center outsourcing service provider.
Why Do You Need To Outsource Call Center Services?
Customers are valuable assets for any business, whether it is a product or service company. Keeping customer satisfaction as high as possible by providing quality services is certainly a top priority for these enterprises. However, they do not always have the necessary resources, workforce, or infrastructure to accomplish this goal.
In such a case, it is best to outsource call center services or customer communication operations to a call center outsourcing services provider that is an expert in the domain, has technical knowledge of call center operations, and the necessary infrastructure.
The following are some of the primary reasons why you should outsource call center services:
- To provide your valued customers with the best customer service possible.
- To reach out to each prospect in the most effective way possible.
- To take advantage of call center experts’ skills and knowledge.
- To reduce overhead and infrastructure costs.
- To devote time to more critical business activities.
Remember that these are only a few of the major reasons. It is possible that your reason for outsourcing customer operations is quite different from the five listed here.
Also, note that managing an in-house call center is not an easy task, and there are several challenges with in-house call centers, as explained in the following section.
5 Key Challenges of In-house Call Centers
Running an in-house call center has its own set of challenges. Companies not only have to invest in infrastructure and technologies but also need to train call center agents and ensure data security. The following are the top five challenges of in-house call centers.
1. Higher initial & overhead costs
The first major challenge business owners face when establishing an in-house call center is that they have to allocate a significant portion of their budget to develop call center infrastructure and technology. For large corporations, the budget may not be an issue. However, infrastructure costs can be a major constraint for small businesses or startups.
Not only must you be prepared for the initial costs, but you also have to be prepared for recurring overhead costs such as system maintenance, upgrade, subscription, and so on. Moreover, as remote working becomes more prevalent, you will be also required to invest in remote technologies for your remote working teams besides on-premise infrastructure.
2. Recruiting the skilled workforce
The next challenge for business owners with in-house call centers is finding qualified workers. No matter how advanced your call center infrastructure or how cutting-edge your call center technologies are, if you don’t have the skilled human resources to make the most of those resources, it’s all for naught.
Furthermore, retaining call center agents for a long time has become challenging in this’ great resignation’ era. They will switch to another company if they find a better opportunity. This means you will also need a dedicated talent acquisition team that works tirelessly to maintain workforce strength.
Hiring a call center outsourcing services provider is the perfect solution to all of these laborious and costly affairs.
3. High agent training cost
Even if you are successful in hiring the right agent, there is one more hurdle to overcome: agent training. Understandably, each company has its own customer support process and objectives. This means that, even if you hire agents who are familiar with call center operations and technologies, you will need to train them on your offerings, goals, and process.
The agent training program is, in fact, a costly and recurring affair. You will have to train your agents on a regular basis to keep them up to date on new technologies, trends, and process upgrades. In addition to regular training, you will be required to conduct replacement and hiring training.
4. Customer data protection
The fourth major challenge you will face with an in-house call center is ensuring total customer data security at all times. Customer data security is not something to be taken lightly.
The responsibility to protect that information gets larger when you are a financial firm with highly confidential and personal information about customers, such as billing information, bank account information, etc.
A data breach will not only significantly harm your long-established reputation, but it will also cost you financially. Overall, another major challenge that in-house call center owners face is the protection of customer data.
5. Managing agent attrition
The fifth challenge businesses will face with in-house call centers is high agent attrition. As previously stated, companies are experiencing large-scale resignations during this ‘mass resignation’ era. And the call center industry is not an exception. This means that, just like finding the right talent, you must work hard to keep those agents.
The understaffed call center will have a negative impact on other agents, productivity, and the company’s reputation. It may lead to halting the call center operations or straining other agents with additional work due to the staff crunch.
The best way to deal with these call center challenges is to partner with and outsource the operations to a call center outsourcing services provider. This move will provide you with a number of benefits listed in the following section.
5 Benefits of Call Center Outsourcing
The following are the five most substantial benefits of call center outsourcing services. Partnering with the best call center outsourcing company, such as Office Beacon, will enable you to cut overhead costs, improve customer satisfaction, and devote time to other critical business activities.
1. Better quality of services
Modern customers expect timely & high-grade customer support from companies. They will not tolerate any delays or false promises when it comes to customer service. This is where call center outsourcing comes in handy. Since most call center outsourcing service providers have a team of qualified workers, you can expect the best possible support for your customers.
Besides that, these providers have technical knowledge of call center operations and are able to address various challenges related to call center operations. Moreover, they are well acquainted with various key call center metrics and KPIs that assist them in taking performance to the highest level. In short, this is a good enough reason to partner with a call center outsourcing services provider.
2. Cost-effective solution
Another compelling reason to outsource customer service is that this move will save you a large chunk of your budget. As mentioned above, establishing and running an in-house call center is an expensive endeavor that necessitates investment in infrastructure, technologies, and maintenance.
However, by partnering with call center outsourcing service providers, you can save yourself from all these expenses. Now that you have outsourced customer service, you will no longer need to hire a dedicated talent acquisition team. This will help you save even more.
3. Improved customer support
It is a fact that an in-house call center can never match the performance of call center outsourcing service companies because these providers:
- Have extensive industry experience
- Leverages cutting-edge call center technologies
- Have a sufficient skilled workforce
- Possess adequate technical knowledge
- Can handle high call volume
For all these reasons, call center outsourcing is better than an in-house call center.
4. Multilingual customer service
The fourth advantage of going with call center outsourcing services is that you can provide multilingual customer service. Providing multilingual customer support is a critical factor for businesses with customers from all over the world. Hiring agents who are fluent in multiple languages can be both expensive and time-consuming.
However, by outsourcing customer service, you can efficiently achieve the goal of multilingual customer support at an affordable cost. Because most of these call center outsourcing companies have multilingual employees, they can efficiently address your multilingual customer service needs. This will eventually elevate customer experience.
5. Focus on core business activities
The fifth and final major advantage of call center outsourcing services is that it frees up your time to focus on more critical business activities. It is quite possible that you may be unable to manage various business components such as manufacturing, supply chain, customer support, inventory management, and others on your own.
Trying to manage everything, even when it’s not possible, will certainly impact the business’s overall operations and will cost you financially. For this reason, it is preferable to outsource customer service to a third party contact center to protect your company from any potential harm.
So you now have a better understanding of what call center outsourcing is, its benefits, and the challenges of in-house call centers; it is pretty apparent that you have decided to outsource customer service operations. At this juncture, we recommend that you pick Office Beacon. Why? Let’s find out.
What Makes Office Beacon The Best Call Center Outsourcing Company?
Office Beacon is a global outsourcing services and software provider offering more than 150 virtual assistance and outsourcing services. When it comes to call center outsourcing services, the company has over 20 years of experience in this domain.
Source: Patch.com
Office Beacon has highly qualified and experienced call center professionals and leverages premium software to provide world-class call center services that elevate customer experience and bottom line results. The following are some of the significant factors that distinguish Office Beacon from other call center outsourcing companies or give it an advantage over them:
- Multilingual support
- Modern call center technologies
- Highly trained agents
- 24/7 call center support
- Unified communication system
- KPI-based performance monitoring
- Guaranteed high ROI
Furthermore, they also offer a slew of different call center services for both inbound and outbound contact centers. To learn more about Office Beacon’s services, visit their website or schedule a call with one of their experts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Call center outsourcing is a process in which company A decides to outsource its call center operations to company B, which specializes in this domain.
The cost of call center outsourcing varies from region to region. For example, in India, Call center outsourcing costs about $5-15 per hour. However, this cost also fluctuates on the type of call campaign, contract period, and other factors.
Some of the most significant advantages of call center outsourcing include more time to focus on critical business activities, improved call center management, increased efficiency, and increased brand value.
Paras Kela is a highly skilled SaaS content writer with over 7 years of experience in the IT field. His expertise lies in simplifying complex technical concepts for easy comprehension. With a portfolio of over 100 high-quality blogs covering various SaaS topics, Paras’s writing style is engaging, informative, and SEO-friendly, ensuring maximum effectiveness. He continuously updates his skills and knowledge to stay current with industry trends, making his writing relevant and reliable.
