If you look at the big picture of outsourcing, we outsource all the time – with great results.
Rather than hunting and gathering food ourselves, we go to stores or restaurants where those services have been done for us.
We may bring in a night janitorial crew at work or a housekeeper at home so we can focus on other tasks besides cleaning. We work with a variety of other vendors who either have more skills in a particular area or at least have more time to focus solely on those areas than we do.
Identify Your Needs and the Strengths of Others
Call center solutions should be thought of in the same manner – a team of highly trained professionals whose primary focus is to help you interact with your customers and allow you to give your attention to other priorities.
However, sometimes there are incorrect perceptions of the useful and positive roles these teams can have on a business. Maybe it’s the fear that we’re abandoning a key component of our businesses – front-line interactions with our customers – to other people. Luckily, many of these misconceptions can easily be busted.
Misconception #1: Call Centers Take Jobs
There are definitely somewhat valid concerns when some companies set up foreign call centers staffed with people with poor language skills or little cultural knowledge, but there are plenty of domestic-based call center companies whose employees understand callers perfectly and may even be located in your region and benefit your local economy. From a business perspective, if the call center performs well, this means the company does well, which could mean the call center can add even more jobs to your business. It’s a positive cycle that allows you to grow your business while allowing the call center to focus on what it does best.
Misconception #2: Call Centers Cost More
Your company could certainly create its own customer service team and dedicate employees, managers, computers, office space and furnishings to this effort, along with providing ongoing wages, benefits and continuing training. Another option is outsourcing and paying a contact center that already has all of these items in place, and focuses entirely on providing these types of services to various companies. I bet you will be surprised by the time and resources you will save by outsourcing your calls to a call center instead of trying to take on this task yourself.
Misconception #3: Call Centers Offer Worse Service
Call centers make service a priority, which includes learning everything they can about your company. Ongoing training helps, along with regular communication from your organization. As the relationship continues, the call center team will become more familiar with what your company is all about, just like a new employee would. In addition, the main function of a call center is to provide excellent customer service to all of its callers. If a call center service is unable to provide good customer service, their clients will likely go elsewhere which would likely put them out of business.
Overall, call centers make sense – the good ones work closely with their clients to make sure the team not only has the knowledge of what they are discussing but the professionalism to represent themselves and connect well with callers. It’s definitely a smart investment. Contact us today to learn more about how outsourcing your customer service to AnswerNow can meet and exceed your business needs.
