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March 18, 2024

Benefits of Outsourcing Your Call Center Services

As your business grows, so does the volume of customer service calls you receive. While you can handle customer service calls internally using your own staff, outsourcing call center services to a third party is gaining popularity. One study expects the global call center outsourcing market to grow by over $14 billion between 2020 and 2025. Why are so many businesses turning to customer support outsourcing companies to provide the service their customers expect?

The answer is simple — call center outsourcing benefits companies across industries, letting them improve the customer experience while handling fewer responsibilities. Discover the benefits of outsourcing call center services to decide if the option suits your business needs.

What is call center outsourcing

What Is Call Center Outsourcing?

Companies outsource their call centers by contracting an outside company to handle their calls and customer service needs. During a business's early years, in-house staff may be able to meet its customers' needs. As it scales up, it may experience more inquiries and support requests than it can handle without interfering with other critical business processes. Some companies build an internal call center team when customer support needs grow. Others lack the internal resources to meet customer expectations.

Outsourcing call centers allows businesses to fulfill their customers' needs while maintaining their level of operations. Working with a third-party company helps free up time and resources. By outsourcing, you don't have to invest in the technology, staff and training an internal call center requires. Instead, you can focus on your core business processes. Outsourcing also provides several other benefits, such as 24/7 support, advanced technology and scalable services.

The solution a company chooses depends on its needs. A company might outsource several customer service functions, such as customer and technical support, or contract the vendor to fill one specific need. Businesses can also hire an outside call center for limited periods, such as seasonal demand peaks. Whatever services you outsource, contracting a third-party call center can improve the efficiency of your operations.

8 Benefits of Outsourcing Call Center Services

Outsourcing with a third-party customer service company can provide a range of significant benefits for your customers and business. Consider these eight benefits of outsourcing your call center services:

1. Can Cost Less Than an Internal Call Center

Call center outsourcing can save you the expenses of an internal call center, including:

Rent for additional office space.
Salary and training costs for customer service agents.
Call center equipment.
Technology such as internet access and software.

Instead of handling all these costs on your own, outsourcing allows you to pay a single contract fee. Outsourcing fees are typically much lower than the cost of constructing an internal call center from the ground up. If you already have a call center within your company, compare your current expenses with the cost of outsourcing to a third party. You may find that downsizing is more cost-effective in the long run.

While cost is a critical consideration, it's important to weigh it against the benefits you receive. It may be worth paying the same amount or more for call center services that deliver a phenomenal customer experience.

2. Improves the Customer Experience

High-quality customer service is critical for your business's success. While U.S. customers contact customer service less often today, 58% reported speaking to customer service in the last month. One 2020 survey found that 40% of customers stopped doing business with a company because of poor customer service. In a similar report, 60% of customers did more business with a company due to a positive experience.

Call center outsourcing can provide a higher quality customer experience, helping improve customer retention and increase your bottom line. Call center agents are highly trained to provide exceptional and quick customer service. A customer support outsourcing company's agents answer customer questions clearly and professionally.

3. Provides High-Tech Solutions

Many new technologies have entered the call center industry, helping agents work more efficiently and provide a better customer experience. Augmented Reality (AR) is growing in popularity, offering call center agents the ability to improve first-time fix rates and reduce service costs. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are two tools that work together to streamline routine customer inquiries and automate repetitive tasks.

While these technologies offer extraordinary benefits, they can be cost-prohibitive for in-house call centers. Customer service outsourcing companies invest in these tools and utilize them to enhance the service they provide to customers seeking support. These call centers also use data analytics to predict cross-sell and upsell opportunities, taking a proactive approach to customer service. Call center outsourcing allows your business to take advantage of these high-tech customer service solutions and stay ahead of customer expectations without shouldering the cost.

4. Allows Your Team to Focus on Core Business Processes

One of the most compelling benefits of outsourcing your call center services is refocusing on your business's mission-critical responsibilities. Placing too many burdens on your team can lead to a loss of productivity. Expecting your sales and marketing team to manage customer service can stretch them too thin, leaving no time for their more valuable responsibilities. A customer support outsourcing company reduces your staff's burden, freeing your business to focus on what it was built to do.

Outsourcing call center services to a third party allows your team to give their core responsibilities their undivided attention. Working with a third party can help increase productivity in areas that impact your bottom line, such as production, sales or distribution.

5. Offers Flexible and Scalable Services

As your company grows, quickly ramping up an internal call center can be costly and challenging. An internal center can also be a drain on your funds during times of decreased customer service calls. Working with a third-party call center lets you scale your call center up or down as needed, adding or removing agents or services as your business needs change.

Working with a third-party call center also makes it easier for customers to choose how they interact with the call center agents. For example, customer service chats have recently become more popular with the advent of AI technology. By outsourcing to a third-party call center, you can give your customers a choice between email, chat and a phone call with a live agent. This flexibility can improve the customer experience for those who don't want to spend time on the phone and reduce call wait times.

6. Enables the Use of Expert Staff

Exceptional customer service requires a specific set of knowledge and skills. It can take time for internal call center staff to develop the experience and resources to address customer concerns and inquiries. If your team isn't trained to problem-solve and communicate with your customers, it can be difficult for them to perform their tasks effectively.

Customer service outsourcing companies invest in the recruiting, training and technology necessary to provide their clients with the best services. Outsourcing call centers provide trained and educated customer service agents. These agents are dedicated to responding swiftly and professionally to inquiries, delivering the high-quality service your customers expect. They have the empathy, skills, tools and experience to meet challenges for companies in various industries, from healthcare to consumer goods to hospitality.

7. Improves Monitoring and Quality Control

Data can provide valuable insight into the quality of your customer service and which solutions are working for customers. For example, how quickly agents answer routine inquiries or the steps they take to solve complicated technical support issues can reveal areas of improvement. Running an internal call center without data analytics may leave you uncertain about why your customers do what they do.

While call center outsourcing shifts the customer service burden to an outside company, it can provide better monitoring and quality control for customer service interaction. Third-party call centers work with their clients to extract data from all communication channels. They then review each customer interaction to gain greater insight and improve their processes. These call centers also use data analytics to predict customer support opportunities and stop issues before they arise.

8. Enhances Customer Data Security

Some companies may be concerned that outsourcing call centers will expose their customers' sensitive data to cybersecurity risk. Data breaches are increasingly common in the U.S., and call centers may appeal to cybercriminals because of the volume of personal data they handle, including:

Names
Birth dates
Credit card details
Social security numbers

However, your customers' data may be less secure in an internal call center than with a certified and secure customer service outsourcing company. Some third-party call centers obtain certifications based on an independent assessment of their ability to secure sensitive information. Working with one of these call centers can help you maintain the integrity of your customers' data.

Challenges of call center outsourcing

Challenges of Call Center Outsourcing

Despite the significant benefits of outsourcing call center services, working with a third party can also present some unique challenges. Anticipating those challenges can help your company plan to mitigate them before they arise.

Developing a Plan for Scaling

You need to clearly define the scope of the partnership with your vendor when outsourcing any service or function to avoid mission creep. Growing your business is good, but you should ensure you have a plan for scaling your call center services as needed. Without a growth plan, you may pay higher costs for services you don't yet need.

Data Breaches

Cyberattacks are always a risk, especially in today's increasingly online economy. However, choosing a third-party call center with enhanced data security can help mitigate that risk better than an internal call center.

When selecting a call center services provider, look for independent certifications that prove the company is qualified to secure your customers' information. For example, the SOC 2 Type 2 certification is an independent assessment of a company's ability to handle sensitive data securely. PCI compliance is another critical certification for companies that securely handle credit card information.

Outsourcing the Wrong Services

Outsourcing call center services will only free up your business's time and resources if you outsource the right services. Keeping some of your more critical customer-service functions in-house may be the best option for providing customers with the desired experience. For example, you may decide that higher-value clients should speak to in-house customer service representatives and direct other inquiries to the third-party call center.

What to Consider When Outsourcing Your Call Center

Partnering with an outsourced call center is a significant step for your company and can go a long way toward improving the customer experience. Here are a few considerations to remember when outsourcing your call center services:

Where you want your call center to be located: Third-party call centers may be onshore, nearshore or offshore. Businesses that prioritize local regulations or cultural alignment may want their call centers in the same geographic region. Others may want a nearshore or premier offshore call center to scale their customer support services more easily for a global or multilingual customer base. Some customer service outsourcing companies offer multiple centers to give customers more options.
Whether the call center matches your brand: Outsourcing your call center services to a third party means you won't hire or train the agents who will answer your customers' inquiries. It's crucial to find out what steps the company will take to match your company's brand and provide a seamless customer experience with all of your services. Look for a customer service outsourcing company that uses agents educated in their field of support and trains them to embrace your brand identity.
How you will ensure high-quality service: The goal of outsourcing your call center services is to provide your customers with high-quality assistance, so you need to be sure the call center will do so. Ask how the call center typically communicates with its clients and what kinds of feedback you can expect about their services, such as data reports and customer satisfaction surveys.

Call Center Outsourcing With CGS

Working with a third party to fill your call center needs puts a vital function in their hands. Selecting the right outsourcing company can provide benefits from improving the customer experience to giving your business more time for its essential functions. When considering outsourcing your call center and customer support services, partner with CGS for exceptional Business Process Outsourcing services to provide the experience your customers expect.

CGS delivers a broad range of services to fit your company's needs, including help desk, customer and technical support. Our trained and experienced customer service specialists speak over 28 languages and are equipped with high-tech solutions like AR, RPA and AI to provide an exceptional customer experience. With onshore, nearshore and offshore centers, 24/7/365 support and flexible solutions, we work with you to learn and meet your customer support goals.

Contact an outsourcing specialist at CGS to learn more about how CGS makes outsourcing seamless and helps companies provide agile services.

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Dell Testimonial

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Outsourcing