When dealing with large customer calls, your startup business may choose to outsource everything to a call center. These services can help you ease the burden on your internal teams while ensuring that you can respond to customers better.
But these outsourced call centers are by no means a fire-and-forget solution. You still need to be active in managing your partnership with them to get the best results. Let’s explore how you can effectively do that and provide excellent service through these centers.
The Benefits Of Outsourcing To A call Center
Beyond the usual benefits of outsourcing, sending support work to a call center has several key benefits. And when you do the process right, these advantages can have a significant impact on the effectiveness of your business.
Expert Staff
Hiring agents to fill your internal support call team can be time-consuming. Outsourced call centers give you a full team ready to deploy upon notice. And these aren’t just regular agents. They are experts who have the skills to handle support calls better.
Access Technology
You will also need to have the technology to handle and manage the influx of all those calls. The outsourced call center can provide you with this as part of the contract. You don’t have to go through an extensive onboarding process and deploy it immediately.
Better Scalability
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As your support calls increase, you will need to expand your team. Outsourced call centers offer better scalability for such situations. They already have agents on standby to fill your current needs. And if you require more, they handle the recruitment and training for you.
Better Risk Mitigation
When your startup business outsources to a call center, both parties enter a mutual risk agreement. With that in place, your startup company can share costs brought about by changes in technology. Additionally, you can let the outsourced call center handle some of the riskier aspects of the work.
The Challenges Of Outsourcing To Call Centers
Of course, while there are benefits to outsourcing to call centers, there are also challenges. These are the ones you need to prepare for effectively managing external agents.
- Communicating business goals: The outsourced team might have difficulty grasping your business goals. This can make it harder to translate that into the appropriate service.
- Inadequate brand awareness: Since they are an external team, the outsourced team might not be familiar with your brand’s nuances.
- Lack of control: Being an independent contractor, you might have limited control of the outsourced call center’s operations.
- Data security: This is especially a concern when letting outsourced call centers handle high-value calls.
Note that these challenges are not insurmountable. But you and your chosen provider need to be strategic in handling them to get better results. Plan out how the engagements with the center will be.
How Your Startup Business Can Begin Managing An Outsourced Call Center
The first thing that you need to do after partnering with an outsourced call center is to lay the groundwork for effective management. Here, you need to clarify your objectives for outsourcing the work. For instance, you need to be clear that the outsourced team will be handling general calls. This clarification helps the center determine what kind of agents to provide you.
Creating The Right Mindset For Your Startup Business
It is also vital to go beyond seeing the outsourced call center as just a contractor. Instead, view them as potential business partners. This mindset encourages you and the provider to be more committed to delivering a better service.
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But how do you do that? Here, you should establish a continuous stream of feedback from both sides. Ensure that agents can quickly communicate their observations to higher-ups. That helps both the internal and external teams improve on their work.
Establishing The Roles Within The Outsourced Call Center
Another key to better managing an outsourced call center is understanding the jobs that various personnel will play in its work. Be clear on the hierarchy of the departments to ensure more efficient delivery of instructions. Some of the most important roles include:
- Supervisors: These are the direct superiors of your agents. Their main role is monitoring and reporting the work done by these agents.
- Business coaches: The main task of this personnel is to train agents and help them improve their call handling skills. Coaches also report on their wards’ progress.
- Human resources department: The human resources department will be the one tasked with ensuring that outsourced agents are accounted for properly during operations.
- IT department: While the IT department has separate management, they still play a crucial role in how effective the outsourced call center operates.
You need to ensure that all these personnel and departments can work together seamlessly. Since these positions will exist both in your company and the outsourced call center, both sides need to coordinate effectively to avoid confusion about responsibilities.
Running Calibration Sessions
Your startup business and its outsourced call center partner should also be on the same page about various metrics and results. For that, it would be a good idea to conduct regular calibration sessions. These sessions help the outsourced team review their understanding of your products and brand.
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You can incorporate these sessions into the overall training you will provide. Here, you can test your outsourced agents about common concerns that customers might raise with them. It can also be an opportunity for you to introduce them to new products and services you are launching.
Developing A Proper Escalation Process For Your Startup Business
At some point, the outsourced call center might need to raise issues with your internal support team. A proper escalation process will ensure that the relevant authorities receive these and act upon them.
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That escalation process should describe the movement of information from one department to another. It should also be clear who would be responsible for the concern within each stage. Lastly, it should have a clear directive on how the response should be implemented.
Get Your Outsourced Call Center On The Right Track To Boost Your Startup Business
Virtua Solutions understands very well the importance of a well-managed call center. When your startup business partners with us, we will work tirelessly to ensure that our team of agents is delivering their best performance. Contact us today and we will work together to make your call center more efficient.