Outsourcing your contact centre or call centre

One of the biggest contributors to our ever-more globalising world is the outsourcing of customer services to third-party call centres and customer care centres. Cost savings that can be achieved make this an attractive solution also for organisations with a lower call volume.

Companies that specialize in telephone customer contact have well-trained staff that has extensive experience with a variety of call-situations. This is how contact centres and call centres are more efficient, while they allow you to focus on your own business.
Why outsource?

It is no longer just multinationals who decide to outsource their customer contact. More and more medium and small-sized business are following in their footsteps.

The decision to outsource is still a big step, but the advantages are well worth it. Many companies have found that, once they had taken the decision, new opportunities presented themselves that would have otherwise not been possible.

These are some of the most frequent reasons organisations decide to outsource their customer contact.

Quality
Due to their extensive experience and focus on telephone customer contact, call centres and contact centres offer a high level of quality. Their employees have passed tough selection procedures, have been well-trained and often have years of experience. They are ideally equipped to start answering over your customers' calls almost immediately.
Ease the workload of your own employees
Running your own customer care centre requires agents, but also team leaders and managers. Outsourcing will ease their workload and allow you to have these valuable employees work on something strategic.
Scalability
Are you launching a large-scale marketing campaign or is your organisation experiencing exponential growth?
Finding and hiring takes effort and time, but call centres are specialised in this. Because they work on a larger scale, they can use their staff in more flexible ways and this makes it easier for them to respond to a sudden increase in the number of calls your organisation receives.
Longer working hours
If you use a call centre or customer care centre that is located in a different timezone, you can easily expand the hours in which you can serve your customers beyond regular office hours. Use multiple teams or even multiple call centres in different timezones to offer round-the-clock services.
Ideal for testing
If you're launching a new product or a new service, then using a third-party call centre or contact centre for a test-period can be an ideal option. After the trial period, you train your own staff, or additional staff at the call centre, based on what you've learned during the test period.
Latest technology
Specialised call centres make sure their technical infrastructure is up-to-date. As a customer, you profit from the latest technological development and clear telephone lines without having the make huge investments yourself.

Using a third-party call centre

A third-party call centre generally works with multiple customers and has experience with helpdesk, order and telemarketing calls.

These call centres often explore new offshore destinations, something that your organisation can then profit from. Once the infrastructure has been set up and the agents are trained, these centres are ready for your business.
Captive call centre: your own call centre abroad

If you prefer to have maximum control over your call centre or contact centre, than you might want to recruit and train your own agents.

Many companies have set up wholly owned subsidiaries abroad to run their contact or call centres. That way they leverage cost savings from using offshore resources and maintain full control.

One example is the Dutch contact centre for Dell computers which in recent years moved to the moroccan city of Casablanca.

Organisation do, or course, not take these decisions overnight. Captive call-centres are still mostly used by multi-nationals who use these centres to serve multiple languages and geographic areas from one centre.
What's involved in outsourcing

Now that you have a good idea of why you might want to outsource to an off shore call centre or contact centre, the next step is to think about how you could do this for your organisation.

In our next article, we'll look at what is involved in outsourcing your customer contact to a call centre or contact centre.

If you would like to automatically receive this, and more information on how to make the most of your customer contact, subscribe to our article mailinglist.