Outsourcing call center services in companies

Due to increased competition in the market, more and more companies worldwide outsource their call center services to other telemarketing companies.

The call center activity is one of the most important aspects of any company, whether it is outsourcing or not. Telephone service covers the customer or commercial attention, which leads to significant benefits for the company.

As a matter of fact, companies and SMEs can subcontract other telemarketing companies in different countries. And even to workers operating in different places and even from their own homes. New technologies have made this possible. 

Furthermore, outsourcing your call center and telephone services is the best option to save your valuable time and productive resources. It is one of the cheapest options for call centers in telephone services.

Moreover, call center outsourcing consists of the hiring of call center services in an external company. Call centers handle all types of customer service problems, from credit cards to appliance warranties. Companies outsource either internally, through a separate division, or to an external specialist.

In effect, companies started outsourcing to save money. They discovered that it was more cost-effective to locate their call centers in areas with lower living costs. That way, they can pay lower salaries to their workers. 

What is outsourcing

In general, outsourcing is the management or execution of a business function by an external service provider. Moreover, the outsourcer company must transfer part of the administrative and operational control to the outsourced one. That one can work apart from the normal relationship between the outsourced company and its customers.

As can be seen, many companies hire specialized outsourcing firms to manage the areas most helpful to outsourcing. These include IT, human resources, asset and property management, and accounting. Many companies also outsource user support and telephone call management, manufacturing, and engineering. 

To clarify, call center outsourcing is obtaining an external service provider located outside the country to operate and manage the call center. The outsourced service provider is usually responsible for hiring and training the call center agents. They are also responsible for maintaining the call center software and infrastructure and managing the call center’s daily operations.

Companies can either outsource a segment of their call center operations or the entire telephone service. 

The international economic scenario is so complex that outsourcing call center services are a competitive advantage for lowering costs, maximizing profitability, and gaining customers.  

Benefits of outsourcing call center

• Cost advantages: there are numerous call center service providers in other countries that offer quality services at a very reasonable cost. Lower costs are one of the reasons for outsourcing, especially when companies can get better services.
• Increased sales: any of the call center outsourcing services can help improve your business’ profits. It can even lead to an increase in all aspects of the core business, given the improvements in quality, performance, and productivity.
• Availability of resources: through call center outsourcing services, you can safeguard your personnel budget (recruitment, maintenance, and coaching) and infrastructure (installation and updating). Without investing in training expenses or expensive software, you can use your resources to focus specifically on business processes.
• Specialized Skills: call center outsourcing can help you gain access to experienced professionals’ technical knowledge. You can apply these advantages to more customer acquisition worldwide, valuing international markets previously inaccessible to you.
• The availability of a 24h service allows facing any regressive cycle of the economy, forming global customer markets.

Disadvantages of outsourcing call center

• Decreased customer satisfaction: recent investigations indicated that call center outsourcing in telephone service leads to reduced service quality and customer satisfaction.
• Language and cultural barriers: agents located abroad may lack the cultural knowledge, fluency, and communication skills necessary to provide excellent support.
• Diminished control of business functions: by outsourcing call center operations to an outside service provider, you are putting essential business functions in the hands of an outsider. Therefore, it can be more difficult to control quality and establish policies to help increase customer satisfaction.
• Lack of company knowledge: outsourced call center agents are often unfamiliar with its culture, practices, and values. Therefore, they may not provide a service level that aligns with company standards and reflects the company culture.

Final thoughts

As has been noted, outsourcing consists of third parties carrying out tasks that are complementary to the company’s primary task. It consists, therefore, in outsourcing a part of the company’s activity. This will allow the company to have all its internal resources at its disposal to improve and optimize its main functions.

However, although outsourcing these services is a resource that many companies do, others rely on the telephone service in their own company to manage the calls themselves. Companies’ main risk is falling into a dependency relationship with their outsourcing telephone service providers, which will prevent them from easily getting rid of them, even in the case of low-quality services.

While planning to outsource, Katrium can be suggested as they always exceed the needs of their customers. You can outsource customer service, translations, and many more services to Katrium.