In this competitive environment, every business, regardless of size, considers cost-effectiveness. One of the more overlooked strategies for improving profitability is the effective use of call center services. Call centers are more than just handling customers; they can also prove helpful in operational efficiencies, customer retention strategies, and cost savings. With the help of innovative technologies and skilled representatives, companies can produce more while reducing overhead costs and staying within budget.
But how does outsourcing a call center save your business money? Here are some ways that call centers can significantly improve the financial health of your business. Before we delve into the five key points, let’s define the value a call center offers and the associated costs.
Understanding Call Center Costs and Operations
Though call centers can differ significantly, most are designed around incoming or outgoing customer calls and messages. They focus on customer satisfaction while offering customer service and support.
The following services are either some or all of the call center’s potential offerings:
- Calling/Outbound Answering Services
- Product Information Services
- Marketing research, telemarketing, cross-selling, upselling
- Support for Omnichannel and Multichannel
- Multilingual Client Support
- Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Services
Call center services are logistically challenging. Companies have to decide between outsourcing or managing customer service in-house, keeping in mind the management of the workforce and the operations. This article discusses how businesses outsource call centers to save time, money, and resources.
When you outsource, logistical and operational hassles are eliminated. Most calls are charged on a usage basis, such as per minute, hour, flat rate, or agent skills. Such fees take the load off operations and provide cheaper call center services by covering all overhead, agents’ salaries, and benefits.
The 5 Ways Call Centers Can Save Businesses Money
There are five significant ways that your business can benefit from outsourced call center services:
- Reducing Overhead Cost
- Optimizing Efficiencies through Specialization
- Scalability and Flexibility
- Guaranteeing 24/7 Customer Support
- Providing the Latest Technology
These points are explained in detail below, providing a comprehensive understanding of their importance.
- Reducing Overhead Cost
One of the most significant ways call centers help an organization save money is by reducing overhead expenses. You pay all the extra costs when you host your customer service or call center in-house. When you outsource, the numerous call center clients split the overhead costs, and you’re not responsible for any of them.
Below are the In-House and Outsourced Costs of the business:
Internal Cost
- Office space, furniture, and equipment
- Employee technology supplies for work include laptops, phones, and headsets.
- Technology or software licensing for each employee
- Call center software: On-site or cloud-based
- Telephone calls and utilities
- Security, compliance, auditing, maintenance-related fees and expenses
- IT and infrastructure-related expenses, including labor and administration
- Tools and knowledge required for data analysis
- HR costs (employees, recruiting, hiring, etc.)
- Employee salaries and benefits, including “non-productive” hours such as breaks, paid time off, meetings, etc.
Cost of Outsourcing
- Hourly fees per agent
- Set up fees (some companies charge this)
Outsourcing lowers costs dramatically by cutting overheads. It also makes it far less expensive to start up and scale as needed. It also offers more consistent monthly expenses to plan and grow as necessary.
- Optimizing Efficiencies through Specialization
Hiring a call center company can maximize efficiency or your team’s ability to do more with less time, effort, and resources required, which results from access to specialized knowledge. It can save you money and boost the return on your investment.
When you outsource services, especially to a reputable and experienced company for call center solutions, you can access a fully trained team of agents and customer experience experts with decades of expertise managing and enhancing customer service. The team includes management and leadership positions, team leads, HR personnel, multilingual agents, and quality assurance leaders. Outsourcing is a popular choice because most businesses are unlikely to have access to such depth and extent of knowledge internally.
- Scalability and Flexibility
An outsourced call center is flexible and scalable, allowing for cost savings through effectively controlling team size, demands, and workload. Outsourcing helps an organization obtain specialized services and expertise only when needed without hiring and committing to these services for longer.
For example, you are in the process of completing a marketing or market research job that is a bit short-term. Outsource an inbound call center solution for the process, then revert to your team once the project is done. This will save you money and headaches compared to hiring in-house or reallocating your team’s resources to complete a project.
- Guaranteeing 24/7 Customer Support
In addition to saving costs, working with a call center allows you to offer your clients superior quality and attention, particularly for after-hours or round-the-clock support. Working with an outsourcing partner makes it simpler and cheaper to provide 24/7 support, particularly if you’re nearshoring or offshoring. Different time zones allow additional scheduling freedom and lower the cost of booking overnight or after-hours work.
The same holds for other customer service responsibilities, such as multilingual support, which are challenging to fill internally or domestically. Bilingualism is more common and, therefore, more affordable in other countries, but bilingual agents typically command premium rates in the US. Working with an outsourced call center saves companies a lot of money on staffing costs associated with 24-hour service, multilingual support, etc.
- Providing the Latest Technology
Lastly, collaborating with a call center gives you fast access to the newest technology without requiring high up-front costs. Starting your call center involves high costs for equipment, software, installation, personnel, and other expenses. These are less expensive solutions compared to the call center startup charges.
Think about all the technology needed to establish and run a contemporary call center:
- Phone networks
- Tangible devices like phones and computers
- CRM, or customer databases
- VoIP telephone
- Autodialers and IVR systems
- Systems for managing call queues and routing
- Call recording, data analysis, and administration using QA software
- Live chat program
- Tools for omnichannel communication and management
- Software for labor management
It is a partial list, but licensing, implementing, setting up, and integrating this software and technology with other tools can cost thousands of dollars. However, this technology is available for a fully configured and integrated call center provider.
In addition to the financial cost, consider the price in terms of time, effort, and competence required only for creating, managing, integrating, and maintaining all these tools.
Conclusion
Is utilizing call center services a good fit for your team? Here are some of the summarized benefits you will get:
- Lower overhead expenses and improve the efficiency of management and operations
- Raise the affordability of your call center and customer service expenses.
- Without investing a lot of extra time or money in your call center, you can improve service levels and customer service quality by scaling up or down your call center operations or having more flexibility throughout the year.
- Provide more services, such as multilingual, round-the-clock, or multi-channel assistance, to gain access to more knowledge and enhance client satisfaction.
- Utilize innovative technology to improve client experiences and run more productive and efficient operations.
Speak with a Tele Call Center Outsourcing representative when you’re ready to engage with a call center you can trust to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of your customer service operations. Our staff has decades of expertise, so we can assist you in reaching your goals at an affordable and scalable cost. To learn more, contact us now.