24 hour Answering Services

One of the most popular trends in business these days is the call center. Outsourcing calls can boost profits, enhance the quality of customer service, streamline business operations and save money. With virtual accessibility, call centers have become an option for any business, large or small.

What are the benefits to a business owner of using a call center?

(1) Staying Knowledgeable. Call center agents are working for you 24/7 to handle calls and keep business owners informed about what`s going on in their client base. Some call centers even provide statistics about customer calls.

(2) Fewer Personnel Headaches. Agents are recruited and trained by the call center, which also handles payroll and other personnel functions.

(3) Efficiency. Incoming calls are automatically routed to the right agent, making the best possible use of an agent`s knowledge and skill sets. If one agent cannot resolve a problem, the call can be rerouted to a more educated agent. Calls are always covered despite the ebb and flow of business call volume.

(4) Accessibility. With 24/7 coverage, agents are always available to take orders, tackle problems or complaints, offer technical support, answer inquiries and set appointments, all at the customer`s convenience.

(5) Savings. outsourcing calls to a call center reduces the need for rented space, furniture and equipment for customer service representatives. Also, it`s less expensive to outsource calls than to hire agents on all three shifts.

(6) Greater Freedom. Call centers handle the client base, freeing owners to grow their business.

On the other hand, there are a down side to using call centers.

(1) Unpredictable Service. The quality of customer support depends upon the skill set and expertise of a given agent and abilities can vary greatly among agents.

(2) Communication Issues. Customers complain about not being understood and not understanding agents from call centers in non-English speaking countries, with accents and/or restricted ability with the English language. Some customers maintain that these agents are poorly trained, unable to solve problems, answer questions or take appropriate actions.

(3) Lack of Supervisory Personnel. Some call centers have insufficient supervisory personnel to rectify problems an individual agent cannot deal with. This can leave a customer`s question indefinitely unresolved.

(4) Discontented Agents. Some agents report feeling dehumanized at call centers due to insufficient salaries, lack of privacy, inability to leave their work areas and the stress of continual incoming calls. This can produce unconcerned agents who are impolite to customers.

(5) Having to Call Repeatedly. Some customers complain that, due to the great variability of skill among agents, they must dial the call center more than once to connect with an agent who has the ability to solve a given problem or to answer a particular query.

Call centers are the trend of the future and many businesses are at least considering outsourcing their calls. However, the success of outsourcing will be a function of the caliber of customer service provided by the call centers themselves.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 11th, 2008 at 10:17 pm and is filed under Answering Service. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.