Companies have long recognized outsourcing as a viable and cost-efficient business solution.
As business process outsourcing (BPO) firms began spreading across the globe, so did the number of contact center service providers. Many BPO service providers also offer contact center services on top of their other offerings.
With the influx of BPO firms today, you’ll have no shortage of choices when it comes to outsourcing contact center services.
However, choosing a contact center services provider that fits your needs is still of utmost importance.
Read on below to learn more about contact center outsourcing.
What are contact centers?
Contact centers are facilities or departments that serve as central interaction points between brands and their customers.
Businesses often integrate contact centers into customer relationship management (CRM) strategies to improve customer experience.
Contact centers differ from call centers in terms of channel breadth. Call centers, as the name suggests, cater to customers through live calls. On the other hand, contact centers engage customers through a wide range of channels, such as email, social media, chats, and live calls.
Companies outsourcing contact center services often do so to improve the effectiveness of their customer support services. Contact centers have omnichannel capabilities, which allow them to connect with customers through their preferred channels.According to Zendesk’s CX Trends 2022 survey, while many still prefer over-the-phone customer support, messaging apps’ usage has seen a 36% increase in 2022.
How outsourcing contact center services work
Contact centers work similarly to call centers, albeit with more communication channels.
When outsourcing contact center services, companies can partner with providers that cover their customers’ preferred channels.
While not every contact center services provider offers omnichannel capabilities, most have multichannel coverage.
Contact centers can take over most of the customer-facing facets of a business’s operations. Companies outsourcing contact center services can use them for the following:
- Email marketing
- Telemarketing
- Omnichannel/multichannel customer support
- Inbound and outbound services
- Omnichannel/multichannel technical support
Advantages of outsourcing contact center services
As with other outsourcing ventures, businesses can gain many benefits by outsourcing contact center services.
Below are some of these advantages:
Omnichannel and multichannel capabilities
As already mentioned earlier, many contact centers have omnichannel or multichannel capabilities.
Engaging customers at their preferred channels is an excellent way to boost customer experience (CX). It lets them feel that businesses go the extra mile to ensure convenience for their clients.Aside from improving customer satisfaction, companies can use a contact center’s omnichannel or multichannel presence to boost their marketing efforts across different platforms.
Be more inclusive
There are over 61 million adults living with a disability in the US alone. Outsourcing contact center services can help businesses prioritize accessibility in their services.
With an outsourced contact center, companies can:
- Provide video functionality for sign language and closed captioning for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
- Offer screen reader services or audible text for people with blindness or other visual impairments.
Cost reduction opportunities
Outsourcing contact center services is a cost-effective solution for companies wanting to improve and scale their customer services.
Businesses can save as much as 70% on operating costs by outsourcing to contact center service providers instead of hiring their in-house equivalents.
In addition, these businesses can skip the hassles of recruitment, hiring, and onboarding and circumvent the expenses associated with these processes.
Improved process efficiency
Handing over customer-facing functions to a contact center firm significantly reduces the workload of a business’s in-house employees.
The reduced responsibilities allow companies to focus more on their niche services, which are often the revenue-generating aspect of their business.
Delegating tasks to an outsourced contact center team also improves the overall efficiency of these processes. Contact center services providers often have the latest industry technology, ensuring better process output.
Disadvantages of outsourcing contact center services
Despite the many advantages of outsourcing contact center services, this practice has its fair share of drawbacks.
Here are some of them:
- Potential data breach. Handing over customer-facing roles to a third-party service provider can expose sensitive information to unauthorized access.
- Lack of industry knowledge. Rarely do contact center service providers specialize in any one field. Thus, outsourcing processes without training or familiarizing the service provider with a business’s niche can be a struggle.
- Decreased control over processes. Entrusting your customer-facing functions to a third-party service provider lessens your total control over the process’s quality.
- Hidden costs. While outsourcing can help companies save on operational costs, business owners must remain vigilant against unscrupulous firms that charge hidden costs to unwary entrepreneurs.
Outsourcing contact center services: Should you do it?
Choosing to outsource any business process is not a decision that business owners make lightly. As outsourcing can potentially help a company scale and grow or prove to be a fruitless endeavor, business owners can be stuck trying to decide whether or not to outsource.
There are many factors that businesses must consider before deciding to outsource contact center services. These factors include:
- Technology. Do you have the necessary software and equipment to maintain a high customer satisfaction rate for your business?
- Human resources. Can your present employees handle functions usually done by contact centers on top of their regular workloads?
- Language barrier. Do your employees speak the same language as your business’s customers or target demographics?
- Meeting targets. Do you constantly struggle to meet or have difficulty meeting your business’s targeted metrics?
Answering these questions with a “yes” can signify that your business will benefit from outsourcing contact center services.
