Call centre outsourcing

Customer service is arguably the most important area of your business, particularly in this modern era of social media.

Bad service can quickly go viral and can ruin your reputation before your business has even begun. Call centre outsourcing can enhance customer experience, increase operating efficiencies and lower costs.

Over the last decade, consumer demands have increased massively thanks to the incredible rise of technology. With smartphones, we are now able to communicate with anyone in the world as we wish or find out anything we want with just a few taps of the screen. This has created a culture of instant gratification, and now customers demand a 24/7 service from businesses; as a company, you are expected to bend to your customers’ requirements and be available to communicate with them across a multitude of methods.

This means needing to monitor emails, social media, webchats, telephones and much more – placing a significant amount of pressure on your company to continue to meet the growing demands of your consumers. This also means a large financial investment is required in order to meet the 24 hours a day requirements and growing multi-platform communication methods.

That is why call centre outsourcing has become the go-to solution for many businesses, particularly in the United Kingdom. Nowadays, companies of all shapes and sizes are able to benefit from a contact centre outsourcing company; allowing them to meet the demands of their customers and reduce their costs.

Call centre outsourcing

The primary benefit of contact centre outsourcing is that it immediately saves the vast sum of money required to establish your own call centre. Businesses do not need to find the capital to purchase or rent premises, invest in equipment or train and hire staff. An outsourced facility will already have all of this established and typically manage multiple clients from the same facility; helping to reduce costs even further.

Of course, call centre outsourcing does not just provide you with a financial benefit. By using an experienced outsourcing provider, you will be able to tap into their vast knowledge to further boost the customer experience. You will also be able to take advantage of their highly experienced call centre managers and staff, who are often trained to specialise in certain sectors and industries and can provide your customers with the expert service they deserve.

One of the biggest benefits, however of call centre outsourcing is that it ensures the customer service side of your business is running as efficient and as cost-effective as possible. Outsourced centres are able to capture and analyse huge amounts of data so you can work out not only which days, months or seasons of the year are the busiest but also understand the most common problems or most active promotions that you might be running. This allows you to predict and prepare for how your consumers will be reacting but not only that, by using an outsourced centre rather than managing your own, you will always have the exact number of handlers needed to answer the incoming queries.

That scalability and flexibility means you will never have agents sitting idle during quieter periods or increase customer waiting time during the busier periods. You can scale up, or scale down, the number of agents as required; ensuring your service levels remain the same and helping to keep your customer satisfaction levels high.

The Philippines

The Philippines is the world’s contact centre outsourcing leader, with over 1,000 call centres currently in action; employing an incredible 1.3 million Filipinos. Steadily building over the past two decades, the call centre outsourcing industry in the Philippines is now generating almost 70% of the Philippine Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry’s £20 billion annual revenue.

Why are the Philippines becoming so popular for UK-based businesses looking for contact centre outsourcing? Well, firstly the country has a close cultural affinity with the West, meaning that the Filipino agents do not only speak fluent English, but they also understand the needs of the English customers.

Alongside that, incredibly low-labour costs coupled with a large pool of highly qualified and experienced Business Process Outsourcing employees makes finding the perfect talent very easily. The Philippines also features world-class infrastructure, meaning businesses are able to take advantage of the most up-to-date contact centre outsourcing technology. This ensures that end-users are always receiving fast responses and great customer service in their own language.

Call centre outsourcing does have a negative perception when it comes to certain business leaders, but just like anything in the world, you have to choose the right provider as quality and performance levels can vary massively. Just like a t-shirt that costs £3 would not be as good quality or last as long as one that costs £20, a poor contact centre outsourcing provider will not give your customers the same service or performance levels as a respected and experienced provider.

In order to maximise the service levels you provide to your customers, you need to utilise the talents of an experienced and premium provider. Whilst these premium offshore providers might charge slightly higher rates than low-level outsourcers; your customers will receive a significantly better service that is not only on par with onshore providers but actually surpass it. By investing a little more, you will be able to enjoy the very best talent, processes and technologies.

Whilst you might be paying a little extra for a premium provider compared to a budget one, this still works our significantly cheaper than maintaining an onshore call centre. By using the right outsourcing provider, you will be able to enjoy savings of up to 50% compared to keeping it based in the United Kingdom. These savings can then be used to increase support staff and hours in a more cost-efficient manner.

When all of this is combined, it ensures your customers are able to receive even greater customer service; enhancing their experience with your business. As the saying goes, a happy customer is a repeat customer so as we enter a new decade, outsourcing your contact centre could revolutionise your business and help you flourish.

Choosing the right provider is crucial to that success, though. PITON-Global is an award-winning provider of world-class, call centre and back-office services to businesses in the UK, US and Australia. For over two decades, they have helped dozens of UK-based businesses to acquire, manage and retain their most valuable asset: customers. Call centre outsourcing is here to stay. Done right, it can help your business gain and maintain a key competitive advantage in the marketplace.