Outsourcing Doesn't Mean Foreign Call Centres
Many start-ups, small businesses, sole-traders and dot.com companies can find it hard to handle all their prospective customers' phone calls. Rather than employ a full-time receptionist, many choose to outsource their call handling requirements, usually to a specialist company that has a call centre specifically set up for this purpose. However, the initial reaction for many is that their calls are being farmed out to foreign call centres. This need not be the case and usually staying with a home grown company is the best bet for customer satisfaction.
Whilst many companies may benefit from outsourcing to call centres in countries such as India where they have large levels of highly qualified individuals working for relatively low wages (by UK standards), this may not be suitable for smaller companies.
Within in the past decade a fairly large percentage of UK banks, for example, have outsourced all or part of their inbound call needs to foreign call centres and this works very well for them. The majority of the questions that arise need not be locally specific to the caller, most will be querying statements, transfer requests, overdraft requests etc. All of which queries can be handled by highly trained staff outwith the UK. However, smaller companies may require that their callers are not given the impression their call is being answering abroad.
For many smaller companies that choose to outsource their calls it is imperative that any business opportunities are not missed. Potential customers calling a business local to them may be put off or least confused if their call is answered with an obvious foreign accent, especially if they think they are calling a sole-trader for example. Foreign call centre operators are not going to have local knowledge either and may struggle when trying to communicate clearly over place names, particularly if the caller themselves have a strong regional UK accent.
Using a small call handling service that is based in the UK is probably the most cost effective solution for small businesses looking to outsource. They are not as expensive as many might think and certainly less expensive than hiring a full or part-time receptionist. There is also the added benefit that small businesses needn't worry about PAYE, sickness and holiday cover if opting for a call handling service. For large companies it is not so important to give the impression of a local call centre, in fact many may actively strive not to in order to show how big and therefore established they are.
In the current financial climate it really is important for small businesses to convert every sales opportunity that comes their way. Making sure that their calls are answered professionally and quickly immediately gives their customers a good first impression that should hopefully last all the way through to the point of sale.
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No matter what type of contact center you have you need to learn the importance of first call resolution and call center benchmarking.
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