The main problem is that retailers now have to do most of the work themselves. Yes, the customer picks out the item. But employees then have to locate the item, box it, and ship it – or if they’re lucky, bag it for curbside service. If a consumer has a ton of items in their cart, you can imagine how time-consuming and costly this becomes. And if you’ve ever heard of impulse buying – well, no one is in the stores to see or hear about anything additional to snag before heading to the register. So, what happens to personalized, customer-centric support while everyone is busy fulfilling orders? That is where call centers come in. And they can do way more than just answer your phone.

Field more than just phone calls.

Live Chat

According to a 2015 Zendesk study, as many as 92% of consumers feel satisfied when using live chat. And how about the statistic that 50% of consumers say having questions answered via live chat during an online purchase is an essential feature for any brand? While your staff is busy processing, filling and shipping online orders, a call center can manage your live chat channel. Skilled agents are able to juggle several chats at once. That means happy customers getting the answers they’re looking for, and more sales conversions to boost your bottom line. In fact, research has shown that live chat leads to a 48% uptick in revenue per chat hour and a 40% higher conversion rate!

SMS Response

Did you know that 98% of smartphone users in the United States text on a regular basis, but only 14% of companies text with consumers? If you haven’t adopted texting as part of your customer service arsenal, then here’s the 411. In a survey of 346 companies that use business texting, 85% of their customers would rather receive a text over a phone call or email. For a call center, responding to inbound texts is just as easy as responding to a live chat. And with 77% of consumers using texting over any other messaging tool, now is as good a time as any to incorporate texting into your business model. It’s quick and convenient, no Internet required.

Give callers the impulse to buy.

Order Taking

Though many consumers prefer the low-contact method of web surfing to make purchases, there are still people who want to talk to an actual person, on their actual phone. In fact, a global customer service study by Microsoft found that 39% of people prefer speaking on the phone to any other means of customer service. And when broken down by country, 44% of Americans are dialing in for assistance. Call centers specialize in order taking, and agents will peruse your website during training to familiarize themselves with your products and the checkout process. From entering orders to returns to tracking shipments, customers will get the full-service care they want, and you can work your magic without being tied up on the phone.

Cross-Selling & Upselling

When an agent is working with a caller to enter an order, you can instruct the agent to look for those pop-ups and side bars that suggest items the caller may want to purchase based on what’s in their cart. It’s an easy cross-sell to an impulse buyer. You can even program an agent’s script so that if a customer intends to make a purchase in a particular category of items, the agent is prompted to cross-sell by asking follow-up questions. For example, let’s say that a customer is interested in cast-iron pans. A cast-iron seasoning and cleaning kit can be scripted as an add-on. Along the same line, if they request the basic seasoning kit, the agent can upsell, offering an upgraded kit with two extra pan scrapers and an oven mitt for just $3 more. Agents are trained to both follow instructions and read their script. If you program it, they’ll say it!

Let technology do the walking.

Virtual Queueing & Callback Systems

Whether or not you’ve heard of the term virtual queueing, you’ve most certainly experienced the technology. You call your ISP. The automated greeting informs you that there is a 25-minute wait to speak with a representative. Do you want to hold, or would you like to receive a call back when it’s your turn in the queue? Well, some call centers can do the same thing. And they can also track callers who disconnect before reaching an agent and call them back to try to help you recapture those leads. With retail sales plunging as a result of the coronavirus, grabbing hold of every prospective customer is essential to your mid- and post-pandemic success.

CRM Integrations

If you’re currently using customer resource management or lead tracking software such as Salesforce, Pipedrive, or HubSpot, why not integrate them with your call center? Agents can take down customers’ information, and via API integration, that data can be pushed to your software. This way, even if the customer doesn’t follow through with a purchase, you’ll have their contact details to reach out regarding any questions or concerns they need to discuss before completing the sale, or for future marketing efforts such as promotions and surveys. This eliminates having to do double the work – receiving a message and taking time out of your day for data entry. Let technology work on your behalf and make your job so much easier.

The best part of using a call center to help with hands-free shopping is that your valued customers are communicating with live human beings! No bots, no auto-replies. Only real people answering questions in real time. Your call center becomes your trusted intake department. And that frees up your intake department to lend a hand getting orders out the door asap. It will not only increase the likelihood of making a sale, but it will increase productivity across the board for your staff. Having a team of agents waiting to personalize customer interactions while you’re tied up behind the scenes is invaluable. As anyone in business can tell you, when you show your customers how much they matter, you’re building lifelong relationships. And that’s money in the bank for years to come.

The post How Call Centers Can Help Maximize Sales with Hands-Free Shopping appeared first on SAS Call Center.

Customers are always going to contact you with issues or questions. They’re calling you, they’re texting you, they’re live chatting you, or they’re emailing you. If they need you, they’re going to get you one way or another. So how can you make your company immediately available to your customers without sacrificing profits or management resources? Call centers!

Talk to any large company and ask how they manage their customer service. You’ll probably hear stories about how these businesses initially struggled with launching their customer service until they discovered call center outsourcing.

Working in the call center industry, I’ve seen a lot of efforts to make outsourcing work, sometimes with poor results. Understanding more about call centers can help ensure a successful outsourcing experience.

Call centers will positively impact your customer service

If you’ve talked to anyone in the call center industry, you’ve heard the pitch about how call centers can improve your business processes. Better customer service. More closed sales. But what is the reality for using a call center as part of your business strategy?

At some point in your life, you’ve interacted with a call center. If you’ve ever called a business asking about the status of a recent order or called your healthcare provider about a bill, you’ve probably dealt with a call center.

Large and small businesses alike use call centers for activities outside of customer service, like sales, dispatching, scheduling – almost any business process can be outsourced.

3 tips to transition to call centers

Any change is difficult. In a small business, sometimes changing the toner in your printer can be a chore. But, once you see how call centers can lower costs and improve customer service, the conversation of deployment starts to change from if to when. Here are some tips I feel will help your business get started using call centers.

1. Make time to train your employees on the call center system

Call centers make your business life easier. However, if you don’t put the time into training your own employees on how to properly work with and understand your call center, outsourcing can quickly turn chaotic. While your employees may not need to know everything about how the call center works, here are some things that everyone should be familiar with:

• Know who to call: Every now and then an issue or question may come up that requires a team member to get in touch with the call center support team. If the primary person typically in charge of this task is out, the rest of your team should have a protocol in place. They should know the phone number or email address to reach out to, who to ask for (if they have an account manager), the hours of operation, and typical response times for mission critical issues. Make sure this information is accessible and up to date.
• Know what to do when lines aren’t connecting: If your phones are not connecting to the center, your team should know some basic information like how your lines connect to the center (i.e. are you manually forwarding to the call center each day before you leave the office, or is it set up on an automatic schedule through your phone provider) and your forwarding number in case the lines become disconnected. If you are manually forwarding to the call center, your team should know how to do this. The forwarding procedure varies depending on phone providers, but typically you enter in *72 on the keypad followed by the forwarding number.
• Log into your portal to check messages: If your call center offers online access, create users and train those users how to access the system. Having portal access is great for allowing your employees to log in to check their own messages, make notes for each other, and prioritize call backs as necessary.
• Log into your portal to make updates:  Understand the technology the call center offers and how to navigate it. For example, if it’s after hours and the on-call person can no longer cover their shift, your employees should know how to log in and make the update themselves instead of waiting around for customer service to handle the changes.

2. Start by outsourcing your easiest task, then increment from there

Training a new employee is like getting into a cold pool – a little at a time is always better than jumping in. The key to successful new hire on boarding is to start training them with the basics, and then gradually increase their responsibilities as they learn the ins and outs of your company. The same concept is true with your call center.

For example, you may want to start with outsourcing basic message taking. With this, call center agents are just gathering general information from your callers and sending the message to your team to handle. Then, as you become more familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of your call center, you may want to add in some specific departmental protocols. These can include transferring hot leads to an in-house sales member, handling tier 1 troubleshooting for support issues, outsourcing order taking or returns processing, and more.

3. Consult with your call center to develop a strategy for complex deployments

The project manager at your call center knows their stuff. They’ve seen everything, and chances are, they’ll know how to handle whatever complex programming you decide to throw their way. While there may be some inflexibility in what can be outsourced well, they can certainly come up with a solution that will work for both you and the call center agents.

For example, maybe you want your call center to log into your CRM software and update customer records accordingly. Unless you’re utilizing dedicated agents, or agents that are assigned to handle  your calls only, a shared call center may not be able to handle this request. However, they may offer an online portal that allows you to integrate your CRM software so that agents can update customer records indirectly through the integration instead of logging in directly.

Moving forward with outsourcing

Call center outsourcing continues to increase with how important customer service is becoming as a differentiation factor. Call centers make it easier for customer service teams to grow rapidly and for sales teams to have better communication with their prospects. SAS Call Center makes outsourcing easy. Read more about our inbound call center services to see what we can do and to decide what you want to outsource.

The post How Any Business Can Get Started With Call Center Outsourcing appeared first on SAS Call Center.

Whether it’s finding a way to meet customer service challenges without having your service team be a cost centre, or finding cost effective ways to edge out your competition, small businesses are always facing pressure to grow rapidly and stay competitive. But without help, growth can be difficult. That’s where call center outsourcing comes in. Whether you’re completely outsourcing your business processes, or just outsourcing a small part of what you do, outsourcing can be a lifeline. But even those bravest small business owners among us may be skeptical of outsourcing.

12 quotes to inspire you to look into outsourcing as a way to stay competitive

• “The important thing about outsourcing or global sourcing is that it becomes a very powerful tool to leverage talent, improve productivity and reduce work cycles.” – Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro Limited
• “Companies are past the basics of talking about outsourcing and offshoring. Executives understand outsourcing now and want to know how to effectively use it in their organizations.” – Jagdish Dalal, CEO of Corporate Affairs
• “Outsourcing and globalization of manufacturing allows companies to reduce costs, benefits consumers with lower cost goods and services, causes economic expansion that reduces unemployment, and increases productivity and job creation.” –Larry Elder, Lawyer and host of the Larry Elder Show
• “The real power of outsourcing going forward is going to be that it increases an organization’s core capacity for change and growth. The business challenges over the next decade are going to be very different than anything we’ve seen so far and the companies that weave a powerful network of global partners through outsourcing will be the winners.” – Michael Corbett, Chairman of the IAOP 
• “Being in the consumer business helps us groom talent in areas like marketing, finance and logistics. We can benchmark our outsourcing business to our consumer business and its best practices.” – Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro Limited
  
• “In the long run, outsourcing is another form of trade that benefits the U.S. economy by giving us cheaper ways to do things.” – Janet Yellen, American economist
• “The need for access to talent will lead companies to think about outsourcing as a means of accelerating innovation and gaining competitive advantage. This will lead to a transformation of the outsourcing profession where innovation will be valued much higher than pure cost savings.” – Jagdish Dalal, CEO of Corporate Affairs
• “Outsourcing was the bogeyman of the ’90’s. Protectionists portrayed it as an evil that would take American jobs away. Yes, some jobs did go offshore as people feared, but it made the global economic pie grow bigger.” – Vivek Wadhwa, American technology entrepreneur and academic
  
• “If you deprive yourself of outsourcing and your competitors do not, you’re putting yourself out of business.” – Lee Kuan Yew, Former Prime Minister of Singapore
• “And just remember, every dollar we spend on outsourcing is spent on U.S. goods or invested back in the U.S. market. That’s accounting.” – Arthur Laffer, American economist
• “Master your strengths, outsource your weaknesses.” – Ryan Khan, Founder of The Hired Group
• “Challenges create opportunities. Outsourcing service providers are very aggressively examining their products and services to create greater value and increase market share in these times. Companies are recognizing they need to use this as an opportunity to strengthen relationships with their partners because each one of those partners will make them a better company.” – Michael Corbett, Chairman of the IAOP

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With how much call center technology and what’s capable to be outsourced changes almost every minute, it’s always fun to see what people in the industry think about where the industry is headed. What’s on the horizon? To get some perspective, we cornered 10 of our employees to get their predictions on call center services over the coming years.

Here’s what our crew said:

• “I think that call centers are going to become even more advanced as technology continues to evolve, and outsourcing is going to feel like a seamless experience for business owners, their staff, and their customers.” – George Nave
• “In my opinion, more and more businesses are going to look to outsourcing as a way to stay above the competition, and soon enough every business will be outsourcing one thing or another.” – Matt Baker
• “Back in the day, you only really talked to call centers when you were calling  your doctor or trying to place an order for a product you saw on TV. However, you’d be surprised how many companies use call centers, and that number is only going to grow higher.” – Barb Albert
• “As the need for call centers continues to increase, I think we’re going to see a jump in call center service providers. A growing market means more entrepreneurs are going to want in on the action, which means a lot more choices for consumers.” – Kaila Hamaday
• “Right now, call centers are relatively limited in the things they can do. For example, unless you have a dedicated agent that is only handling your calls, your operators are going to have limited knowledge of your brand. As the call center industry evolves, I think operators are soon going to be capable of doing a lot more.” – Kelly Dunbar
• “Many call centers offer a mobile app and online portal which their customers can access and retrieve messages. I think mobile apps and online portals are going to become standard across the board, and those features are going to become way more advanced.” – Taylor Blair
• “A lot of call centers offer bilingual support with Spanish speaking agents. However, I think that eventually all call centers are going to become bilingual, and I think that more call centers will start to offer support in other languages as well.” – Kevin Kozeniewski
• “Call centers are definitely going to become the norm across many industries. The other day I was at the dealership for my car, and every 5 minutes the phone kept ringing. No receptionist at the desk and no call center to help answer means the woman I was working with had to constantly help pick up the slack. Businesses can’t afford to lose customers based off poor or lacking customer service, but they usually can afford to outsource.” – Courtney Pizzi
• “I think call centers are going to become more integrated with the businesses they’re answering for, and I think that customers are going to be able to directly talk to and meet with the people handling their calls, and have a more hands on approach to their outsourcing experience.” – Matt Cohen
• “I think it’s possible that more businesses will try to open up their own call centers to help keep everything consolidated under one roof. However, I don’t think it will work out for most of them due to the added expenses and responsibilities needed to run a successful center.” – Stephen Wildemann 

What do you think about the SAS employees predictions? Are they right on point on or a bit sour? If you have some other ideas, feel free to connect with us on twitter @SpecialtyAnswer.

The post See What 10 SAS Employees Believe The Future Holds for Call Center Outsourcing appeared first on SAS Call Center.

There is an affordable shortcut on the path to customer service superiority! Instead of trying to wrangle a 24/7 customer service team under your own roof, you can outsource to a call center. And advice from employees of one of the best call center service companies in the US who have seen it all and done it all may offer you confidence that outsourcing is essential to your success. That’s why we interviewed 3 leaders at SAS to learn the secrets to better outsourcing and what they recommend for businesses to get the most ROI from their outsourcing relationship. Read on to get amazing advice from industry insiders.

Meet Some of Our Staff

Sheila Forth

• Role: Assistant Manager of the SAS Support Team department
• Responsibilities: I assist the department manager in keeping daily and weekly tasks on time. The support Reps come to me for guidance when they have an issue that needs clarification or they have general questions, and I take calls that need escalation. I also handle various billing tasks and will program when needed for special account needs. I am the new employee trainer, as well, and I keep the coffee machine stocked and clean!
• Favorite Aspect of Job: I like the challenges of finding and correcting issues, the open structure of our work place, and working with really great people.
• Most Challenging Aspect of Job: Dealing with extreme clients, but mostly it’s getting the job done in 8 hours.

George Nave

• Role: I am an Account Executive and the Continuing Education Coordinator for the Sales Department
• Responsibilities: My responsibilities include speaking to prospects about virtual receptionist services, consulting with current clients about their experiences, and working together with business owners to craft solutions valuable to the progression and growth of their brand. I also am responsible for training and providing information, insight, and techniques to our representatives in an effort to continue to expand their knowledge, skills, and expertise.
• Favorite Aspect of Job: My favorite part of the job is speaking to prospective clients about how our model can be an asset for their business. It’s always cool to hear their excitement when they understand how much stress and pressure the service can alleviate, all while freeing them up to do other tasks that may have been put on the back-burner for who knows how long. Everyone’s experience and reason for using a service is different, so hearing their personal anecdotes regarding their experiences and being able to offer a helping hand that will make a difference for them is really rewarding.
• Most Challenging Aspect of Job: The most challenging aspect of the job is closed-mindedness. A lot of folks I speak to hand us ultimatums without giving us a chance to explain how things work, what works best, or even listen to suggestions of how to create an account to be successful. They’ll say, “I need X done, and I need it done just like this”. We’re pros at this, but folks don’t even let us get a word in edgewise; knowing that we can help without being the chance to do so is definitely the most challenging aspect of the job.

Danielle Viglione

• Role: I am a customer service representative.
• Responsibilities: Primarily, my responsibilities consist of troubleshooting customer issues and working to come to creative solutions! I handle customer complaints, operator issues, programming issues, and billing issues. Basically, if you have a question about anything, I’m supposed to have an answer!
• Favorite Aspect of Job: There are so many different things that I love about my job, but my favorite aspect would have to be that we truly do help businesses grow. People will start on our Economy plan, we will work to structure their script and make sure every lead is captured, and before you know it they are on the 220 minute plan. I didn’t realize how important never missing a call is until I started working at SAS.
• Most Challenging Aspect of Job: By far the most challenging part is maintaining your patience. People call in and they may say things that they may not necessarily mean. However, something happened that affected them, their business, or caused them some kind of inconvenience. No one typically calls customer service to pat them on the back! We try our best to put ourselves in the customer’s shoes and think about how we would want our concerns addressed.

Question 1: What is the most common misconception customers who have never used a call center have about outsourcing?

“Operator capability.” (Sheila Forth)

Many customers who have never used a call center before typically assume that the operators are not very bright, because they are following scripts that have previously been laid out for them. However, it can be difficult to hold a one-sided scripted conversation, since the caller is thinking and acting on their own accord. Additionally, you’d be surprised how hard it is to answer calls all day every day for hundreds of different businesses. Operators are capable of way more than most people give them credit for, but our call center allows us to showcase all of their talents!

“Location of call center.” (George Nave)

One of the biggest misconceptions is definitely the location of the call center. Most folks are pleasantly surprised that everything is handled in the US 24/7/365. A lot of times, callers think all centers are overseas and outsourced, but at SAS we keep everything consolidated for quality and convenience.

“Everyone answering the phone is foreign.” (Danielle Viglione)

A common misconception that people have about call centers is that the operators answering the phones are all foreign. SAS is an Equal Opportunity Employer so every once in a while there will be someone with an accent that answers the phone. However, we are completely U.S. based! We make sure we have the best people possible answering the phones at all times.

Question 2: What is the best tip you can give to a small business using a call center?

“Start small.” (Sheila Forth)

For a small business outsourcing to a call center, I would suggest that they try a very simple approach to message taking to start. As they get more familiar with the call center, and as the agents get more familiar with the client’s needs, perhaps add more protocol, gradually,  as needed.

When customers jump right into adding every protocol imaginable, a lot of issues can occur. We always try to remind the customer that the operators are not just answering for their business only, and what works in their office may not always work in a call center environment.

“Less is more.” (George Nave)

The less you have the operators juggle, the more control you will have over the success of your campaign. The more the operators have to do, the more they feel like a call center rather than your receptionist. When the operators have less to do, it makes it very difficult for the call to go awry, and it keeps the image of your brand personable and professional.

“Listen to suggestions.” (Danielle Viglione)

I would advise all customers to take suggestions from the programmers building your script.The key to having a successful interaction between an operator and a caller is a well structured script! Each business is different, but our programmers are the best of the best. They have experience answering phones for all different kinds of businesses and they know what is going to help you capture the most leads, and what is not.

Question 3: What’s the most difficult aspect of outsourcing to convey to new clients?

“No one is perfect!” (Sheila Forth)

I would say the most difficult aspect of outsourcing to convey to new clients is that the agents are not perfect and they should never expect perfection. After all, no one is perfect!

However, a good call center will work with their customers to make sure their outsourcing experience is as close to perfection as possible. This entails providing amazing customer support by jumping on problems as soon as they arise, following up with check ins, coaching operators when necessary, making changes, and offering credits where credits are due.

“Operators are not the same as your staff.” (George Nave)

The most difficult thing about outsourcing is definitely attempting to convey that the operators won’t have the same skill set, knowledge, and insight as the folks that have worked in their office for years do. The operators do their best, but no one knows your business like you do.

“Human error.” (Danielle Viglione)

You could have the most well crafted script in the entire world and an operator may make a mistake. We have systems in place to correct and train these operators like our quality review process. However, we like to focus on training and improving the operator before resorting to taking them off the floor.

Question 4: What is the biggest mistake customers often make?

“Implementing complicated procedures.” (Sheila Forth)

I would say that the biggest customers often make is over complicating what they want a service to do. For example, a client may want their call center agents to access their website to book vacation tours.

However, these types of calls may often come with a number of questions that the operators are unable to answer, like which tour they recommend. Since it’s unlikely the operators have been on said tours, it’s hard to give the caller what they want. This in turn makes the operators seem un-knowledgeable about the business they are answering for, which is not a good look for anyone.

“Being close-minded.” (George Nave)

The biggest mistake has to be coming in with a closed mind. When clients aren’t willing to hear us out, or listen to our insight of what would work best, they lose a professional opinion from our team who know what works and what doesn’t. That additional insight can really make a difference in the success of a campaign.

“Having operators say your company name.” (Danielle Viglione)

One of the biggest mistakes is definitely putting the company name in the operator’s greeting. We offer a custom recorded greeting that is a far better alternative. This guarantees that your name is said correctly 100% of the time. An operator may hesitate or stumble (even with a phonetic spelling) because they have to stop and read the notes regarding pronunciation.

Question 5: If successful outsourcing is relationship based, what’s the best way to keep that relationship strong?

“An accessible support team.” (Sheila Forth)

The best way to keep an  outsourcing relationship strong is a knowledgeable and accessible customer service team that really wants to help, accessible and communicative customers, and amazing operators!

“Communication is key.” (George Nave)

Communication. We’re here to help your company succeed, and that starts with communication. If  you open up a good, consistent dialogue between your team and ours, we’re always in a scenario where we’re constantly informed, which allows your service to be optimized to the fullest; this results in the best experience for us, your business, and your service as well.

“Know how to contact customer service.” (Danielle Viglione)

Answer when we call! We all do it. We all see the 800 number. We all reject it. Sometimes those calls are absolutely needed! We call our clients throughout their 2 week free trial and their active status to check in and see if there have been any issues. Most of the time when I call people, they say they have had issues but they didn’t know how to contact us. Yikes! That’s not good for either of us. We of course want your business but we also want your business to thrive!

Question 6: How can businesses prioritize what’s most important when outsourcing?

“Determine your goals.” (Sheila Forth)

Businesses can prioritize what’s most important through a number of ways. First, they should decide what information is most important for a service to get from their callers, like Name, Number, Email, Regarding, etc. Next, they need to consider what will keep their callers happy. For example, will their callers be upset if they were under the impression they were speaking with someone from the company and actually weren’t, or would they like to be told up front who they are speaking with? And finally, the business will need to decide what method of message delivery will work best for them, like texts, emails, or both.

“What is your core problem?” (George Nave)

Objectively assess your core problem –  missing calls, waking up in the middle of the night to answer non-urgent calls, lack of time or staff to answer, etc. When you identify your core problem, a solution is much easier to find.

Among the glitz and glamour of all the features available, sometimes the core problem can be forgotten. Recognize your core issue and consult with industry professionals, like our staff at SAS. This will help to address your problems, which will then give you the flexibility to expand moving forward.

“Track customer complaints.” (Danielle Viglione)

One thing the business could do, regardless of what type of business it is, is track customer complaints. If your primary need for a service is handling after hours calls,  get an after hours message taking service that informs them someone will be in touch when you reopen.

If your website is hard for callers to navigate to schedule appointments, send a direct link to the booking page and have our operators do it for them. If your customer base is a little older and prefers to place orders on the phone, use us as an order taking line. The possibilities are endless!

Try One Of The Best Call Center Service Providers for Free

If you want to keep more customers happy and turn your sales from a 8 hour sprint to a 24 hour marathon, you need a great call center backing you up. SAS offers affordable call center services designed to help small and medium businesses capture leads and help customers around the clock at a much lower price per interaction versus doing the same tasks in-house. Schedule a demo today or try us for free to see what your business has been missing.

Get the eBook

Download our free e-book to find out how you can create a successful outsourcing campaign 100% of the time. Click the banner below to read Call Center Secrets to Outsourcing Success.

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How do you know if a call center is going to work for your business? Will it be a worthwhile investment or just plain not worth the headache? As one of the top US based call center service providers, we hear from a ton of small businesses every day about the communication challenges they face. Following are some of the more popular challenges we hear and how a call center is able to meet the challenge and help businesses grow easier.

How call centers can help you succeed

But before we get into it, let’s look at how even a basic call center setup can help your small business. Finding the right call center service provider is the automobile equivalent of dropping a super charged engine in your car. By offering live customer service as delivered through an affordable 3rd party provider, you can keep more customers happy, faster, at a much lower price than trying to juggle everything in-house. From the front end, call centers can boost your conversions by live transferring prospects to your own professional closers 24/7. They can help your growth on the backend as well by turning paying clients into your evangelists with the around the clock support you offer.

The right call center service company does that all for your small business at a much lower cost than you attempting to setup your own in-house team. A call center keeps you connected to your customers and keeps them connected to you – setting you up on the path to explosive growth. When it comes to customer service, nothing is better than outsourcing to a call center.

#1. Sales prospects are waiting until the next day for answers

In the world of sales, every second counts. That is, every second you’re not answering calls or speaking with potential customers, you’re running the risk of missing out. When a potential customer calls your business, they’re in immediate need of a product or service, and would happily look elsewhere if you can’t provide it to them when they call. For example, if someone’s roof is caving in, they’re not going to wait until tomorrow for answers. They’re calling because they need help now, and if you can’t help, they’ll call another business that can.

If you’re unable to handle calls all day and night, then outsourcing to a call center can help you capture and convert leads you would have otherwise lost to your competitor. If potential prospects are simply calling with questions on your pricing or services, call centers can access and utilize FAQs you’ve previously set up to answer questions, which may help drive a sale or at least entice a customer to consider your business as an option.

#2. Current customers are leaving messages on your voicemail for support and are 10x more frustrated when you contact them the next day

While capturing new leads is important for any business, keeping current customers happy is the key to keeping your company afloat. Without happy customers, you have no business. When your customers reach out to you it’s because they have an urgent question or problem that needs fixing. And, often times they’re already quite frustrated when they call.  No one likes having to take time out of their day to call customer service for an issue, especially if it’s causing them to lose money. To put it simply, making your customers leave voicemails every time they call instead of reaching a live voice is a recipe for disaster, and their frustration is sure to grow the longer they have to wait for a return call.

Call centers employ hundred of customer service representatives, which means none of your customers have to leave a voicemail or wait long for assistance. Even if the call center rep cannot help them immediately or solve their problem while on the phone, they at least know that someone is working on resolving the issue instead of wondering if their message was even heard.

#3. You offer 24 hour support, but you are spending too much money in-house and unable to justify or quantify the expense

Sometimes you just can’t do it all on your own, and it’s okay to ask for help. For businesses that need to be available around the clock for their customers or patients in the event of an emergency, but can’t quite afford to staff the office 24 hours a day, call centers are a great way to get the job done and alleviate wallet strain at the same time.

Your in-house staff can be responsible for handling any calls that hit during regular business hours, and then once your employees leave for the day, you can roll your phone lines over to your call center, who will handle any after hours calls that may trickle through. Anything that is not urgent can wait until the following business day to be addressed, and any issue that requires immediate attention can be dispatched through to your rotating on-call staff. Voila! It turns out you can have your cake and eat it too!

#4. Your in-house call center solution is experiencing uncomfortable hold times and inflating your abandonment rate

To avoid outsourcing calls to a third party service provider, many companies opt to create an in-house call center so they can keep everything consolidated under one roof. While that method may work for some companies, it may not always be the best solution.

In order to run a successful call center, you have to know the call center industry. You have to use the most up to date call center technology and constantly monitor previous trends to make sure you are always staffed up accordingly in order to increase your chances of success.  For business owners that already have a lot to manage, their in-house call center can often times suffer, leading to upset customers and upset employees. Relinquishing some responsibilities to a knowledgeable and successful call center provider can help lift some of the weight off of your shoulders and give your customers a much needed sigh of relief.

#5. After hours calls are going to your customer service on-call and 90% of the requests are not urgent

Often times when someone is dealing with an issue, they want help right away. However, it may not always require immediate assistance, especially if it’s after hours. For example, a landlord may receive maintenance requests at all hours of the night, but usually only a small percentage of them would require immediate assistance, like if the caller’s apartment was flooding or they had no heat in the dead of winter.

Outsourcing after hours calls to a call center and setting up a specific workflow will help the call center agents to sift through requests and determine what is an emergency and what is not. By having your call center screen calls before sending them to the appropriate person, your customer service on-call team or staff member won’t be bogged down with unnecessary tickets, and can focus on the issues that require immediate attention.

#6. You’re unsure how you can grow without spending an arm and a leg on more customer service representatives

All businesses, no matter the size, have one thing in common; the need for growth. If your business remains stagnant, you’ll have no way to replace customer churn with new clients. If you’re looking to grow but can’t find space in your budget for more in-house employees, outsourcing to a call center can help your business without breaking the bank.

Call center service providers offer a variation of pricing plans that can usually fit into any sized budget. For example, SAS offers pricing plans for small businesses that may only get a few calls a month, for businesses that get hundreds of calls a month, and everything in between.

#7. You’ve outsourced before and other providers can’t access your CRM or helpdesk software

So you’ve tried to outsource before but didn’t have the best experience. It happens to the best of us! But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a service provider out there that will work for you.

While some call centers have antiquated systems which prohibit them from integrating with various applications or accessing web based software, there are many that can. As technology continues to evolve, the call center industry is evolving with it, and thus many call centers are becoming more equipped to work with various different systems and platforms.

What to do next?

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