Why Call Center Outsourcing Has Become the Norm

Call Center Outsourcing: A Convenient Choice for Growing Companies

Customer Service: The telecommunications infrastructure becomes worn, unreliable, or outdated. Maintaining it is costly, and replacing it even more so. An obsolete system can reduce competitiveness. An outsourced call center brings with it the latest technology. The business can then focus on innovation in its goods and services.

As businesses grow, the company should also keep up with the growing number of customers. Therefore, customer service should be up-to-par with the quality of their products. This is because more and more people will need product assistance.

Call center outsourcing in the Philippines, and other third world countries used to be a sensitive topic. Today, it’s the norm for various reasons: economy, budget, and quality.

Economy

One of the main reasons companies prefer outsourcing is it’s low-cost. Third world countries have a much lower minimum wage than the U.S. The minimum daily wage in the Philippines is around $10 compared to the average $58 in the U.S.

It also boosts the economy of these countries because of the additional employment opportunities brought by BPOs, or Business Process Outsourcing companies. In the Philippines, BPO jobs comprise 14% of the increase in job openings.

Convenience

By outsourcing, companies would not have to run a call center. They wouldn’t have to worry about maintaining an office or a building and keeping up with telecommunication upgrades. This automatically eliminates overhead and labor costs.

In addition to this, countries where outsourcing is rampant–like the Philippines and India–are already trained to speak English. In the Philippines alone, people have been taught the language since they were toddlers. This makes it easier for companies to train them to talk to foreigners for customer service purposes.

Call centers also take on the responsibilities of training, hiring, and managing employees, making it even more convenient for client companies. BPOs teach employees to pick up the American accent, provide quality customer support, and give them knowledge of the product.

Quality

A company always boasts its top-of-the-line customer service because this gives customers the reason to stay. It’s every company’s connection to the customers, and every company should focus on retaining their customers. For one, regular customers are guaranteed to purchase a product compared to new, unfamiliar ones.

Excellent customer service also creates good publicity since positive feedback is an extremely effective form of marketing. Plus, word-of-mouth is free.

When do you need to outsource?

1. The business is growing, and the number of customers is becoming more than the staff can handle. Refusing to outsource may cost you a lot of time and money training and hiring more staff members. In the process, you’re guaranteed to miss more calls or put customers on hold for a longer time.
2. At this point, there are new technological advancements in call centers. Can the current set-up in the company keep up with the increasing number of calls? Is the company geared for a chat and email customer service?
3. Changes, changes, changes. The price of reaching more customers is a lot of change. The company needs to be more inclusive now, catering to varying cultures. This affects languages, customer personalities, and hours that the call center needs to keep up with.