The holiday season often brings an increase in incoming calls for many businesses. If your business is becoming overwhelmed, outsourcing to an inbound call center service or a phone answering service is a great way to not only handle the holiday influx but to continue to handle growing call volumes without investing a great deal of time and money to add to your internal staff.
Years ago, inbound call center services and phone answering services were considered completely different animals. Your business fit into one or the other category but not both. Today, many phone answering service providers have much of the same technology and range of services as do inbound call center service providers.
Consider the following benefits of outsourcing your call center needs to an inbound call center service or phone answering service.
- Meet Your Needs -- Many inbound call center services and phone answering services offer a variety of support services, such as multi-lingual call-answering and/or translation options. You may also be able to find an inbound call center service or phone answering service that specializes in your industry.
- Save Money – Yes, save money. If your company is growing, then you need to consider how you are investing your capital to maintain growth. Your infrastructure and salary expenses can be reduced considerably when you use inbound call center services or phone answering services instead of investing in staff and technology yourself.
- 24/7 and 365 -- Call support every day, all day can be very expensive in terms of hiring and/or managing reliable staff for all shifts as well as absorbing the expense of turnover. However, this is the core business of an inbound call center service or phone answering service. They are well equipped to have experienced agents ready at all times, along with having backups in place to compensate for unplanned absences.
- Test the Waters -- You do not need to send all of your calls to an inbound call center service. You can route some of your calls and see if the service is right for your business. This is a perfect time to use a phone answering service, which often is smaller than an inbound call center service yet offers the same capabilities.
- Budget for Call Volume -- You may know how many customer calls your staff fields on a regular basis, as well as the amount of time each call takes. However, a more accurate number helps to accurately budget for the expense. It is possible you may find you only need to use an inbound call center service or phone answering service during high call-volume times like holidays or certain seasons.
- Customers First -- While it is easy to see how efficient and cost effective an inbound call center service or phone answering service can be on your balance sheet, it is even more important that the service provide superior customer care to your clients. To ensure this, you have to provide a detailed description of how your business manages calls. The best inbound call center services and phone answering services work with your current system -- and with you -- to develop a plan and training to provide that high level of customer service you are looking for.
- Inland or Offshore -- Once you decide on an inbound call center service or phone answering service, you then need to determine whether you want your call center operations to be located offshore. The main reason businesses choose offshore call centers is to save money. However, there are some "costs" associated with such a move. English is usually a second language to offshore agents who answer incoming calls. That may make it more difficult to provide the level of customer service your clients are used to receiving from your business. The language difference and location can also impact the amount of time you can dedicate to properly training the agents handling your calls. Inbound call center services and phone answering services in the United States may cost a few cents more per minute but may provide a comfort level for you and your customers that gives you a better return on your investment.
Consider the options available to your business by outsourcing your incoming calls to an inbound call center service or a phone answering service. Whether you are facing increased call volume because of the holidays or seasonal variations, you may benefit from testing the waters to see how an inbound call center service or a phone answering service can help your business grow.
Judy O'Brien is a freelance writer for Alert Communications, which offers a variety of
inbound call center services solutions along with many other
call centers service. Know more about our answering services; visit us on the web at alertcommunications.com.
