Shared vs. Dedicated: Which Is Right for You?
By Wendy Shooster, co-CEO of Global Response
When clients make the decision to use an outsourced contact center, there are a number of other questions that follow quickly on the heels of that decision. First and foremost: Should they use dedicated agents, shared agents, or a combination of both? The answer depends on a number of factors.
What is the call volume? What is the budget? What services will the agents to provide?
Shared and dedicated agents have different perspectives and it’s important to get the best out of each – both provide powerful and important services. For many clients, a group of shared, well-versed and well-trained agents is the most cost-effective means of establishing outstanding customer service. On the sales side, it is more often that a dedicated group of agents will outperform in the areas of sales volume, cross-selling and upselling.
Global Response has many clients that prefer shared agents. Clients pay by the minutes, and for a smaller call volume, this is not only sufficient, but preferred. Agents do an excellent job handling the calls, and keeping the clients’ customers happy. They are trained in clients’ business, and are highly effective, even if they change hats and represent more than one client.
When order taking and sales transactions are the priority, a dedicated group logically can become more familiar with the products, brand personality and customers. Agents dedicated to a single client understand the products and services more intimately and will often generate a dramatic increase in sales. With dedicated agents, clients pay by the hour, so it requires a thoughtful decision and a benchmark call volume to go this route, but dedicated agents, for this reason and others, are more like employees of the client company.
Contact center experts agree that clients get tremendous value for their investment in both cases. Dedicated agents typically have deeper brand and product knowledge, which helps make them more effective salespeople for a specific client. The dedicated agents receive extensive training and coaching and they know the company and its products well. In fact, they excel at selling. At Global Response, our shared agents are also very well versed. Frequently, their primary responsibility is customer service, but they are highly skilled and committed agents for whatever clients they represent.
We discuss with our clients their needs, expectations, budget and goals and create a plan that works for them. We even have “hybrid” clients that use a combination of shared and dedicated agents. The mission is to find the right formula that works for each client.
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Wendy Shooster is Co-CEO of Global Response, a Florida-based outsourced contact center. wendy@globalresponse.com (954) 973-7300.