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by Mark Leidlein, Director of Business Development for Advanced Customer Services (ACS) - July 27, 2011

Is a call center the right choice for your customer service?
By Mark Leidlein, Advanced Customer Services (ACS)

So how do you know when a third party call center is the right option for your business’ customer service? Many companies use third party call centers as a cost effective method for their customer service requirements. With properly designed knowledge based systems, training, and communication tools such as email and online chat, third party centers can provide a seamless service function without the need to maintain an internal service department or can help you support seasonal fluctuations.

But is using a call center the right option for you? If you already have a call center you may want to analyze the cost and time to staff and support an in-house center versus using an outside center. Changes in technology, leveraged resources and economies of scale have made third party call centers more cost effective than ever. Of course, you will want to work with a partner that will meet or exceed your standards for service so make certain you have a solid Service Level Agreement (SLA) in place.

A third party call center can be very cost effective as the pricing is often based on a “services used” fee such as a per/minute rate. This means you only pay for the CSR’s time when they are working on a support issue. With an in-house CSR, they must be paid whether they are on a call or not.

As the economy improves, it is becoming increasingly difficult to staff call centers with good operators as the better candidates will begin to seek other job opportunities. This will make the process of recruiting, training and managing operators will demand an increasing amount on your management team’s time as opposed to focusing on the care and support of your customers.

The level of product or service complexity will have a major impact on finding the appropriate call center. As the complexity of the product knowledge increases, it becomes particularly important to put in place proper operator training, easily accessed product information and properly integrated service systems. Highly complex products may not be a good fit for a completely outsourced service function. However, a call center may have its place for answering first and second level questions or directing questions to the appropriate departments within your company.

These are just some of the ways a third party call center can help you support and expand your enterprise. Whether its marketing, sales or customer service, a third party call center can help you focus on the core elements of your business and more easily adapt to changes in demand.

Mark Leidlein is Director of Business Development for Advanced Customer Services (ACS). ACS is a third party call center and BPO specializing in contact center services supporting marketing, sales and customer service for local, regional and national companies.