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Why Use Call Center Outsourcing

Outsource Marketing Research to Obtain Accurate Data for Year-End Assessments

by Call Center Outsourcing Expert on November 17, 2011

As 2011 winds down, the pressure is on business owners and corporate executives to evaluate performance, identify new market trends, and allocate 2012 resources to increase profitability. The decisions made as U.S. companies conduct year-end reviews and set performance and financial goals for the coming year will have a critical impact on company profitability and success. Choosing to rely solely on the recommendations of your sales team without conducting effective independent marketing research can lead you down the wrong path, waste time and money, and force your company to play catch-up with your competitors.

Effective business decisions cannot be based on intuition. Even in a climate of increasing sales, there can be problematic gaps between sales and consumer analyses and expectations. Cold, hard facts are needed to measure marketing factors before decisions can be made about new year goals and resource allocation. Outsourcing year-end marketing research to an experienced market research call center can quickly provide the accurate data you need without straining your firm’s personnel or financial resources.

Outsourcing marketing research to a professional outbound call center offers business leaders numerous benefits. Outsourcing marketing research initiatives frees your team to analyze internal data that will be crucial to the year-end decision-making process and allows them to focus their energies on creating crucial year-end reports. Assigning the task of data collection to a professional outbound telephone call center with proven expertise in conducting marketing research campaigns ensures that you will receive clear, accurate data in a timely manner. Outsourcing the mundane, though critical, task of data collection also gives your team the breathing room they need to continue putting maximum effort into closing sales.

When outsourcing marketing research, call center selection will have the greatest impact on the quality of the data you receive. With extensive experience in outbound marketing research, Telesales Services can match your needs to a professional outbound call center with proven expertise in conducting marketing research.

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Quality Inbound Call Center Outsourcing Retains Customers

by Call Center Outsourcing Expert on November 8, 2011

A superior, professionally run inbound call center can be a considerable business asset. A positive call center experience attracts customers, builds brand loyalty, and enhances a company’s bottom line. On the other hand, a poorly-managed call center can be a significant detriment, driving customers away, negatively impacting brand image, and losing sales. A single negative call center experience is all it takes for a loyal customer to abandon your brand. Call center service quality is so important to marketing efforts that the Consumer Experience Report found that a reputations for superior customer service attracted 55% of customers and 85% said they would be willing to pay more for a superior call center experience.

Consumers love the fast, immediate, personal attention they receive from experienced, well-trained call center agents when they place a telephone order or receive a timely resolution that effective inbound call centers are able to provide when problems arise. Unfortunately, too often the consumer  experiences tend to be negative not positive. After repeated experiences with poorly managed, poorly staffed call centers, consumers have developed a laundry list of complaints.

While 77% of American consumers prefer speaking to live agents when seeking customer support; according to the RightNow 2010 Customer Experience Report conducted by Harris Interactive, 82% of consumers have taken their business elsewhere after a negative experience with a call center employee. Seventy-three percent fled after being treated rudely, unknowledgeable agent operatives sent 51% packing, and 55% took their business to a competitor when call center personnel were unable to resolve issues in a timely manner. Other consumer complaints include waiting on hold for minutes on end before being connected to a call center agent and language issues that complicate communication with the contact center representative.

Telesales Services specializes in furnishing the high-quality outsourcing solutions that  have proven to provide the positive call center experience that attracts and retains customers.  Contact us today to see how we can help you to find the “right” match for your inbound call center needs.

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Beyond Mundane Customer Service

by Call Center Outsourcing Expert on October 20, 2011

Mundane customer service and a predictable checklist mentality have decreased consumer satisfaction with customer service call centers. When interacting with representatives at customer service call centers, consumers are beginning to express the same frustration and irritation previously reserved for automated telephone response systems. In a 2010 study conducted by The Customer Contact Council, 84% of customers expressed dissatisfaction with their most recent customer service call center experience. By sticking with the same tired script format used by most customer service call centers, businesses may actually be eroding customer loyalty and provoking customer dissatisfaction.

In placing the emphasis on delivering a pre-scripted, identical message, customer service call centers have stripped the critically important “human” element from the customer service experience. Instead of actually having a conversation with customers and making a personal effort to find a solution to the individual’s problem, call center representatives stick to the company script. Rather than obtain a solution to their problem during their initial customer service contact, customers are repeatedly transferred, each time forced to re-explain their problem.

By the time the consumer receives a solution to his problem, he is so irritated by the laborious and time-consumer process involved that what should have been a positive experience (problem solution) has turned into a powerfully negative experience. The Customer Contact Council study found that 23% of customers shared a positive customer service experience with at least 10 people; but twice as many customers (48%) shared a negative customer service encounter.

Consumer disappointment with customer service call centers has led some companies to adopt new call center protocols. Rather than focusing on consumer satisfaction, call centers are earning positive consumer reviews and building customer loyalty by decreasing the amount of effort a consumer must expend to resolve a problem. Customer service representatives are being provided with greater access to consumer records and company resources and given greater latitude to resolve consumer issue on the first contact.

If you are concerned about your firms own handling of customer service calls or are simply thinking of outsourcing your customer service call center, please consider contacting us at Telesales Services. We pro-actively match businesses to quality call centers based on their capabilities and your unique needs. We can help to make sure that you are not one of the statistics mentioned in this blog post, but are instead offering exceptional customer service and phone support that will help to grow your business.

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A Multitude of Outsourced Call Center Services are Available

by Call Center Outsourcing Expert on October 14, 2011

Communications in any business is the way in which a client perceives the way the company conducts business and thus it is essential that you step up your communications to give a great first impression. While all your internal departments might be loaded with other job duties and you might not have the infrastructure to handle a whole new department but outsourcing this job to a call center will get the job done.

The big question then becomes, what is the most efficient way for a business owner to handle these communications needs? Since efficiency is the thing that will define the bottom line for any business, it’s imperative to handle communications in a way that saves the company money and gives the company an opportunity to handle things without issue.

One of the ways that business owners are making this happen is by using call centers to handle both their inbound and their outbound needs. Call centers actually offer quite a few different services for business owners, beyond the typical answering of telephones. So what are these services?

Direct response call handling:
The key to success with a direct response campaign is fast and efficient call handling. This type of call handling will help a company maximize their business’s economic capability by dealing directly with customers when they call. When customers are calling with immediate needs then they need to be handled by a dynamic call center with the appropriate capabilities to ensure success.

Order taking:
How efficiently you take orders will help you maximize your upside sales potential. If people are interesting in buying a hot product that you’ve advertised, then it is in your best interest to have a call center take these orders for you.

Customer service:
Employing a whole team of customer service reps for your own company can be costly, which is why many people are using call centers to handle their customer service. These call centers have people who are trained to handle customer needs and they will make sure that your clients are handled in a way that makes them remain their clients.

Telemarketing and telesales services:
Getting out the message about your company offering is something that you have to be willing to do, but this can take a lot of time and it’s something that not everyone is comfortable doing. For that reason, one of the best outbound communications services offered by call centers is telemarketing and telesales. They will prequalify potential clients for your products or services or handle the entire sales transaction through a telesales initiative.

Marketing research:
Call centers do more than just handle the direct communication with your customers. In fact, they can often help with the big things like market research. The call centers can go out and gather the information that you need in order to determine costs, advertising needs, pricing requirements, and really anything else that falls under the scope of marketing.

Great communications is imperative for the success of any company. Call centers offer a wide range of services. By utilizing these services, it may prove to be beneficial to you in achieving the branding image you are desirous of in the marketplace while reaching your organizational objectives.

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The need for call center outsourcing service

by Call Center Outsourcing Expert on October 12, 2011

Years ago corporations had no means to directly and effectively interact with the customers. Advertisement had become the one-sided source to educate masses of a particular brand. However, it did not work that effectively because the targeted audience couldn’t get in touch with the companies in order to clear their queries. There was a huge necessity of a two-sided communication medium so that businesses could address the needs of each consumer with ease. And this two-way interaction was possible only through call center services. It empowered all the big companies to systematically converse with current and prospective customers, and also handle their telesales, telemarketing and customer service requirements. Gradually, the need for call center services grew and the providers got more competent. However, various corporate houses were looking for a medium to minimize their expenditure and thus, call center outsourcing services were given importance. With time, it was proved that outsourced call center services enabled businesses to reduce the expense and also maximize their profits. They have also been successful in enhancing their capabilities through quality-based call centers services that specialize in specific areas.

The real benefits of call center outsourcing include the cost savings that can be derived from the reduction in overhead and labor costs required to host the call centers in-house. Call center outsourcing allows a business to reduce the labor and infrastructure costs of a call center and the associated expenses by contracting the work to a third party that specializes in call center activities. Labor cost reduction is by far the most significant benefit of using call center outsourcing.

Another benefit for a business utilizing call center outsourcing is that it allows the business to take advantage of the new technologies that an outsourced call center may provide. The growth of technologies that utilize the internet by many outsourced call centers gives businesses a competitive edge over their competitors. The outsourced call centers often use the latest customer relationship management tools to achieve the best in customer service. The new call center technologies provide better interaction between businesses and their customers and allow businesses to reach new customers and achieve greater market penetration.

Using call center outsourcing is a great benefit for a business that does not have the capability to provide an in-house call center. A small business can gain greater market share, reach a wider audience, and provide better services when employing an outsourced call center. The use of the internet and other technologies helps to make this possible by the outsourced call centers. For a new business using call center outsourcing, it gives them an immediate entrée into the market and allows them to have a ready-made support staff.

Using call center outsourcing is a benefit for most business because it allows them to focus on their core business and reduces or eliminates the need to have a call center in-house. These businesses can devote their staff to performing the duties of the business and eliminate the need to deal with task such as commodity telesales, product troubleshooting, and customer service issues.

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Outsourcing: The Benefits of a Customer Service Call Center

by Call Center Outsourcing Expert on October 7, 2011

The power to control can be the key to winning it all. Controlling the ball is the way to win in basketball, football and in baseball. Michael Jordon would not have been the legend he is unless he knew how to control the game of basketball. Control in business means to be in command over sales, production and most importantly the costs.

In these trying financial times, control over productivity and expenses is especially important. If a business has to survive the economic crisis, they must maintain their services while cutting costs to the bone. How can this be done? Outsourcing key business elements like Customer Service is one of the answers. Instead of bearing the cost of direct employees, a business may contract with a call center and save on the added expenditure involved in paying the salaried employees of the organization.

Customer Service employees within a small and medium sized company, often have many more tasks than just taking and responding to customer calls. These employees will see these customer support calls as a disruption to their jobs and this attitude undoubtedly will reflect in their communication with a client. A call center employee is a specialist in this job and will respond to callers needs with the best demeanor. So, not only does outsourcing customer service to a call center save money, but the response from the customers often results in increased customer retention rates.

Since these specialists like their job, they reflect this content feeling onto the clients and reflect a positive vibe about the organization that employs them. Instead of hurrying the customer service call-in so they can get back to other duties, the outsourced customer service call center professional will spend the time necessary to accommodate the caller; properly handling any questions, answering any problems, directing calls to appropriate parties when they cannot handle the situation, and even taking orders.

The exercise of outsourcing the customer service requirements to a customer service call center ensures that the call center becomes an extended arm of the company. All the tasks required of a customer service department are supplied by the outsourcing agency, that service being provided by full-time customer service specialists, not part-timers who have to get back to accounting, or sales support, or other duties in the company offices.

The best of all worlds can be realized by outsourcing customer service duties to a professional call center:

• Reduced costs of the operation
• Having a specialist handle the inbound and outbound customer service calls.
• Control of how the customer service is handled, performed and budgeted.
• Streamlining the company for profitability.

There are a number of call center outsourcing companies which come highly recommended. These firms have the capability to handle and respond to queries from your marketing activities. Not only do these services aid in handling sales lead generation, appointment setting, trade show coordination and other tasks that boggle companies otherwise but they also offer an incredible benefit to any firm who wants to lead an efficient but a smart organization that takes care of its expenses while delivering profits.

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