Call centers are the backbone of leading brands as they assist customers with their concerns and build a strong brand image. With the growing business landscape, brands are focusing more on improving their core competencies while simultaneously outsourcing customer support functions to call centers.
Outsourcing call center operations provides many benefits to the brand including cost-effectiveness, flexibility in scaling up or down, and focusing on their expert area. Though maintaining exceptional support in an outsourced call center comes with challenges, brands can easily provide remarkable customer experiences with careful planning and collaboration.
Here are some ways brands can provide exceptional support with outsourced call centers.
1. Choose the Right Outsourcing Partner
First who, then what. The foundation of providing exceptional customer support lies in choosing the right call center partner. Look for a call center partner that aligns with your goals, values, and mission, after all, they are an extension of you. Consider a call center outsourcing partner that has an excellent track record and experience in launching and sustaining call center operations, has a focus on training, equipping, and developing agents, and is well-versed with the latest technologies. Your ideal call center partner will empower you to provide unmatched customer support and build trust in your brand.
2. Comprehensive Training Programs
It is crucial to invest in training programs for agents to ensure they are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to represent your brand effectively. Training should be comprehensive and must cover product knowledge, communication skills, empathy, professionalism, and customer service best practices. Your ideal partner will understand training is not a one-time event, but rather an ongoing journey.
To ensure the complete effectiveness of training programs, brands must partner with their outsourced call centers, communicate priorities, and business plans, and understand customer impact to ensure the best possible experience for your customers. The ability to incorporate customer feedback and quality data to identify and train to behaviors that drive low customer effort and high satisfaction are keys to developing satisfied agents and customers.
3. Implement Quality Assurance Measures
Maintaining the quality of call center services is key to delivering exceptional customer support. Your ideal partner will understand quality is not a score, quality is a behavior. A robust quality assurance program will look at your entire body of interactions to understand customer experience and feedback as well as that of the agents delivering support. This can be done by leveraging the power of artificial intelligence and human intelligence to make the data actionable. A robust plan on how to collect, understand, and utilize quality feedback should be a high priority when selecting a partner.
4. Seamless Integration and Communication
Effective communication between your brand and the outsourced call center is vital. Meet with them on a routine basis, either daily, weekly, biweekly, or at the very least monthly, depending on the amount of customer interactions. Ensure collaboration and a seamless integration process by sharing information about your products, services, values, goals, as well as the company’s culture. It is very important to establish clear communication through regular meetings and emails. This also creates a feeling of one team, pride in the brand, and shared priorities.
5. Establish a Customer-Centric Approach
Work on establishing a customer-centric approach as the core value of your outsourced call center. Coach agents to work with a customer-centric approach, prioritize customer satisfaction, and offer personalized solutions. Ensure agents are trained to interact in a positive and friendly tone, while simultaneously understanding and resolving customer concerns.
6. Offer Omnichannel Support
Ensure that your outsourced call center partner provides omnichannel customer engagement services. Omnichannel support is important as customers expect assistance on multiple channels. Providing support on various channels such as phone, email, live chat, social media, etc., allows customers to choose their preferred method of communication. This increases customer satisfaction and improves customer engagement. Giving your customers a choice can help support brand loyalty as customers will gravitate to what is convenient, effective, and comfortable for them.
7. Rely on Advance Call Center Technology
Leveraging advanced call center technology and solutions enhances the efficiency of customer support operations. These solutions can assist in call routing, issue tracking, customer sentiment analysis, predictive analysis, agent coaching, and more. Go for the phone system service that possesses hands-on experience with the latest call center tech stack. Technology is a vital element that cannot be overlooked for sustaining in the competitive marketplace.
8. Be 24/7 Available
Depending on the nature of your business, your customers can be from any corner of the globe. This is why providing 24/7 customer support is crucial. Work with your outsourced call center partners to provide round-the-clock support. This allows customers from different time zones to receive instant assistance, which not only empowers you to serve your customers without delay but also fosters trust and loyalty among your customers.
9. Emphasize Proactive Support
Providing proactive support is important to attain higher customer satisfaction levels and enhance brand loyalty. Encourage call center agents to analyze customer pain points and be proactive in providing solutions. This proactive problem-solving approach of agents demonstrates the brand’s commitment to the customer’s well-being and enhances their overall experience.
10. Build a Culture of Continuous Improvement
Foster a culture of continuous improvement within the outsourced call center team. Promote the culture of rewards and recognition and encourage best practices to keep the team motivated. Ask for feedback from the call center agents about process improvement. This helps your brand to embark on the journey of continuous improvement and achieve higher customer satisfaction.
Outsourcing call center operations is an effective strategy to provide exceptional customer support while focusing on your core business functions. By selecting the right outsourcing partners, brands can build an efficient support system and achieve goals.
At Etech Global Services, we believe that an outsourced call center is an extension of your existing team. With our trusted advisor relationship model, our teams provide remarkable results for our customers.
Want to know how Etech, a trusted call center outsourcing partner, helps brands achieve customer satisfaction and drive business growth? Get in touch with us now!
