By Melissa Oberle, Senior Reporting Specialist
The use of call center services supports businesses of all sizes and industries. Call center services are often used when organizations need additional bandwidth to support their internal teams. This can be due to the expansion of new product lines, acquisitions of other company’s or support for other segments of business within the same organization. There are several additional ways that call center services are also used.
Call center services have helped support many companies as they’ve expanded their product offerings. Call centers provide their services in a traditional brick and mortar environment as well as a work from home model.
Integrating a call center into any organization is a significant decision, and before you make a choice, you need to know as much as you can about them.
Check out as many call centers as possible and narrow down your list to your top choices. Focus your attention on the call centers that genuinely matter to your work.
This article provides attributes to look for when choosing a call center services partner for your business.
The company background
The company background is one of the first items to look at when choosing a call center partner. Check out previous customers they have worked with and their current customers as references. You should also evaluate the number of years in business and the experience of their top-level executives and management team. This knowledge will give you better insight into what kind of company they are and the types of businesses they work with. The company background also provides an understanding of its management structure and how they manage the business.
The culture
Before choosing a call center partner, it’s essential to have a solid understanding of their company culture. Examining their overall culture will help you decide how and if the call center will fit with your business.
Workplace culture is a crucial adhesive that can make or break a business. If you outsource your calls to a center that doesn’t have a similarly aligned workplace culture, it can cause several challenges.
You should take note of how the staff behaves and speaks while they are taking calls. Are they professional and caring? Examine how the operations managers supervise their teams and check out their executives. Being observant will help you decide if the center will be a good fit or not. Choosing a company with the wrong culture could quickly devolve into a nightmare.
Call center functions and your role
Having a clear, well-documented understanding of functions, type of work, and expectations for a call center partner is vital. Knowing the tasks that you’ll be involved with and understanding your role is equally important.
You need to ensure that your call center partner has the technological capacity to handle the expectations
you have. The call center you choose must be able to manage the calls comfortably and without any problems.
Some centers do have a minimum volume or work that they accept, while others do not. Make sure to understand this when exploring call center services partners. Not having the clarity around capacity may lead to troubles down the line. The call center may not give you much priority as others due to low volume. Alternatively, choosing to work with a partner that cannot support large quantities of calls may lead to a complete disaster.
Outsourcing part or all of your work can be tedious and stressful as you will not have total control over the process. The goal is that this information helps you understand what to look for in a call center services partner.
In the end, an excellent call center will help you reach your goals!
Melissa Oberle is a Senior Reporting Specialist for Quality Contact Solutions. Melissa takes pride in creating meaningful, insightful reports for both internal staff and clients on a daily basis. With more than 16 years of experience in call center reporting and related responsibilities, she ensures that information is available as needed to make critical business decisions to ensure each QCS client gets the maximum Return on Investment from their call center and telemarketing budget.
