Outsourcing your contact center is a hot topic for both customers and your company. It can be attractive for a company looking to lower costs and expand its bilingual capabilities. Still, it can also be nerve-wracking to think of giving up control over the service provided. Here are ten questions to ask when considering your contact center to help you choose the right partner.
- Do the contact center agents understand American culture?
It is essential for contact center agents to understand American culture, including slang and other cultural references, to provide the best customer service experience. When people have a terrible customer service experience, they will tell their friends and family, and the company may even lose them as a customer.
- What are the working hours of the contact center?
The outsourced contact center needs to be available during the business hours of the company they are supporting. Some companies may prefer to find an outsourcer that provides service 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, so their customers can call in at any time.
- Do you provide flexibility in staffing based on call volume?
Many businesses experience high and low call volumes throughout the year. For instance, if someone is selling a product, they may be flooded with inbound calls during a significant sale or holiday season. Utilizing an outsourcing center for the business’s ebbs and flows helps make sure there are enough agents during high call volume seasons. It also reduces their agents when call volumes are lower without utilizing temporary workers or doing layoffs.
- Are the contact center agents fluent in multiple languages?
In the U.S., people speak various languages, and their native tongue is usually the best way to exchange information. Outsourcing to a company that provides additional language support is a great way to service customers in their preferred language. It is an excellent option if hiring bilingual agents is a challenge, or that bilingual agents are prohibitive to the business. Read more about providing customer service in your customer’s preferred language.
- How much money does outsourcing cost?
Contact Centers can be pretty expensive to run, from recruiting and training and employee salaries to technology costs. Companies can realize significant savings by outsourcing to a third-party contact center. Selecting an offshore or nearshore contact center can provide further savings due to reduced employee costs. When comparing different contact centers, it is essential to compare apples to apples as other companies price their services differently. A company should also compare how much it costs to have the contact center in-house versus outsourcing. Learn more about how to compare contact center costs.
- Where will the contact center be located?
Some outsourcing companies are in completely different time zones. There could be up to a ten or 12-hour time difference between where the customers live and the outsourcing services. It could lead to disruption of services and not match with business hours. One solution many employers have found is choosing a nearshore outsourcing company as they are often within only an hour or two of the same time zones as many U.S. states. Nearshore contact centers allow companies to reap the benefits of outsourcing while overcoming the time difference.
- Does the company meet the industry standards in data security?
Safeguarding personal health and financial information is critical. There are security measures that can be put in place to ensure the protection of sensitive data, including PCI and HIPAA compliance, so be sure any center you consider prioritizes security.
- How can I ensure that our company’s standards of quality are being met?
Quality Assurance allows a company to gain actionable intelligence from customer interactions. Customer satisfaction, loyalty, and compliance verification are three of the most critical aspects of any business operation. One way to ensure that the contact center meets the quality standards is if the outsourcing company offers quality assurance and continual improvement processes.
- What does the contact center have in place for emergencies?
During times of change or emergency, outsourcing centers need to be equipped to handle significant call volume changes. They should have the appropriate technology and cross-training and qualified agents to ensure the customers receive any new information that needs to be relayed, assist with any additional requests, and answer questions professionally and courteously. Essential customer service should not be affected while the company takes care of its business.
- What services are provided?
It is essential to know what services are provided by the contact center to choose the one that best suits your needs. Some of the services offered are inbound and outbound calls, email, chat, text, social media, quality assurance, marketing surveys, tech support, and soft collections.
Centris is a nearshore contact center. Providing support for businesses for over 30 years, Centris delivers quality customer service, tech support, live chat, soft collections, and more. Centris’ agents provide accent-neutral bilingual support (Spanish language), which helps us provide seamless service to your customers and opens up opportunities to serve your Spanish-speaking customers better, too. We are ready to help you improve your contact center, provide outstanding bilingual service with data security at the forefront, and find the cost savings your business needs right now. Centris has comprehensive redundancy and contingency plans to ensure our clients don’t experience a lapse in service. Please reach out to learn more about Centris and how we can help your business.
