Everyone knows not to compare apples to oranges. While they are both fruit, they are two separate things that have very little in common. The same principle applies when comparing proposals for contact center services to each other and against your internal costs.
Right now, many companies are looking to shift to an outside provider to ensure a continuation of service or to find potential cost savings. Maybe your contact center has had issues due to COVID-19? Perhaps you are new to the concept of outsourcing altogether? You aren’t alone. Simply put, it is when you work with a provider outside of your company to assist you with specific business functions.
There are a few things you should keep in mind when choosing your next steps. You will want to compare apples to apples and get down to the raw data to make sure that you have made the best choice for your company.
At Centris, we make it easy to understand the costs, benefits, and challenges of outsourcing to a nearshore provider so you can make an informed decision that is right for your business. Let’s take a look at the factors that can separate the leader from the pack of possible providers.
Services
Knowing what each provider can offer is critical. First of all, you should find a provider that can handle your current services. However, right In fact, now, you have an excellent opportunity to audit your program and brainstorm additional services that can help provide seamless service to your customers. Adding Live Chat and Bilingual Support (Spanish language) can increase satisfaction levels as customers can reach you quickly, how they want to reach out, and they are represented in their language.
Pricing
Some call centers will offer low hourly or per-minute pricing but will have additional charges that accumulate. When prospective customers are comparing call center services just on commodity pricing, these “tricks” will often fool the prospects into eliminating the higher cost call centers that offer “inclusive” pricing. For example, Centris pricing includes supervisors, QA, and back-office support for all projects with more than ten agents in our hourly/per minute pricing.
With the right partner, you don’t have to sacrifice service quality to help your bottom line. For thirty years, Centris agents have provided superior customer support to our clients across a broad spectrum of industries and at a savings of up to 50-70% compared to U.S.-based centers.
When your contact center is in-house, there many details that add to the cost of getting set up and running to a high level of service, You will need office space, equipment, hiring, training, technology, the prices of each add up quickly. With an outsourcer, much of that cost goes away, which is a significant benefit.
Security
Some call centers say they are “compliant” while others go the extra mile and have reviews by 3rd party auditors and have “Attestations of Compliance” or “Certificates of Compliance” from the Issuing authorities, such as PCI. Centris goes that extra mile. We are HIPAA and PCI compliant, and we recognize that knowing that your customer’s data is secure is more critical than ever.
Statistics
The call center industry is packed full of statistics that should have standard definitions. However, some competitors in the industry play games with the statistics to make themselves more attractive. They calculate attrition based on custom metrics; tenure is often rounded to six months or a year, while other stats are cleverly enhanced based on the picture they are trying to paint. Centris presents our statistics clearly, and we conform to commonly accepted definitions.
Location
You’ve probably heard the phrase “location, location, location.” This is especially true for your contact center. When deciding between having an in-house team and outsourcing, remember that the amount of overhead needed to house a contact center can be significant.
When outsourcing, you’ll need to choose what is best for you between nearshore or offshore providers. Nearshore means the provider is near your own country. Offshore outsourcing for U.S.-based companies means working with centers in Eastern Europe and Asia. Offshore centers can be challenging to partner with due to the extreme time and cultural differences.
For U.S. companies, Mexico is quickly becoming the nearshore contact center location of choice. Agents here can offer both English and Spanish language support, a workforce that understands U.S. culture, accent-neutral agents, and competitive pricing. Plus, travel to our Mexico locations (as needed) is much more convenient at this time.
Remember, Time is Money.
For an in-house contact center, you should plan on investing time and money in technology (hardware, software maintenance, technical support), phone systems, new agent training, insurance, sick pay, vacation pay.
Another factor to consider is agent turnover, a process that requires an investment of time and money. When outsourcing, you can focus on your business, not these details. Stop and think about that for a moment. Instead of worrying about hiring, benefits, and keeping up with the latest in technology, you receive support for customers, access to quality assurance insights, and you were able to concentrate your efforts on growing your business.
References
Even though your prospective contact center provider may not have served someone in your specific industry, you should still look into obtaining references from current customers.
“What If” Plans: Contingency and Redundancy
These plans are more important than ever before, and businesses across the world have been tested for the last six months since the pandemic began. For years, Centris has had contingency and redundancy plans in place, and we were able to quickly and successfully transition to agent work from home program with data security at the forefront. With these plans, we have been able to ensure uninterrupted services for our clients and keep our agents safe.
Be sure to ask other prospective contact centers about their response to the COVID-19 and about their “what if” plans for the future.
Apples to Apples
Finding a strategic partner can be overwhelming – the proposals, services, security protocols, location, and so many more details to consider. Once you have gathered this information, and you begin your analysis, make sure you are comparing the bottom line. Do the providers offer worry-free all-inclusive plans? Are bare-bones plans designed to nickel and dime you right past your budget? What about data security, tech support, bilingual services, and live chat? Making sure you know what you are getting and what it will cost is the bottom line here. Compare apples to apples.
At Centris, we make it easy to understand the costs, benefits, and challenges of outsourcing to a nearshore provider so you can make an informed decision that is right for your business. We welcome you to reach out today to learn more about us.
