Working with the right team is critical to running a successful business operation. You want to make the best choice in service support to provide your customers who expect the best products and services.
Outsourcing your business calls to a call centre is an option when your in-house staff needs more time to focus on their core tasks. Hiring an external provider also helps you manage costs, especially when there are fluctuations in call volume.
How can outsourcing truly become a growth and efficiency driver for your company? You must be aware of common pitfalls and how to avoid them.
Top 5 Call Centre Mishaps and Tips to Avoid Them
Outsourcing your call centre service isn’t one-size-fits-all, although doing so has become easier now, even for small businesses. Save yourself from financial and management trouble by knowing these five common pitfalls:
1. Not setting clear goals and expectations
What are your current and future needs? How can your call centre partner help you meet these needs? Before searching for a third-party provider, clarify the areas and level of service you’ll need from the company, how much money and time you can save by outsourcing, and how much you’re ready to spend for the provider. This way, prospective partners know the scope of work required, your timeline, standards, and KPIs when you seek proposals or call for a meeting.
2. Disregarding outsourcing’s impact on internal staff
Count your in-house team when selecting an external provider—whether for French telephone receptionist services or after-hours telephone answering services. Share your vision behind the initiative and ensure that candidate companies can understand and embrace it. Allowing your team to air their concerns and give their input will ensure that your service partner is a welcome and effective extension of your team.
Identifying responsibilities and cooperation areas will help you transfer a specific amount of control to your vendor with confidence. This step also allows you to double-check the product, service, or other business details that must be kept under wraps with your future partner or internal staff, so you can prevent leakage.
3. Not practicing due diligence
Form an evaluation team, preferably composed of people with experience in selecting such providers. Develop your criteria for analyzing candidates’ portfolios and interview questions. Include points to help you assess if they have the resources, technical expertise, and workforce necessary to meet your needs.
Also, ask who their other current clients are, whether they’re servicing any of your competitors, and if you’ll be among their largest—or smallest—clients.
Moreover, research their client retention and employee attrition (turnover) rates. Companies like On Call Centre have satisfied customers that stay with them for 14 years or more.
4. Having a vague or complicated contract
Avoid hidden costs and complications by having a clear and concise agreement that explicitly covers:
• Duration of service
• Detailed work scope and service level requirements
• Cost and service delivery model (fixed or flexible pricing)
• Security and compliance measures
• Responsibilities of all stakeholders
• Contract re-evaluation and exit terms
Find out about your partner’s safety and confidentiality policies to avoid risks to your sensitive data, such as payroll reports and employee records. Make your vendor sign a non-disclosure agreement to protect your company from data breaches when your contract ends.
5. Lacking an implementation strategy
The lack of understanding about post-contract processes and decision rights is the primary outsourcing implementation problem between businesses and third-party partners.
To avoid this, establish a clear plan and use the right technology for effective communication and integration between your internal and external teams. Your strategy must include designating a manager dedicated to your outsourced team’s success through calendar synchronization, file access management, and performance monitoring.
Regularly tracking average handling times and the daily number of tickets helps determine understaffing, which can cause backlogs, or overstaffing, which leads to higher costs.
Different industries can benefit from having help desk support. These industries include educational facilities, healthcare, software companies, telecom and tech companies, and many others.
Cultural and language barriers are also outsourcing risks. On Call Centre helps you avoid that potential headache by recruiting and training bilingual English and French-speaking agents within Canada. Moreover, we let you scale your plan up or down based on your call volume. Contact us today, so we can discuss a package that suits your needs.
At On Call Centre , we deliver exceptional customer support 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year—sometimes 366. On Call Centre has been providing tailored, fluently French/English bilingual answering services and call centre services to small business owners (professionals, trades) and customer support departments (government, high tech, property management, healthcare, emergency clients) serving Ottawa , Montreal and Toronto —and all over Canada —for almost 50 years.
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