Read Time: 17 minutes
Table of Contents
Introduction
What is scalability? How does outsourcing affect your business operations and success? This article explains how call center outsourcing helps companies scale operations to ease workloads and strengthen bottom lines.
Key takeaways
- Scalability is essential for business growth: Scalability allows businesses to adapt to market fluctuations, managing resource allocation to maintain customer service quality during growth or slow periods. Outsourcing is a key strategy for scaling operations without the need for constant internal staffing adjustments.
- Outsourcing call centers improves cost-efficiency and flexibility: External providers offer access to skilled talent and technology, allowing businesses to scale up or down quickly based on demand, especially during seasonal fluctuations.
- Call center services enhance customer experience: Outsourced services like inbound, outbound, and omnichannel support help businesses improve customer engagement by offering responsive and seamless communication across various platforms. This strengthens brand loyalty and customer satisfaction.
- Strategic considerations for successful outsourcing: Businesses need to carefully evaluate outsourcing partners based on industry expertise, data security measures, and technology compatibility.
Why scalability is critical for modern businesses
Scalability is the ability of an organization to perform well under increasing or decreasing workloads according to seasonal demand or fluctuating markets. Developing a strong strategy for adapting to market growth keeps businesses successful, giving them the tools for retaining employees during slow times or hiring rapidly in preparation for busy periods.
Growing companies face common challenges when scaling their businesses — namely, resource allocation. With high operational costs, it can be tempting to neglect customer service. However, the resulting inefficiencies will inevitably impact customer satisfaction and engagement with the business.
What is call center outsourcing?
Call center outsourcing is when a company contracts labor outside of its business to handle customer service operations. This removes the need to staff internally by contracting agents who are already trained and experienced in customer experience. Certain agents may also have specific workforce training, ideal for businesses looking to urgently hire and minimize training time. Outsourced agents located in various parts of the world offer businesses of all sizes access to quality help at competitive rates.
Common roles managed by external providers include inbound customer service calls, outbound calling to contact potential leads, technical support, multi-channel sales support (such as text, email, phone, or social media), back-office support (such as sales, billing, and appointment setting), and multilingual support.
Call center services that drive scalability
Understanding the types of services that outsourced support can scale is the first step to integrating call center support. Prioritize these three basic services.
Inbound services
This encompasses the calls customers or suppliers make to a business. Inbound calls concern customer service issues, technical support requests, and order management questions. Once a business has set in place training processes for operations and processes, the outsourced contact center can hire according to the appropriate demands in inbound support.
Outbound services
Certain business strategies take a more active approach from the company. Agents dedicated to outbound services will make telemarketing calls, generate and follow up with leads, and develop strategies to improve customer retention. Reaching out to existing or lost contacts can prove significant measurable financial growth for the business.
Omnichannel support
Integrating seamless customer interactions across channels such as email, chat, phone, and social media can significantly improve relationships between a business and its customers. Automating simple responses eliminates excess calls and any accompanying call wait time frustration. Quick, reliable answers strengthen trust with the brand as it proves accessible and responsive to customer needs.
Want to scale your business?
Global Response has a long track record of success in outsourcing customer service and call center operations. See what our team can do for you!
The role of call center outsourcing in business growth
Cost-efficiency for expanding businesses
As businesses grow, so do associated overhead costs. Hiring and training employees to keep up with increased workload requires the resources that even growing businesses may not have or want to spend when they could outsource. These experts are trained in managing large amounts of similar cases, reducing the need to build out complicated infrastructure.
Access to skilled talent and advanced technology
Outsourcing providers have access to large pools of various trained workforces, empowering these partners to rapidly hire agents that are relevant to a specific industry and experienced in meeting associated service level standards.
Many outsourcing companies also provide integration of state-of-the-art technology without additional investments. This technology will track and monitor communication for constant accountability and improvement.
Flexibility to handle fluctuating call volumes
One of the biggest reasons companies outsource is to avoid building out internal teams they will have to let go after seasonal spikes in demand. By contrast, outsourced call centers manage these fluctuations by hiring workers for a specific period of time, maximizing the client’s demands and the workers’ schedules.
This help is often already trained, limiting onboarding time. Outsourced call center agents manage dynamic customer demands with comprehensive internal knowledge bases to help them efficiently find solutions.
An outsourcing provider can also help a business set up an interactive voice response (IVR) system to answer simple questions such as contact information or other specific requests.
What to consider when outsourcing your call center
Call center outsourcing is the best solution for many businesses, but as professionals shop for a partner, they should take into account these important factors:
- Vendor expertise in your industry. Can the provider show evidence of existing relationships with similar brands to yours? What results have their solutions brought previous partners, and can you expect similar results?
- Data security and compliance measures. Does the provider have experience with the expected certifications and regulations? How does their software secure data?
- Costs and return-on-investment (ROI) expectations. Thoroughly review pricing sheets along with budgets and take into account how successes in the contracted timeline will manifest in your bottom line.
- Compatibility with your company’s technology and processes. When deciding whether to use the provider’s technology or your own, consider how each can track, monitor, and improve performances. Should the new provider integrate with existing systems or implement their own? Keep an open mind, but judge according to your business priorities.
Challenges of call center outsourcing
As efficient as outsourcing is, it can present certain challenges that business owners should be aware of to plan for long-term success.
Developing a plan for scaling
Outsourcing work without a plan for fluctuations in the market will lead to over- or under-staffing, which leads to business and revenue losses. Instead, companies should develop a plan with their outsourced provider including current metrics and goals so they can align staff and workload strategies for maximum business growth.
Outsourcing the wrong services
Identifying the right services to outsource is critical for success. A business owner must know their processes and inefficiencies, as well as their audience’s demographics and needs, to appropriately hire targeted services that directly address these needs. This approach ensures the solutions provider turns challenges into successes, improving productivity and partnership satisfaction.
Data breaches
The outsourcing partnership requires trust and security. Allowing anyone access to a business and its customers’ confidential — often financial — information presents security risks, but this isn’t a reason not to outsource. It only highlights the need to be aware of data security risks and the need for secure outsourcing partners.
Professional partners will hire agents certified with the necessary certifications and come equipped with powerful technology that securely manages data.
Benefits of call center outsourcing for scaling companies
Streamlined focus on core business activities
When a business isn’t overwhelmed by following up on leads or stressed about unresolved customer issues, internal staff can focus on the strategies that make the business theirs: skills tailored to their expertise or to managing their products. Outsourced call center support allows businesses to focus on growth-oriented tasks like product development and marketing for constant business development.
Global reach and multilingual support
Businesses of all sizes can outsource customer support, especially as their audiences move or grow. As markets expand and customer demographics change, the demand for language- and culture-specific support increases.
Companies can find nearshore and offshore outsourcing solutions at competitive prices, trainable to a company’s culture so they can match it with that of the customer. This specialized engagement improves customer satisfaction and establishes brand loyalty.
Key industries leveraging call center outsourcing for growth
eCommerce: Retail brands of all sizes and types are answering the question of “Why outsource contact center operations?” Agents specialized in the intricacies of order fulfillment and associated issues relieve their internal teams of these issues, allowing them to focus on the products and marketing.
Healthcare: As individual and community health needs grow and change, hospitals and healthcare providers require multilingual assistance for calls and appointment setting. Outsourced support provides translation services and vital administration support to meet those needs.
Utilities: Many city organizations must learn how to outsource contact center support as their communities grow. Increased payments means increased demand for technical support teams who can handle large amounts of personal information.
Small- and medium-sized businesses: Outsourcing isn’t just for large corporations. Independent businesses benefit from outsourcing as they utilize specialized agents or leverage call center support, eliminating the need to spend valuable resources of their own.
Global Response: Your partner in growth
Expertise in scalable call center solutions
Global Response is a leader in call center operations, with measurable success in more than nine industries. Global Response’s capabilities include inbound services, outbound services, omnichannel customer support services, technical customer support, customer acquisition and retention, staffing, and more.
Customizable services for any business size
Our expertise in scaling solutions to companies of all sizes according to their needs and business strategies is what sets Global Response apart as a solution dedicated to each partner’s success. Learn more about how our tailored solutions can empower businesses like yours to achieve remarkable results.
