In today’s business world, transitioning tasks to outsourced contact centers is a smart move for companies looking to be more efficient and save money. By using the skills and resources of outsourced contact centers, businesses can focus on their primary jobs while letting external experts handle routine and specialized tasks.

This article will discuss the top five tasks companies can transition to outsourced contact centers. Whether it’s customer service, technical support, administrative work, or sales and lead generation, exploring outsourcing options helps businesses be more flexible, save costs, and perform better overall. Let’s begin!

What Is Outsourcing of Call Centers?

Outsourcing of contact centers helps businesses hire external service providers to handle customer support and communication tasks. This approach is beneficial for regular small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), mid-market and enterprise companies who need contact centers to power their businesses, as well as businesses of all sizes. Around 95% of the US Fortune 500 enterprise companies outsource their tasks to outsourcing companies..

Outsourcing helps these teams improve their work, save money, and improve how well they do things by using the skills and resources of contact centers in different countries.

Types of Outsourcing

When it comes to contact center outsourcing, the choice of location plays a crucial role in your success. You can classify the kind of contact center outsourcing you do into three broad categories based on where your third-party team is located.

Nearshore Outsourcing

In nearshore outsourcing, you hire a company from a neighboring country where the cultures are similar to the host country. For instance, for companies based in the United States or Canada, nearshore would refer to outsourcing companies located in Latin America. This can help improve the response rates as there is less geographical distance between the countries, so there is considerable overlap in working hours.

Often, organizations outsource their contact center activities to a faraway country where the labor costs are lower and the talent pool is diverse. However, there might be a lag in communication and time-zone differences, which can hinder proper communication.

Domestic Outsourcing

As the name suggests, when an organization outsources its contact center activities to a domestic player, it’s outsourcing within its own country, potentially in a different city or region. This works best when organizations want the same culture and language skills as the regions they operate in and want frequent in-person meetings between the teams.

While outsourcing offers the biggest savings, followed by nearshore and then domestic, even domestic options can yield significant cost reductions, potentially up to 35% or more, compared to in-house teams. This is especially true when the in-house roles are based in high-cost metropolitan areas.

Top 5 Tasks You Can Assign to an Outsourced Contact Center

Here are the top five tasks you can outsource to a contact center:

1. Customer Service and Support

Customer service and support outsourcing involve assigning the responsibility of handling customer inquiries and assistance to external contact centers. This move allows companies to enable businesses to streamline their processes, improve productivity, and concentrate on core business responsibilities while maintaining a high level of customer service.

Outsourced teams can manage customer inquiries via phone calls and emails and ensure that the interactions are recorded for governance and quality control. Not just this, expert outsourced teams can also offer real-time chat support to your customers, resulting in quick interactions with shorter resolution times.

Skilled outsourced agents are equipped to handle complex technical issues. They guide customers through troubleshooting processes, offering solutions and assistance for various products and services.

2. Sales and Lead Generation

Outsourced contact centers can effectively qualify leads, conduct cold calls, and close deals. They can often reach a wider audience and work longer hours than in-house teams, leading to increased sales and improved conversion rates.

Sales and lead generation outsourcing means trusting an outsourced contact center to identify and verify potential leads for your organization, conduct cold calls, and ultimately close deals.  Skilled outsourced agents are trained in effective sales techniques, allowing them to close deals successfully.

Many outsourced contact centers operate 24/7, which enables them to cover multiple time zones. This around-the-clock availability means customers can get their problems solved whenever they’d like.

3. Administrative Tasks

Administrative tasks outsourcing to contact centers improve business operations by handing repetitive work like data entry, appointment scheduling, and order processing to external teams. Outsourced contact centers excel in managing routine administrative operations, applying their expertise to improve overall organizational efficiency.

Contact centers can also handle other common administrative tasks like appointment scheduling. Agents are trained to coordinate schedules, set appointments, and communicate with clients or customers to ensure smooth scheduling.

4. Offer Technical Support

Outsourcing technical support to an outsourced contact center is a sensible decision for companies specializing in technical products or services.

Call center representatives receive detailed training to help them understand the complex features of the company’s products or services. As a result, they can quickly resolve customer queries about any technical glitches or bugs they might encounter.

Customers often ask for detailed information about technical product features, functionalities, and usage. Contact center agents with special training in using the tools can provide accurate and informed responses, improving the customer experience and building trust in the brand.

5. Market Research and Surveys

Often, organizations do not have the bandwidth in their in-house teams to contact customers and take in-depth feedback on surveys for their market research. The expertise that outsourced contact centers can provide helps businesses collect real-time feedback by promptly reaching a large pool of respondents. This agility can help organizations quickly collect detailed feedback on their choice of subject.

Additionally, outsourcing market research and surveys to outsourced contact centers is cost-effective. Businesses can get valuable insights without spending too much by using the skilled workforce and efficient processes of these external partners, avoiding the high costs of in-house research teams.

Conclusion

Outsourcing to contact centers is a smart move for businesses of all sizes operating in today’s market. It boosts efficiency, cuts costs, and enhances the overall performance of businesses

Whether it’s customer service, sales, administrative tasks, technical support, or market insights, outsourced contact centers offer a flexible solution. They are cost-effective and skilled partners, helping businesses grow and stay competitive in today’s dynamic market.