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Does your Startup need a Call Center? How to Select one

Does your startup need a call center

Are you about to start up your new business? Do you know what you need to think about first?

 

Yes, customers!

 

Not only what and how are you serving, but also work upon the after service care of customers. For instance, once they have got your product or service, how will you maintain a long-term relationship with them!

 

Remember, every customer is an important and detrimental factor for any business that comes into existence. Simply because you are a startup and cannot afford high-end end solutions like those big companies in our competition, you cannot lose your customers considering that you can make up with the new customers in line.

 

Thus, customer service and support is an important aspect for the startups. And, this is where a call center comes into existence.

How can a call Center help your startup?

Call centers are more than just answering the customers. While you might not have them as their priority, we shall let you know that it is needed.

 

A startup can benefit a lot from accessing the services from the call centers.

  • You can focus on building avant-garde services or products or brands and thus improve work efficiency, focus, and productivity.
  • You can save a lot of time and money as you want to be resourceful when you are starting a startup.
  • Have experienced people answer and tackle the customers efficiently by answering their questions and catering to their needs. This contributes to customer retention and loyalty.

 

Now, as a startup, you would want what’s best for the business. And, it is no different when it comes to choosing the call center for your business. Stepping out in search of the best call center for your business, you will be lured by the big names that outsource with thousands of agents working in numerous locations with the most advanced technologies.

 

But, you have to focus on your needs as a startup. Each business has its own peculiar needs, and so will you. Of course, you cannot go for something that involves a huge infrastructure and  big investments as a startup.

 

Since call centers are a bridge between customers and the business, you have to choose the one that suits both your and the customers’ needs.

What to look for while choosing the call Center for your business?

Pricing model

First, since you are a startup, you should focus on the pricing model as per the deliverables you are offered by a certain company. Of course, outsourcing the call center solutions is the best approach, but it still involves a little cost. Therefore, you must define a budget for your call center solutions and different call centers offer different charges to clients.

 

Some have a monthly subscription whereas some charge on a minute basis. So, based upon your needs and customers, choose the pricing plan that suits your business and does not burn a hole in your pocket. Also, remember that having dedicated agents can be a little costly compared to the shared agents.

 

A large call center company can approach you with a fair-seeming charge but it can turn out a little costly in the long terms considering the additional component’s costs.

 

It is best to go for the small or medium-sized companies where you can get most of the services on a limited budget. They have flexible plans and can accommodate as per your business and not rigid like the large companies.

Personalized Service and Flexibility

Whether you want to be big fish in a small pond or a small one in the big one- the choice is yours. When you are associated with large companies, they will not give enough attention to your business as they have others to cater to.

 

As a startup, you need a call center that shares the same passion and vision with you as well as serves the customers efficiently. Since you’re a startup you ought to be in an experimental mode with your projects. So, you need a call center that is flexible with your changes and delivers the best results.

Expertise and Experience working with startups

Call center companies with a little experience with startups can understand what you face. They get your environment and the changes that you might come up with. Also, they can work together with you to come up with a solution that suits the needs of both parties.

 

Being a startup, it is difficult for you to hire individual people for a specific task. Thus, you need a call center where the people are flexible and willing to multi-task. You can ask them to allow you to screen the candidates before they are allotted to your project.

 

Agents with prior experience bring stability to the customer service and sales as they resolve the issues tactfully. Not only the customer resolution becomes quick but you also retain your customers and build long-term relations with them.

Reporting and Insights

You just do not want the agents to merely reply to your customers, right? As and when an agent handles a customer, a lot of data is collected and that needs to be managed and stored somewhere safe.

 

So, the next thing you should look for is the quality of reporting and insights the call center provides. Are you looking for shallow or deep insights on the conversations with the customers? How often do you want the reports to be shared by you?

 

If you need the insights and are really particular about it, mention them to your call center partner beforehand. Let them know whether you want the reports monthly, weekly, or daily.

Service Availability

Last but not the least, you must know how a call center handles its technical issues. Will that impact your customers or business? Are they well prepared with an alternative? Do they have proactive measures to not let their technical issues affect your business?

 

The best call center for you is on which you can depend and have an enduring disaster recovery strategy in place. This makes sure that your startup is up and running smoothly.

 

So, what’s the wait for? Hunt your best call center or look for a virtual contact center solution from the comfort of your home!

 

 

 

7 Common Problems With Every Call Center

7 common problem with every call center

With time, businesses have adopted the new policy of dealing with their customers. Instead of banging their head throughout the day, they prefer to lend out the work to a third-party. These third-parties are very well known as call centers.

 

Call centers have an extensive range of services to provide, which covers the different aspects of a company in need. Once the company hands over the task to the inbound call center solution, they feel free about the tension that was hanging on their head.

 

There are several troubles a call center has to go through. Though the employees are trained well, there are situations when the employees don’t know how to deal with it. Therefore, the blended call center solution takes care of the situation by providing them a proper manual.

 

However, if the blended call center solution turns out to be incapable, the company can incur a huge loss due to the rude behavior towards the customer and clients.

 

Therefore, the call center must target the common problems which have a high chance of taking place. With the expert’s help, we have found out 7 different common problems that a call center must tackle properly.

7 Common Problems With Call Centers

Everyone knows that the work environment in a call center is very difficult. The importance of maintaining the agent turnover, proper cost management, and team morality is high. The work stress can make the professional environment really unhealthy and uneasy to deal with.

 

Well, this is nothing compared to the different issues that the cloud contact center has to go through. So, let us explore what all problems a call center faces!

Dialer Retention

There are several reasons why dialers quit the job after a certain period of time. The hectic work schedule with such low pay makes it completely unbearable in the long term. Imagine spending 10-12 hours in a cubicle and attending calls from frustrated customers 24×7.

 

Well, this is the situation with every dialer in a cloud contact center. This leads to a great reduction in the retention ratio.

 

The story doesn’t end here. Apart from the low salary and bad work-life balance, the compensation offered to them is pretty worse as well. From bonuses to other health benefits, all are cut down severely as the upper executive level sucks out all the juice.

 

Coming to the growth in the job, one can’t expect to grow much if they are not good with the team. Dialers need to have a proper degree and qualification to achieve a higher post. This can take up to 7-8 years in the same field.

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is and should be the first priority for every business. If a customer is not satisfied, there are huge chances of bad mouthing and huge damage to the reputation as well.

 

Though most of the customers prefer not to show up again if their first experience was bad, it is the duty of the call center to provide an efficient solution for this. If customer satisfaction is not up to the mark, businesses will find a different solution provider for the job.

 

In other words, you will start losing the clients you have, and we all know that retaining the clients is a huge necessity for the long term growth of a company.

Employee Satisfaction

The best way to improve the morale of the employees is by making them feel valued and respected at the same time. You can’t run an organization without the right bunch of associates.

 

One of the greatest reasons for the decrease in the overall performance of a call center is the lack of morality in the work environment. Even though it is the agents who have the maximum role to play while answering the customers, they are the ones who have to suffer the most.

 

The main job of HRs is to look out for the employees and their satisfaction, but a majority of the companies are missing out on this. An inbound call center solution must look out for a way to deal with the situation.

 

The main cause of this problem is the use of traditional metrics, which miss out on the quality of the conversation. Metrics like speed to answer and average handling time pretty much covers the extensive number of calls that the agent manages to handle.

 

This should be replaced with a balanced scorecard or customer feedback to address the agent with proper achievements.

Performance Upgradation

Every call center looks out for a way to improve the work performed in the office. They find different ways like hosting parties once a month or remunerating the agents properly. However, most of the time, this becomes a common habit.

 

Well, all of these can help you take the agent’s performance to a particular level, but it is important to improve the situation and take it to the next level.

 

An effective way to deal with it is by providing agents with rewards for their good behavior.

 

Use of Different Tools

Imagine the frustration level of an agent due to the use of different tools in the company. There is different software for every function required by the policy of the company. From diverting the call to the right agent to recording the calls, everything is being managed by different applications.

 

With the lack of the system’s capability, it is evident how the day will become rough for the agent.

Information Retention

Another major factor that all the different call centers must look into is the information retention by every agent. According to you, the training session was pretty comprehensive and covered all the different aspects which the agents must have noted.

 

However, in the long run, the small things run out of hands, which causes a lot of trouble. This can be dealt with by providing an extensive manual that will cover all the necessary checkpoints that an agent must cover during the call.

 

From verifying the information available to gathering the required ones, everything must be recorded in a solicited way.

Concentration Level

With the dozens of phone calls every minute and the hectic environment in the hallway, it is nearly impossible for the employees to focus properly.

 

Companies provide better headsets which will be protective with noise cancellation feature at the same time. However, this doesn’t really work if the environment is chaotic. Therefore, a steep toll must be taken on the same, and a solution must be found out.

Conclusion

Well, the 7 mentioned problems are a brief of the different issues that every call center faces.

Call center solutions have the duty to take care of this issue at large; otherwise, providing quality services will become a problem at large. This industry has been providing job employment to a huge sector of the population.

 

Almost all the countries have their revenue generated from the IT sector. One of the best ways to deal with the situation mentioned above is by finding software that can cover all the problems at hand. A bunch of different applications is available in the market, which can provide you extensive help with the issues mentioned at large. Therefore, find the best call center software.

 

If you are looking for some solutions for your call center software, then you must contact the most trusted and reliable professionals of all times- Lgorithms. They are regarded as one of the best solution providers for any kind of call center need.