If you are a consumer-facing Internet Company, the high value that customer engagement entails towards the success of your operations is well known to you. If that is not the case, you are most certainly missing an important bus!
It is imperative for a business to remain connected with the outside world. Customers should feel empowered to reach out to the brand any time of the day and similarly prospects can be connected with, without bothering about the boundaries set by geography or time zones. This twin-way communication even though mission-critical, is still not core to the existence of the brand. This channel should be outsourced to expert service providers who manage 24 hour call center services for brands. An outsourced customer service call center gets familiarized with your business process and then engages the customer or the prospect in a manner that enhances the customer experience manifold. A Call Center Services company has experienced professionals manning the desk and their key performance indicators are linked to your profitability matrix.
During the 1960s, a new way of conducting business more efficiently emerged the world over. This era saw the emergence of Call Center Services Companies globally. The primary function of the Outsourced Customer Service Call Center was to become an extended arm of the parent business, bring in efficiencies of scale and generate cost optimization. Since most of the inbound and outbound calls received by businesses are in the domain of customer care, the Outsourced Customer Service Call Center took the lead.
During the 1960s to 1980s, a new kind of business emerged that specifically provided a solution called Answering Services, a prelude to 24 hours call center services. This involved use of an off-premise extension (OPX) for each subscribing business, connected to a switchboard. The answering service would answer the otherwise unattended phones with a live operator. The main job function of the live operator was to take messages or relay information by bringing the element of human interaction which was not to be found in mechanical answering machines prevalent during the times. Although the cost of obtaining such services was dearer for the client, as it involved the cost of set up and monthly rental payment for OPX, it had the advantage of being more ready to respond to the unique needs of the after-hours callers. The answering service was also in the position of immediately alerting the client about an incoming important call.
The historicity of 24/7 Call Centers can be traced back to Birmingham Press and Mall, a company based out of the United Kingdom that was the first company in the 1960s to install Private Automated Business Exchanges (PABX). Rockwell Automation designed and patented its Galaxy Automatic Call Distributor (GACD) for telephone booking system in 1973 and after this major development, 24 hours call center services became mainstream. When the public watched the mission control events during the launch of rockets by NASA on television, and they saw rows of dynamic-looking executives using headsets for communication for the first time, an ode of glamour was added to the job profile and business houses saw talent thronging their human resource department. The decade of the seventies also saw call center offering their services in new verticals like telephonic sales of products or services, airline reservations, hotel bookings, and banking systems. In the year 1980, Oxford Dictionary for the first time recognized and published the meaning of `Call Center’ in its latest edition. The eighties also saw the emergence of toll-free numbers for the customer to call in. This increased the overall call volume and efficiency of agents.
These outsourced customer service call centers usually functioned from remote locations and used labor cost arbitrage to bring down the cost. The 24 hours Call Center Services Company was entrusted with designing the entire business process in a manner that customer-centricity remained the focal point. Since 24/7 Call Center Services operate around the year, customer reach out became a possibility beyond office hours as well. Outsource Customer Service Call Center work in such a manner that a customer calling Outsource Call Center Services gets the impression that s/he is calling the on premise help desk of the brand.
As mentioned above 24/7 call centers emerged just after World War II. Till the eighties American corporations, on average, had 20 percent of their business functions outsourced. Today this figure stands at close to 60 percent. In today’s age, as a business, you are expected to be available at your customer’s disposal, no matter what time or channel they choose to contact you. Therefore an Omni channel Inbound Call Center is an integral part of your business. However, maintaining an in-house Inbound Call Center poses many challenges. The cost of recruiting specialized staff, training, office space, and infrastructure maintenance are just some of the significant ones.
There is a good alternative though. Brands can collaborate with an experienced and professional Outsourced customer service call center and BPO provider that acts as your representative and takes care of all your necessary functions and customer issues for you. So, even when your business is closed, your work is getting done and customer issues don’t pile up, leaving little scope for any complaint or unnecessary escalations.
With over 18 years of experience in providing high-quality Inbound Call Center and BPO services, LiveSalesman is a renowned name among business process outsourcing companies. The company works with its clients as partners, not third-party vendors. They don’t believe in just ‘answering’ queries and going home. They adopt a consultative approach to make the brand’s customer service and operational processes much more streamlined and efficient. LiveSalesman incorporates and implements strategic solutions that help the brand plug the loopholes in its processes and reduce costs while enhancing customer experience and driving higher revenue.