Why Contact Centers are Critical for your Customer Support
Studies show that a modest 5% increase in customer retention yields profit increases between 25% and 95%. This is just one reason why companies outsource customer service to a contact center, where they know customers will have a great experience every time.
Contact centers improve retention because consumers today still prefer human interaction over automated solutions, and customer care specialists excel at providing a great personal conversation. One study found that 88% of consumers prefer voice calls with a live agent over trying to navigate an automated phone menu. There is a time and place for automation in customer service, but the human touch is still critical to good customer service.
Gaining Value
Every company will have unique needs when choosing a contact center, but the following are the top reasons companies outsource customer service to providers:
- They don’t have time to invest in customer service
Rather than pouring hours and energy into becoming a contact center professional, outsource and focus on your core business - Creating a customer service department is expensive
Companies don’t want to invest in establishing a high-quality contact center or the ongoing costs - They want to bring in experts
Professional contact centers hire excellent communicators, highly trained in customer service - They want the best for their customers
It takes a quality communicator to provide good service to customers and contact centers do that by personalizing their conversations, using empathy, being good listeners and then providing answers that solve problems - Their customers deserve the best tech
Contact centers know that to provide the best services, they need the best equipment, so they continually invest in telecommunications and other equipment to meet those goals
When you establish a relationship with your preferred contact center, you can discuss all your goals and ensure you’re getting a customized approach that will move you in the right direction.
Get Paid Faster
Your contact center helps business flow smoothly, acting as an arm of your brand and offering a seamless service. This equates to happier customers who are willing to pay more.
The typical buy cycle can get bogged down and bottlenecks can stifle profits, but with a quality customer service team working on your behalf, the buy cycle is less congested and you make faster sales.
Meeting Consumer Expectations
Consumers are not willing to repeatedly work with customer service that falls short of expectations. The problem has become so pervasive that organizations across industries have turned to a trusted contact center to manage their customer relationships and not only stop customers from jumping ship, but they’re also creating opportunities for gaining more customers.
High-level customer service teams agree, according to a HubSpot survey, that consumer expectations have evolved; consumers want their preferred brands to go the extra mile for them in regard to customer service. This should stand out as an opportunity for brands to meet those needs with more personalized customer services, the result of which is getting ahead of the competition.
There is much to be gained, as 52% of consumers said that after having a positive experience with a customer service professional, they were motivated to make return visits to buy more goods and services.
Preferred Touchpoints
There is no one perfect channel for interacting with consumers. There are situations where the consumer has a simple question that can be fielded by a company’s web-based bot. Other times, an email or text message will suffice. Those with a heavy reliance on social media will choose to reach out to their preferred brands through their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn pages, among others.
While the majority of consumers say they have used at least three different customer communication channels for their customer service needs, one method that no professional contact center will fail to provide is direct person-to-person communication via a phone line. Why? Because 80% of consumers today expect better customer service and for many, that means getting more responsive and empathetic interaction, which is best delivered from one human to another via real conversation.
Top Reasons Contact Centers are the Go-To Option
According to Hiver, a provider of help desk technology, contact centers are increasingly becoming the solution for lifting customer service satisfaction scores. According to the research, the following are some of the top reasons for this:
- Continuous Improvement
It’s difficult to know which direction to go if you’re not able to dig into the data regarding your customer service interactions, but contact centers are armed with reporting and analytics technology that offers in-depth information that leads to building better customer service strategies. - Better Agent Performance
The demand for increasingly personalized and empathetic interaction puts plenty of stress on agents, but contact centers provide intensive training and robust tools that position agents to succeed, no matter how high the expectations are. - Scalability
In a perfect world, your business would be steady day in and day out, but that is rarely the case, as companies of all sizes will have varying levels of customer service demands. Professional contact centers are flexible, meaning they can scale up or down to meet your customers’ needs. - Complete Support
Consumers have needs outside of the typical 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. workday, and partnering with a contact center can allow you to offer 24/7 support.
The Right Tools
Quality contact centers thrive because of their human capital, as it’s the people behind these companies that deliver the real value. But these customer service professionals rely on having the right tools to get the job done and these tools are often highly advanced, innovative systems that are expensive to acquire and maintain. This is another reason so many DIY customer care departments fail – they can’t afford the equipment needed to efficiently handle large call volumes.
Automatic call distributors are utilized by contact centers, providing a means to answer and route calls in the most effective manner, thus reducing hold times and the risk of misdirecting a customer. These are of particular importance when call volumes are high.
But it’s not just about call management, because there are systems that offer a customer relationship management (CRM) component. CRM software used by the best contact centers handle many aspects of customer interactions. Agents can track customer history, including their previous issues or requests. This provides a well-rounded view of the customer and can give the agent the ability to make fact-based decisions on how to more effectively personalize their interactions with each customer.
Contact centers also invest in workforce management software, which they use to forecast call volumes, schedule agents and monitor calls. The call monitoring aspect provides managers with the information they need for ongoing education of their agents, honing their skills and improving in specific areas where they are showing weaknesses.
When Is It Time to Outsource?
There are tell-tale signs that it is time to seek out the assistance of a contact center, such as increasing call volumes that lead to mismanagement. But even when call volumes are manageable, if the skills of the people answering the calls aren’t continually being invested in, customer frustration will still be an issue. In either case, these are indications that the time is right to outsource to a contact center.
Is a significant portion of your customer base Spanish-speaking? The Hispanic population increased by 23% from 2010 to 2020, so it’s possible that your target audience would benefit from a multi-lingual contact center. This is one of many reasons why companies are outsourcing to nearshore contact centers, such as those located in Belize. English is the official language of Belize, but the population is widely fluent in Spanish, too.
As you research various ways to improve customer satisfaction, consider what we have to offer at Protel BPO, located in Belize and only a couple hours’ flight from many major U.S. cities. We not only share the Central Standard Time zone with Americans, but we also share many cultural similarities, such as media, entertainment and food. But when it comes to offering customer service, we’re committed to meeting your customers’ needs on their terms. Contact us and let’s start the conversation about how we’ll act as a seamless arm of your company, offering your customers quality service.