In a highly competitive market where brands are continuously competing for customer loyalty, the role of customer support call centers gains increasing prominence, and the solutions for how to deliver effective customer service comes to the fore.
The role of customer call centers has not always been considered glamorous, but one cannot ignore how important and effective they are in providing and delivering efficient customer service for brands.

As your business and brand grows, the requirement for dealing with incoming customer support calls grows with it. Whatever customer service system you had in place can very quickly become overwhelmed, and not fit for purpose. At this stage you have a choice. You can invest time, and huge amounts of money, in an in-house customer service team, or alternatively, you can outsource the operation to a customer service call center.

There are numerous benefits to using a local customer support call center service, not just for you and your business, but also for your customers. As consumer demands shift and technology progresses, an outsourced customer support call center provides even more benefit. Here’s how:

Build relationships in both directions

A call center puts your business at the end of a phone line. If customers have a problem with your product or service, they know they can find help with one call. This makes them feel well-disposed to your brand. All staff at the FMI customer support call center are well trained on the brand they work on and know that they effectively represent the brand to the customer. From your perspective as an FMI client, you can rest assured that your call center is manned by personnel dedicated solely to this purpose and is an accurate reflection of your brand, which further enhances your relationship with your customer.

Get to know your customer

In-bound call centers provide an opportunity to find out more about who is buying your products, or using your services. Every call is monitored, and it’s easy to determine if a majority of your customers come from one particular area or demographic. It also helps you find out what’s working in your business, and what isn’t. If one of your products is attracting a large number of similar complaints, you have the opportunity to fix that problem for the future. If customers are asking for particular features to be added to your service, you can add it, knowing you have ready-made market research at your disposal. As a result your customers will receive more of what they want and in turn your business and brand grows.

Outsourced call centers often provide a monthly report on their activities to give you a synopsis of the month’s activities, these can help you to prioritize and address any areas of concerns with the product and service being offered ensuring that that the feedback loop is being effectively implemented, resulting in fewer negative customer calls.

Professional service

Outsourced call centers, such as the one at FMI, provide a professional service. Their staff are trained to deal with even the most difficult customers. They help resolve customers queries with the most specific needs in a friendly, timely and professional manner. They genuinely make your customers feel like your brand and business have their interests at heart. They build customer retention, and may be able to upsell for you. At a business level, the call centers need to do a good job to retain your business, their reputation relies on how well they manage your customer service, so they try extremely hard to ensure that your customers are always satisfied.

Cost-effective

Perhaps the biggest advantage of outsourcing your call center service is that it’s cost effective. The call center company takes on all the costs of hiring, training and retaining customer service staff.
This is a huge responsibility, as having experienced customer service staff is essential in delivering the high level of service that customers have come to expect from brands.

Technology advances at a rapid rate so they are continually looking to invest in the right equipment, facilities and phone lines, so that they are able to provide the best possible service for their clients.

Dealing with Overflow

Outsourcing additional work is a fast, cost-effective way of scaling your customer service capabilities. If you already have a call center and are still debating the pros and cons of outsourcing the whole service, you may want to appoint an outsourced call center to deal with the overflow initially, as a first step. This can serve a dual purpose of allowing you to experience how the call center operates while taking some pressure of your internal resources. Appointing a call center for overflow could also be a strategic move during a busy period when you know your customers may require the additional support.

Future proof

The call center industry is fast moving. Customer demands are changing. Technology is advancing. You can use this to your advantage by using a call center to truly differentiate your level of customer service.

Consumers are used to receiving 24/7 customer service from brands. They increasingly like to use web chat services. These can be difficult to implement, but they are essential. The negative effects of bad customer service can be devastating and exquisitely quick, thanks to social media. Your outsourced call center company can implement professional 24/7 customer care and web chat with ease.

Looking to the future, customer service companies are experimenting with artificial intelligence, chat bots, and speech recognition software, all to give customers an easier experience when interacting with brands like yours.

In today’s world when customers demand satisfaction quickly and easily, or else, a call center service is essential. Outsourcing your call center service improves the relationship with your customers, and saves money. More importantly, it saves time. Put your customer services in the hands of a professional, while you do what you’re best at, building your brand and business.