- A global call center outsourcing market 2020-2024 report projects that the market is poised to grow by $13.67 billion during the next couple of years.
- As another report shows, the global business process outsourcing market is expected to register a CAGR of 8.5% from 2021 to 2028.
- Deloitte says outsourcing has gained popularity in the Middle East, particularly Dubai, and is projected to reach $6.8 billion by 2023.
- Another report suggests that Europe’s call center outsourcing market is poised to grow by $3.02 billion during 2020-2024.
Definition of Call Center Outsourcing
Call Center Outsourcing: Advantages and Disadvantages
1. Lower costs
Outsourcing to call centers will cost less than setting up an in-house customer service team. Contact centers have everything needed to run a customer support system. You pay for their service without spending money on recruiting agents, training them, equipping them with workplace necessities, providing benefits packages, etc.
2. On-demand service
Outsourcing offers excellent flexibility and scalability. The importance of call center in business is tied to seasonal spikes in customer demand. Call center outsourcing offers an opportunity to quickly scale up your support team (when your business is growing) or scale down (when the busy season is over).
3. Better service quality
Outsourced call centers provide superb customer service because they possess extensive experience and expertise. Their resources and attention develop and deliver the most viable customer support solutions. Call centers use the latest technology and industry experience to build the most efficient customer service strategy.
4. Decreased control over business
Speaking about the disadvantages, an outsourced call center takes away control over every action towards the client. The solution is to hire a reliable team you or your business partners or colleagues trust.
5. Security and privacy concerns
Despite the top confidentiality of the service claims, they cannot speak for every person because the turnover is still here. Undoubtedly, they check and inform everyone of risks and consequences, but you will handle personal information issues with angry clients.
6. Linguistic and cultural barriers
The same things are perceived differently by people brought up in American and Indian cultures. Different values and worldviews put things at stake regarding conflicts. For example, Americans value their time and are goal-oriented, while Indians think about family values and harmony with nature.
The Latest Trends Emerged From the Pandemic Crisis
Cloud Usage
Call centers started relying on the cloud system, moving to a work-from-home regime. This tendency is seen across multiple industries since it delivers the cloud’s convenience and other benefits of call center outsourcing. Cloud-hosted capabilities offer greater flexibility and availability as agents can access a system wherever and at any time.
Flexibility
Companies have their low and high seasons. Outsourced call centers can provide flexibility and scalability during unstable or hectic times. Those agencies can quickly ramp up the team of agents needed to cover an increased ticket volume or scale back the number of reps whenever the high season is over.
Functionality
Most cloud software uses APIs, so the cloud system synchronizes with your business system. With this feature, you can provide exceptional customer service by collecting information about your clients from different sources and producing customized solutions.
Affordability
Cloud is a subscription-based service, so your only expense would be a monthly fee. This way, you would have to spend significantly less than paying for in-house computing.
Self-Service Experience
Today, customers expect brands to have self-service capabilities due to their convenience. Not only does a self-service fulfills that demand, but it also expands a company’s service capacity without hiring more employees. With cloud software, brands can provide self-service options through chatbots and knowledgebase. As a result, they turn to business process outsourcing services to reduce expenses and increase their business efficiency.
Chatbots
Call center automation has a chatbot. Chatbots are a great assistive tool for call centers as they can route customers, answer simple inquiries and resolve problems. More sophisticated chatbots use text-to-speech processing created by AI innovations and machine learning.
AI-Powered Tools
AI-based applications can empower agents by providing insightful information about customers. Let’s take a CRM with AI-powered solutions. It saves time and helps to provide personalized services.
Besides, AI-driven automation can route a customer to the right agent, who will help to resolve a ticket faster. Another type of AI application is sentiment analysis, when AI scans customers’ comments, identifies the problem, and suggests solutions.
IVR Software
Interactive voice response technology can perform multiple functions, such as greeting customers, identifying the problem they are calling about, and transferring them to best-qualified agents.
Experts
Among other call center outsourcing advantages, they provide quality customer support. They know what makes a call center system efficient and what slows it down. They know what solutions to apply and which agents to assign to a particular case. Their experience helps them deal with any circumstance and react quickly to critical situations.
24/7 Service
Even though many organizations need to provide 24/7 customer service to their clients, not all of them can do that. That’s why they turn to external providers. Customer support outsourcing vendors provide coverage of all time zones, allowing brands to stay in touch with their customers day and night.
Summing Up
Companies will always choose more affordable options to improve customer experience, so a few hesitate to outsource to a call center. Most of them are located abroad, and there are good people overseas, even better than in US call centers. Besides, this industry is developing with new technologies that contribute significantly to developing call center self-service options widespread among users today.
If you want to test the call center and cooperate with it, you can book a 30-minute call with us and get a detailed consultation.