Pros & Cons of Outsourced Call Center and Inhouse Call Center Setup

Whether you are planning to setup your own call center or you are thinking to outsource it, you must keep all the pros and cons of both the options in mind in order to make a rational decision.

Pros & Cons of Call Center Outsourcing

PROS

• No infrastructure investments
• Predictable and manageable costs
• Latest updated contact center technology
• Access to specialized skills
• Saving on manpower & training
• Ease of accommodating changing business needs
• Reduced operating cost & overheads
• Easy scalability of call center operations
• Save on cost of changing technology
• Enhanced Productivity and Customer Service
• Increased efficiency
• Allows business to focus on core business functions
• Cost effective competitive edge
• No Human Resource & Management Cost
• Redundancy

CONS

• Dependency on third party
• Loss of direct operational control
• No direct contact of Contact Center staff with Marketing staff
• Difficult integration with other internal company functional organization or applications

Pros & Cons of In-house Call Center Setup

PROS

• Fully owned call center infrastructure and technology
• Constant monitoring on premises
• Direct contact with Marketing and Administrative teams
• Company own administration
• No sharing of resources or premises with any other company

CONS

• Capital intensive
• Very high cost of infrastructure deployment
• High maintenance and upgrade cost (hardware, software, and consulting services)
• High costs of employment recruitment, training & retention of employees
• Deviation from core business functions
• Slow or difficult scalability of operations
• High start to end time frame

Call Centers Agents and their Health Issues

By Silent Voice at ProPakistani Blog

The call center has been established as an industry in corporate world of Pakistan only over the last ten years. This industry has given thousands of unemployed graduates an opportunity to start their career without any particular work experience.

Particularly in Pakistan where unemployment rate is very high, fresh graduates take this opportunity as sunshine towards their bright future. This job is not only easily accessible but also does not have any boundaries in entrance.

Job seekers also take this opportunity as a first step towards the corporate world, but unfortunately only few happens to be successful. Most of them remain stucked in this job forever.
Following article, in my opinion, stands valid for both the call centers, serving local customers or abroad customers.

Furthermore they face number of health issues like:

• Burnout stress syndrome
• Pressure building
• Ear problems
• Heart diseases
• musculoskeletal disorders
• Stress
• Loss of sleep
• Lack of social activities
• Stomach problems

And some other psychological factors like:

• Self De-motivation
• Dis-respected

Now let’s discuss the above mentioned problems and the reasons causing them in detail.
Working environment in call centers
Long hours of work, permanent night shifts, incredibly high work targets, loss of identity are the major reason that threatens the employees of call center in Pakistan. The odd timings and nature of work in call center makes an agent work on a chair for 9 hrs, continuously taking calls and reading a pre-scripted document to gain the customer around the globe.
His every day performance is calculated and is appraised accordingly. A little distraction messes up with his work. All his senses are continuously in action and not only this, the stress he has to face while working could not be measures.
Health issues caused by the working conditions

• Computer vision syndrome (CVS): according to Wikipedia it is a temporary condition resulting from focusing the eyes on a computer display for protracted, uninterrupted periods of time. Some symptoms of CVS include headaches, blurred vision, neck pain, fatigue, eye strain, dry, irritated eyes, and difficulty refocusing the eyes.

This is a common problem faced by call center agent since the system designed is according to the technology not the employees’ health.

• Digestive disorders: the employees of call center have also complained about stomach related problem.
• Losing their voice: it is also suspected that the employees due to frequent speaking are also facing the possibility of losing their voice. For example cough irritation, breathing difficulties and etc.
• BOSS stands for burnout stress syndrome: as we have already discussed that call center employees have to face continuous work pressure this ultimately result to stress.
• Heart diseases: the stress also effects heart of the employee and also leads to sleep disorderness.
• Ear disease: due to sudden high frequency noise, ear of an employee also damages. This may cause permanent deafness.
• Muscular pain: body pain is a common complaint by call center agents.
• Social life is also effect affected: due to irregular timings the most important thing that is affected of employee is their social life. An employee especially working at night sleeps at morning so that lessens employee’s social meetings with his friends and family.

Caller abuse:
The employees of customer care have to deal with different type of customers which include some polite customers while others are really aggressive.
Read More at ProPakistani

Acquire Competitive Edge using Contact Center Outsourcing

In today’s competitive environment every brand is trying hard to improve the brand image and provide value added services to acquire the competitive edge. Customers’ expectations and product’s perceived value is also increasing due to stiff competition and less differentiation. On the other hand, increase in telecom usage has provided an opportunity to approach individual prospects and create a more personalized two-way-communication platform profitably.

Companies collect leads from different methods but usually they are not captured in a proper database and such marketing activities are not materialized / monetized up to its full potential.

Contact Center Outsourcing can help your organization acquire the competitive edge by providing exceptional customer services beyond their expectations.


Why Contact Center?

• The Contact Center will increase the monetized results of marketing activities by converting the hot leads into long-term customers
• The addition of contact center will portray the image of your company as more customer friendly brand which will set it apart from competitors.
• The customer database can be created and utilized in meaningful way of persistent communication with the prospects.
• Your company’s advertisements will not only create awareness among prospects but its will also push “Call to Action” i.e. getting their queries answered and placing order via contact center.
• Effectiveness of advertisements will also be measured and monitored with the number of leads generated during the specific time.
• Market research activities via contact center can be performed on demand basis to evaluate and improve brand positioning and image.
• Customers’ feedbacks and complaints can be recorded to monitor the areas of improvements

Why Outsource?

• Reduce overheads, free up resources
• Avoid capital expenditure
• Improve efficiency
• Offload non-core functions
• Get access to specialized skills
• Save on manpower and training costs
• Be reliable and innovative
• Increase customer satisfaction
• Avoid the cost of changing technology

Activities which can be performed in contact center


1. Creation of a segmented database of Customers / Prospects

a. Advantages of customer database
A segmented database of customer can help you identify key trends and important information such as your most and least profitable customers or segments. You can use this database to manage customer relationships in order to increase both sales and customer satisfaction.

b. Database creation strategies
The existing data (If available) can be converted into a segmented database. The database can either be created using specialized data entry operators in a particular timeframe or it can be gradually entered into database utilizing the contact center agents.

2. Order taking (from Consumers)

a. Advantages of Order-taking via Contact center
The order taking service through contact center will ensure that you will never miss a single sale. The customer retention will definitely increase because once a customer has placed an order through contact center and get himself / herself registered with database. You can set up a reminder call or courtesy calls to increase the brand loyalty.

b. Order-taking strategies
The efficiency of order taking services relies on the order-taking CRM and the efficient mechanism of timely delivery. Since we are already providing the similar kind of services for few other customers so you will not have to reinvent the wheel, we will simply replicate the system with some customization to get thing moving very fast.

3. Customer Services / Helpdesk

a. Advantages of Customer Services via Contact center
Contact center plays an important role to convert prospects into customers by answering their basic queries about the product and company. Finding new customers is an expensive business which is why it pays to invest in hanging onto your existing customers. Good contact center service can also give small companies a lead over their bigger rivals.

b. Customer Services / Helpdesk Strategies
We will make the customer call a delightful experience by putting all our expertise and technologies together at work for you. The callers will be greeted with a pleasant recording with light background music which will be entertained by our professionally trained customer service representative. Our quality assurance and training team constantly evaluate and improve the quality of service provided at our contact center.

4. Lead generation / Lead qualification
a. Advantages of Lead generation via contact center
Every single lead can produce a new wave of sales, if it is nurtured till the final stage of being a loyal customer.

b. Lead generation / Lead qualification strategies
After answering the basic queries of the prospect the customer services representative shall generate lead by registering him/her in the customer database.

5. Complaint Handling / Lodging / Forwarding
According to a survey only 1 out of 26 customer complain, rest switch to competitor’s product without complaining.

a. Advantages of Complaint handling via contact center
Customer complaints can provide valuable information about your company’s weaknesses which you can take it as areas of improvement.

b. Complaint Handling / Lodging / Forwarding strategies
With our contact center and complaint management CRM you will be able to track each and every complaint along with its status. This information can help you gain continuous improvement from outside-in perspective.

6. Market Research / Surveys
a. Advantages of Market Research via contact center
Market research through contact center will complement and support the research and analysis from your main sources.

b. Market Research strategies
You can conduct frequent surveys via outbound calling and verify the results that you get from research companies about your product’s positioning, market availability etc.


7. Order taking (from Retailers)
a. Advantages of Order-taking via Contact center
Order taking from retailers will ensure the product’s availability on the shelf which in turn means the minimum possibility of product shortage at a particular area or retailers shop. It will also provide the inside information about distributor’s performance and retailer’s feedback about the product.

b. Order-taking strategies
This will be an ad-on in the existing distribution system which will increase the overall sales of the product. The contact center will perform proactively by giving a reminder call / courtesy call for the order or disseminating the latest promotions to high performing retailers.

Chevron Pakistan Call Center Outsourcing Success Story - in Customer's words

Chevron Pakistan call centre (CSC PK) was started on March 10, 2006 when the first call was received at CSC. It was started with the objective of improving professionalism and enhancing standards of service of our customers.

This new unit has joint owner ship and cost sharing between lubricant business unit and Marketing. Marketing has managed the centre since July 2008. It has been formally inducted as a unit of area marketing support since August 20, 2009.

Chevron Pakistan call centre handles the following: -

• Order taking and preparation of sales orders in SAP PC8.
• Account information to customers.
• General information to customers related to product and services.
• Management of SMS counterfeit systems.
• Tracking of shipments from depots through SAP PC8.
• Co-ordination with terminals when necessary fro expeditious delivery to customer.
• Managing maintenance queries and forwarding them to the respective maintenance staff.
• Managing star card queries.

It’s a professionally run outsourced facility provided by a reputed call centre company, Arwen Tech (Private) limited, this company provides chevron with the office space at their premises and their staff.

Recruitment & selection of CSC agents is done through a stringent process to ensure the Quality of team members in order to maintain and meet expectations of management, client and customers. To guarantee  quality of work and productivity conducive environment, CSC hiring includes good academic background preferred experience in related field, good communication and interpersonal skills, fluency in English and urdu and knowledge of regional languages. Other competencies include positive attitude and ability to work under pressure. Training programs completion with a minimum of 90 % score is also mandatory for a candidate to become successful in entering the CSC team.

CSC was the entry point for Olympic in Pakistan. Successful implementation of Olympic at the entry point was crucial for the success of the entire project. CSC exhibited outstanding performance during Olympic go-live. Due to CSC’s remarkable efforts order taking to delivery was seamless right from the start of Olympic. We recognize CSC team for this effort.

Since Olympic go-live in October 2008, order taking is entirely handled by CSC fro refined oils and lubricants. CSC PK handles approximately 18,000 calls from various 13,000 orders per month. Additionally, all maintenance queries are managed through CSC.

We have identified gaps in certain processes and marketing support PERM has taken it on as a challenge to make this unit a center of excellence across the globe. Initially as a first step we have acquired benchmark metrics from the customer service centre, South Africa and are tracking the performance of CSC PK based on these metrics.

CSC Pakistan is lowest call centre in the region with all combined total cost of less than US $ 9,000 per month (including all staffing, overheads etc), which is shared by both lubricant and marketing business units.

Marketing’s vision is to offer and extend this service and standards to other geographies with in and outside the region.