7 Advantages of Co-Sourcing your Call Center

What we know as Call center co-sourcing is when a company has some agents working in-house and some working for an external service provider. The external service provider is in charge of the recruiting, hiring, training, staffing and managing of their call center agents as well as the day-to-day operations for which they were contracted. Because of that, co-sourcing is a lower risk alternative to outsourcing and more cost-effective than maintaining an entire in-house staff of call center agents.

Companies often decide to co-source for strategic (customer segmentation) or operational (call volume uncertainty) reasons, or both. There are 4 main use cases of co-sourcing:

• Handle overflow calls

Outsourcing some call center agents to an external service provider for them to handle overflow call volume can be an excellent way to increase customer service and to make sure no customer is left behind, so not phone call will be there waiting for so long.

• Handle after-hours calls.

Once you hire an external service provider to provide after-hours support, you can offer an entire day of services for a fraction of the price.

• Disaster recovery

Whether your office is susceptible to bad weather, power outages and natural disasters or your call center software and computer infrastructure isn’t the most trustworthy, contracting an external service provider to handle calls in the event of an emergency can be an effective way to ensure business continuity.

• Handle specialized calls.

Co-sourcing a specific department (like IT) to an external service provider can be an excellent way to provide excellent support, without breaking the bank.

Co-sourcing call center agents can bring a lot of advantages. here are 7 advantages of co-sourcing a call center staff:

1. Reduced costs

Co-sourcing can be a more cost-effective solution to hiring and hold an entire call center staff. It lower costs associated with staffing a part of call center agents. It also reduces infrastructure and overhead costs as external service providers use their own software, servers and telephony. Finally, it turns a significant fixed cost into a variable cost: skilled labor is there when you need it, and not costing that much.

2. Improves call quality during peak hours

Having a good staff trained and knowledgeable off-premise call center agents than can handle calls within a moment’s notice can improve the service quality during peak hours. Overflow call can be routed to them, reducing wait times and customer frustration. Additionally, both your in-house agents as well as your outsourced agents won’t feel rushed when talking with customers during peak hours as they know there are a lot of agents to field all of the call that come in. This will improve the quality of customer service and decrease the waiting time for the customers during peak hours.

3. Decrease call abandonment

When you give out your overflow calls to an external service provider, long wait times and high caller abandonment rates will not be a problem anymore. Every call will be answered in time and your customers will love the fast service.

4. Increase service levels

If between the metrics you want to improve, service level is one of them, co-sourcing your call center staff can be the solution you need. When the volume of the calls increases and service level is declining, you can outsource the overflow calls to hire agents. This will reduce the waiting time and increase service level.

5. Support for a fraction of the price

Hiring an external service provider to handle calls when your in-house agents aren’t working can be an excellent way to provide an all-day long service, without having to maintain a 24/7 staff of in-house agents. External service providers can answer calls after business hours, on the weekends and during holidays. Your staff will appreciate the standard schedule and your customers will love the dedicated service.

6. Ensure business continuity

Hiring an external service provider to handle calls when your call center software goes down, if there is a natural disaster happening or an emergency and your in-house agents can’t make it into the office, or if there is a power outage or your computers go down can be a cost-effective solution to ensure business continuity. You will never again lose a call due to things that are out of your control or that you didn’t anticipate.

7. Increase customer satisfaction

When you co-source your call center staff, your agents will be able to handle peak call volume in a more effective way and can spend more time meeting the customer’s needs. You will also lose fewer customers to call abandonment due to long waiting queues and declining service levels. Shorter wait times and better customer service is the key for more satisfied customers.

Co-sourcing can be an extremely effective tactic to enhance customer service, increase efficiency and reduce risk without sacrificing your bottom line. It could be exactly what you need to push your company ahead of the competition.

Via: Talk Desk

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