Choosing call center services is a lot like choosing a cloud service. Providers all look the same on the surface, but it's not until you start asking specific questions that you figure out which vendor is the right one for your business.
To help you choose the 24x7 call center, here are some tips on which questions to ask call center service providers, whether you decide to outsource your calls or run a call center yourself.
George Despinic, global contact center marketing manager of Siemens Enterprise Communications, said there are several factors to consider when choosing a call center, such as the number of call agents your company will need. In addition, Despinic identified three key questions businesses also need to ask themselves:
1. What level of sophistication and customization do you require?
For instance, do you need a inbound and outbound call center with basic features, such as voice support only? Or do you need a more advanced system that can also handle callbacks, email, chat, social media, fax and voicemail? Is an out-of-the-box service suitable for your business? Or do you need a highly customizable solution tailor-made for your company?
2. How relevant is the call center to your overall business?
If a call center is at the core of your operations, any downtime will hurt your business. Look for a call center that has a dependable uptime and a reliable redundancy and disaster recovery plan so your business doesn't suffer during an outage.
3. Is your business a good fit for an on-premise or cloud-based call centers?
Call center vendors offer both on-premise and cloud-based call centers. If you have a consistent agent count, want or have the expertise to run your own call center, or are otherwise worried about cloud security and privacy, an on-premise call center is for you.
If you have large agent count swings – for instance, temporary or seasonal agents – need multisite agents, have no desire to run your own call center, or are content with cloud security and privacy issues, a cloud-based call center will be a better fit for you. Another benefit of a cloud-based call center is its ease of implementation, so your call center can be up and running quicker than an on-premise system.
