In a highly competitive environment, customer satisfaction is becoming increasingly important for companies. Many of them are now opting to outsource a complex but essential task: customer relationship management.
At the heart of this management, the call center determines the quality of the relationship between your company and your customers. It allows you to build loyalty, improve your brand image and stand out from the competition. Selecting it carefully therefore becomes a strategic choice.
These contact centers are in fact made up of customer relations professionals, who also have various business expertise. They are able to best meet the needs and expectations of ever more demanding customers and offer them a unique experience. They allow you to concentrate on your core business and fully support the growth of your business.
There are many selection criteria. Here's an overview.
Define your specific needs and requirements
To begin with, it's essential to determine your company's specific customer service needs in order to choose the call center that best meets your requirements. This should include both:
- The purpose of outsourcing customer relations is often to reduce costs by entrusting non-strategic functions to a third-party company, to improve the quality of service offered to customers, and to free up time to focus on the company's core business. call volume to take care of: the call handling capabilities of your outsourced center should enable you to avoid unnecessary oversizing or inappropriate undersizing of the service.
- The communication channels to prioritize: In the digital age, your customers interact with your brand or business through various channels (phone, chat, email, SMS, social media, etc.), preferring some over others. Each of these communication channels requires specific expertise, which is essential to consider in order to offer them an even better experience.
- The necessary support hours and languages: To ensure optimal customer relations, your outsourced customer relationship expert must be able to respond quickly and efficiently to different requests, whether they come from your customers or your employees. Many call centers are located abroad. A small time zone difference allows for "real-time" communication with your teams and provides a consistent and responsive service to your customers. The linguistic skills of your partner are also essential, as they ensure smooth communication, among other things.
Focus on sector expertise and call center specialization
Expertise and specialization are two more fundamental aspects when choosing your call center. An outsourcing agency with extensive experience in your field of activity and in the type of services you wish to provide to your customers is indeed capable of efficiently handle complex and highly specific requests.
In the real estate sector, for example, the team's in-depth knowledge of the market, regulations, legal and tax issues, and buying, selling and leasing procedures guarantees you personalized advice and precise, detailed answers to all your customers' questions and problems.
In the e-commerce sector, on the other hand, a call center specialized in helpdesk (customer support and assistance) ensures that, in addition to a perfect knowledge of your products and services, you have indispensable technical skills: multi-channel customer support, assistance for customers in the online ordering and payment process, diagnosis and resolution of technical problems, resolution of problems linked to delivery, returns or difficulties of use, answers to technical questions on products, functionalities or methods of use, etc.
It allows you to offer efficient service and ensure business continuity for your customers.
Analyze the technologies and tools used by the call center
The tools and technologies used by the outsourced contact center are also important, as they contribute significantly to the operational efficiency of the service. Moreover, they enable the personalization of the customer relationship, which is crucial in a highly competitive environment where consumers gravitate toward the company offering the service best suited to their needs and expectations
The use of cutting-edge technologies is therefore crucial. Here are two examples:
- The call management systems or ACD (automatic call distribution): thanks to their configurability (routing based on skills, call histories and/or queues, etc.), these management systems can efficiently direct calls to available agents, and better qualify them to meet the customer's specific requirements.
- The lCRM softwarel (customer relationship management): they centralize customer data (purchase history, preferences, previous interactions, etc.) and provide agents with immediate access to relevant and accurate information, enabling them to provide consistent service across all communication channels and personalize contact, in particular.
Ensure your call center's commitment to quality
The quality of the customer service provided determines the reputation of your company or brand. To ensure optimal service, it is essential to make sure that the skills of your call center agents are effective. The recruitment process, training (initial or ongoing), and experience are undoubtedly the first elements to consider. Continuous evaluation of agents, through call analysis or customer feedback, also demonstrates a genuine commitment from the contact center to service quality.
Assess your call center's ability to adapt to change
Optimal customer relations also involve operational agility that your contact center, and therefore your company, demonstrates. In a constantly evolving environment (changing customer needs, fluctuating call volumes, constant renewal of technologies, etc.), your outsourcing agency must be able to adapt quickly to maintain excellent performance and full customer satisfaction. Scalability of equipment and technologies, as well as flexibility of resources and processes, are therefore essential.
A call center, for example, needs to be able to adjust its human resources, agent schedules and processes according to occasional peaks in activity or the seasonality of your business. This proactive approach allows you to cope with increased demand during peak periods and optimize costs during quieter periods.
Monitor call center performance
A trusted partner must be able to demonstrate its commitment to service quality and its willingness to fully satisfy your requirements. This means demonstrating transparency to facilitate collaboration and decision-making, but also to be able to propose solutions for measuring and improve customer satisfaction.
To achieve this, your contact center must offer you full visibility of its overall performance and the way in which your needs are handled. So there's one final point to consider when assessing the efficiency of your call center: the performance monitoring.
Regular reports on key performance indicators or KPIs (average call handling time, waiting time, first contact resolution rate, customer satisfaction, for example) enable you to check that our services are aligned with your company's strategic objectives. They also enable you to identify strengths and areas for improvement, and to check that the solutions proposed match your expectations. Finally, they enable you to monitor progress and readjust your strategy if necessary.
Call centers: a strategic choice
The contact center is at the heart of customer relations: it accompanies the customer experience and contributes fully to improving it. It is an essential part of your growth strategy. Choose an agile partner, tailored to your needs and enabling you to achieve your goals is therefore essential.
Read also: Customer relations center: how to improve the customer experience while optimizing costs?
As an expert in outsourced customer relations, Vivetic Group supports your development. Our teams, recruited and trained according to your business processes, are available all year round, in real time, and can be adapted to the periodic variations in your activities.
Entrust your project to us, and you're assured of :
- Business and sector expertise (press, bancassurance, e-commerce, home shopping and real estate).
- Efficient customer relationship management solutions: multi-channel customer service, customer acquisition and loyalty.
- Highly-qualified expertise and strong scalability.
- Tailor-made support, flexibility according to your needs and responsiveness to your customers' requirements.
- The quality and reliability of the processes used (ISO 18295-1, PCI DSS, AICPA SOC2 and ISO 9001 certifications).
Put your trust in our teams!
