Many companies are fielding calls using outsourced call center services to enhance efficiency and keep up with telephone technology. Over the years, especially with the growth of the Internet, outsourcing has become a huge industry. Hiring another person or another company to manage and oversee the daily production of an entire department of a business is referred to as outsourcing. Rather than setting up the infrastructure necessary for a call center phone system within the existing company, it is often more cost efficient to hire a third party to either handle incoming customer calls or to conduct telemarketing campaigns in an effort to boost the client company's customer base. The outsourcing provider and the client company enter into a contractual agreement for a set period of time or indefinitely contingent on the completion of specified projects.
A particular kind of outsourcing is offshoring. Offshoring has become a fairly common practice in the 2000s. Workers living outside the United States and the United Kingdom often charge much less for the same outsourcing job as the American or British company would. This cost efficiency is the main reason that so many large companies have begun to outsource overseas. The distance is simply not an issue with the Internet, phone infrastructure and an increasingly global marketplace. Offshoring is a type of outsourcing, but not the only type. The two terms are often used interchangeably, though they are not the same industry.
When deciding to utilize outsourced call center services, the client corporation would initially ask for bids. The corporation would define the job requirement in a proposal. During this process, many companies with a call center phone system already in place would submit a suggested fee for the purposed job description. The client corporation would review the bids and then choose the outsourcing company. There would be negotiations that would follow, in an attempt to finalize a contract that was suitable to both the client and the service provider. After the contract has been finalized, the third party service provider would take over the daily functions of the call center phone system. The client corporation has much to gain from this type of contractual agreement.
Businesses benefit from the cost efficiency having outsourced call center services, because the infrastructure necessary to field a large amount of calls costs a lot of money. That money has to come out of other departments and programs. If the company chooses to outsource, the contractual fee is the only expense. The client corporation also stands to gain in the quality of service provided. For example, if a large corporate bank tries to field all of its incoming customer calls by employing the tellers to answer them, the tellers may drop calls, mistransfer calls or simply be really slow telephone inquiry takers. However, if this same bank outsources the customer telephone inquiries to an employee specially trained on a call center system, that individual will answer quickly and efficiently transfer the call to the correct bank employee. Another valid reason for choosing outsourced call center services is to free the client corporation from the hassles of fielding customer questions or running a telemarketing campaign. With the call center phone system off site, the client business can focus on their core agenda and competence.
Outsourcing is not without its critics. Many of those opposed to outsourcing suggest that the third party company rarely delivers the quality of product and service promised to the business, as a tangible return on investment. This also makes shareholders hesitant to vote for a third party vendor to handle a part of the production of the public company in which they own a portion. Getting a diverse group of shareholders to agree on whether or not to outsource and which company's bid to accept often proves quite difficult for upper management.
There are also concerns about social responsibility when it comes to dealing with an offsite call center phone system. Many times the workers in these types of call centers are poorly paid and seldom treated well. Is it socially responsible to employ individuals in an effort to save money if the savings is coming directly out of their salaries? Offshore, or non-domestic, outsourced call center services pose more of a problem due to the poorly regulated labor laws in some foreign countries. The social responsibility issue needs to be seriously addressed in order to locate a third party vendor that treats its employees humanely and pays them well. "Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it." (Proverbs 3:27)
In addition, if choosing an offshore provider, the client corporation needs to make sure that the individuals taking the calls speak English, or the native language of the corporate customers, clearly enough to be understood and trusted by the callers. The frequency of staff turnover among many outsourcing companies is of concern as well. And though a third party vendor of a call center outsourcing really knows its telephone services, the employees may not have adequate knowledge of the client corporation. If this lack of knowledge is apparent to the callers, the customers will quickly lose faith in the client corporation. When hiring any third party company and entrusting them with a portion of a business, the client corporation needs to adequately train the vendor in its own company policies and ethics. Secondly, the service contract should cover additional and continual training to bridge the gap when the call center experiences the inevitable turnover common to that industry.
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