Sunday 19 February 2012

Can a Call Center Handle Customer Service Better Than You

Call centers are responsible for fielding queries, helping customers with issues related to a product or service, taking orders, or answering general questions about the business, products or services. If these calls are not answered properly and efficiently, the customers and potential customers may end up leaving the business and going to a competitor. Hence, using a professional customer service call center is a must for an organization that cares about its image and service that it offers customers and potential customers.

Many experts believe that call centers can handle customer service better than a business organization. This is primarily because call centers have operators, who are solely dedicated to answering calls. On the other hand, employees of an organization have other responsibilities besides handling calls from customers. So if an employee is busy, the standard of customer service offered over the telephone will suffer, as the employee will be more interested in finishing office work. Furthermore, if the office is busy, no one may think about picking up the call.

Supposing the receptionist is given the task of manning calls from customers and potential customers, the receptionist may not be equipped to handle the calls. She may not have the knowledge about the product or service, and may have to put the customer on hold until she can locate a qualified person to handle queries. Research has shown that consumers do not have the patience to wait for long on telephones to get answers to their questions and queries. If they are not attended to immediately, they tend to leave the business and find another service provider or vendor, who could end up being your competitor. This would mean loss of revenue and also a loss of image for your company. Hence, having a dedicated customer service call center is a must, as it will be able to handle customer service better than you.

Furthermore, when employees answer phones, there could be errors while taking down orders. This would end up causing a big problem for you. The order may not get processed, it may get wrongly processed or the order may not be as per specifications of the customer. Hence, taking errors out of phone orders is another issue that businesses have to handle. However, when regular employees handle order taking, there is always scope for errors. So taking errors out of phone orders will be a tough task for any organization. On the other hand, when you have a customer service call center, the telephone operators are well-trained and supported by software that allows them to handle large volumes of callers and make a note of the order or request. As a result, the order taking process and handling requests are without any errors.

Remember, in your organizations, employees will be overworked. This is because they are already multi-tasking and getting them to handle customers on the phone is bound to cause problems. Taking errors out of phone orders can be done using a dedicated customer service call center. Besides taking orders, the call center will handle all concerns, complaints, questions by consumers and also help them resolve issues. This means that your employees can concentrate on their daily tasks and meeting their work-related goals, so that your business can grow.

Furthermore, the call center will be able to operate round the clock, which is not possible if you just have employees handling and fielding consumer calls. Typically, employees will work as per office timings. Once the office closes, there will be no one to answer consumers, who expect their questions and concerns to be addressed regardless of the time. This can be frustrating for consumers, who may resort to ranting out their feelings on social media platforms and forums. This is bad publicity for your company and will end up ruining your company’s image.

A customer service call center is not just for taking errors out of phone orders. It also helps in retaining customers and gaining new customers. If customers are satisfied with the response their get, they are bound to stay with you. Otherwise, they may end up going to your competitor. This translates to loss of revenue. Also, happy consumers mean free promotion for your business. When consumers are satisfied, they will also speak about it in different forums and social media platforms, and talk about it to their friends and family. This can help you get free promotion without spending any additional money and a possibility of getting new customers at no additional cost. Also, when you have a professional and reliable customer service call center, it can be used to introduce callers to new products or services that you are launching.

The benefits of using customer service call center are many. But it goes without saying that it will be able to handle customer service better than you and your employees.

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