7 Ways a Call Center Can Save Your Business Money

The data is clear: the majority of companies—59%—outsource some elements of their operations as a cost-saving tactic.

But how does outsourcing actually save you money?

To some degree, it depends on what you outsource. But one of the most cost-effective outsourcing options is using a call center, as opposed to managing customer service and call center operations in-house.

In this article, we’ll show you seven key ways using an outsourced call center can save your business money.

Reducing Labor Costs

Of course, one of the main ways outsourcing cuts costs is through labor costs and employee salaries and benefits.

When you hire and manage employees in-house, not only do salaries tend to be higher, but you’re also responsible for benefits, bonuses, and other expenses related to maintaining, hiring, training and managing staff. For example, you’ll need to manage an in-house HR team, as well as managers, QA agents, team leads and so on—and of course, all of the salaries and labor costs associated with those roles as well. When outsourcing, you can pay a simple per-agent hourly rate that both simplifies and reduces labor costs for your business.

Outsourcing also allows you to move your call center operations to a lower-cost location through nearshoring or offshoring. Doing so enables you to pay competitive salaries while also reducing your business costs by hiring in areas where the cost of living is lower. What’s more—outsourcing also makes it easier to scale up and back as needed, allowing you to optimize staffing levels to accurately match your call volume and demand throughout the year.

When managing a team in-house, hiring new team members is a significant expenditure and time commitment, making scaling up difficult. However, the reverse is also true—scaling back on team members is also a big decision that’s hard to reverse, so many companies with in-house teams end up paying for staff they don’t always need. With outsourced operations, you can scale up and back accordingly so you always have an effective—and cost-efficient—team size. 

Enhancing Operational Efficiency

Team size isn’t the only thing made more efficient by outsourcing—outsourcing can also improve operational efficiency through streamlined processes, workflows, automation and more. For example, consider that outsourcing can provide resources to:

Streamline call handling processes. Outsourcing teams are experts in customer service and 100% focused on call center operations. As a result, they generally have highly optimized processes and workflows they’ll bring to your company that will make agents more efficient and effective—maximizing your investment and results.

Improve call routing and queue management. Whether through optimized workflows, advanced technology or other resources, outsourced call centers can help you improve call routing and management to provide better service and make processes more efficient. 

Leverage technology for automation. Modern call centers know how to leverage technology to make processes efficient and effective, often through automation and AI solutions. This can look like automating data collection or analytics, call logging, audience feedback, and other repetitive processes.

Creating additional self-service options. Self-service is much more efficient than requiring human agents to manage every interaction. After all, a self-service solution can serve a near-infinite number of customers at once, speeding up processes and reducing time to service for customers.

All of this creates fewer agents needed as well as more productive and satisfied agents, reducing turnover, improving efficiency and saving on costs from multiple fronts.

Minimizing Infrastructure and Equipment Costs

Outsourcing also saves businesses significantly on infrastructure and equipment costs. When you’re managing your call center internally, you need to purchase and manage:

• telephony systems
• VoIP softphone, IVR systems and auto-dialers
• call recording and QA software
• physical hardware and servers
• CRM databases
• office / storage space
• workforce management software
• physical equipment like laptops and headsets
• and more!
  
  

An outsourced call center allows you to access best-in-class technology and already-existing infrastructure and equipment without paying for licensing, setup, maintenance and so on. You’ll also be able to bypass expensive setup fees and share resources with an already-established call center—allowing quicker startup, scaling and significantly reduced overhead costs.

In addition, many outsourced call centers use cloud-based contact center solutions, which further reduces costs significantly by using pay-as-you-go models that allow you to pay for only the features, seats and licenses you’re actively using. Cloud-based solutions also require less maintenance and upgrades, increasing savings that are then passed along to you through the call center.

Improving Customer Satisfaction and Retention

Working with a good outsourced call center also improves customer satisfaction and retention.

“But wait,” you may be thinking. “That’s great, but how does that save me money?”

Actually, in lots of ways. Better customer satisfaction and retention:

• reduces customer churn, thereby creating more valuable customers
• reduces customer acquisition costs, by creating more loyal and valuable customers that stick with your brand longer and spend more over time
• improves customer lifetime value through enhanced satisfaction and loyalty
• increases brand loyalty, which in turn improves positive word-of-mouth, further reducing acquisition costs and making your marketing more effective
• increases average customer spend, as satisfied, loyal customers spend more and purchase more frequently