Outsourcing is a process to leverage another organization or a BPO company to manage your customer service operations or your call center.

The call center business has seen rapid growth because more and more companies are leveraging their customer care division to other companies. The well-known company’s too have outsourced some or all the parts of their call center operations. It is because the cost of operating the customer service team by the company is much higher than to outsource it. The question that now needs answering is whether the outsource customer service business does work to the advantage of the business.

The companies mostly outsource their call center operations to an overseas company to reduce cost. However, this has some pros and cons.

Outsource the call center operations

The outsource customer service offshoring method is to obtain a service provider externally to manage the call center for you. The external provider will take care of the training and hiring of the agents. They will be responsible for maintaining the software to run the call center, and they will also be capable of preserving and managing the infrastructure. The call center company will manage the day to day work of the primary business.

Many companies outsource just a segment of their call centers process like marketing, sales, or market research. Other companies may outsource their call center operations completely. Once the deal is signed, and the company hands over its call center operations to another overseas company, then it hands over the complete responsibility to the BPO Company.

Disadvantages of outsourcing the call center operations

There are many pros of outsourcing the call center operations; there are some challenges that the primary company has to deal with.

·       The decrease in customer satisfaction

The call center business that gets outsourced ends up in a reduction in service quality, and this, in turn, leads to customer dissatisfaction. There could be many reasons for the same.

·       Cultural issues

Most of the call centers processes have been outsourcing and this leads to cultural and linguistic barriers. It is because of the lack of cultural knowledge. It leads to problems for the clients to understand the call center agents because of the language fluency and the accent. It makes it difficult for the client to understand what the call center agent says, and this leads to a decrease in customer satisfaction.

·       The decrease in control over the business functions

When the company outsources its call center operations, then the external service provider takes the vital business function in its hands. It lets the primary company lose hold of the business operations related to its call center operations. It makes the primary company lose control of quality assurance. It also cannot put in policies to increase the satisfaction of its customers because the BPO Company manages the entire policy.

·       Lack of knowledge for the company

The call center agents who have taken over the outsourced work do not have much experience about the primary company. They are not aware of the original culture of the mother company, and they do not know about the values and the practices of the company. Also, the agents may not have dedication towards the company, and they may not be able to provide the level of service as per the company standards.